Joe Weider and his younger sibling, Ben, were visionaries, the founders of the modern fitness movement. Drawing a connection between exercise, nutrition and good health, the Montreal-born Jewish brothers founded a business empire that sells gym equipment and nutritional supplements and publishes body building magazines. George Gallo’s movie, Bigger, which opens in Canada on October […]
Category: Film
The security barrier that seals off Israel almost hermetically from the West Bank is a source of immense angst and controversy. To most Israelis, it’s a “separation fence” that keeps Palestinian terrorists at bay and thereby saves lives. To the Palestinians, it’s a “racial segregation wall” that restricts their movements, cuts them off from their […]
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Free Solo: Conquering El Capitan
To seasoned rock climbers, El Capitan, a massive granite formation in California’s Yosemite National Park, is the ultimate challenge. More than 3,000 feet in height, this iconic monolith has been conquered by skillful enthusiasts using rope and protective equipment, but until Alex Honnold came along, no one had ever climbed it in free solo style. […]
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Fahrenheit 11/9
Long before he was elected president of the United States, Donald Trump said he hoped that Michael Moore, the iconoclastic documentarian, would never make a movie about him. Famous last words. Presumably, Trump understood that Moore would not exactly treat him with kid gloves. He was absolutely right. In his latest documentary, Fahrenheit 11/9, which […]
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A Biopic About Gilda Radner
The American comedian Gilda Radner died prematurely in 1989 at 42 when she succumbed to cancer. What a loss it was to the entertainment industry. She had so much more to contribute. Lisa D’Apolito’s biopic, Gilda, which opens in Toronto on September 21 at the Hot Docs Bloor Cinema, brings her back for an fleeting […]
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Crazy Rich Asians
Jon Chu’s romantic comedy/satire, Crazy Rich Asians, opens up new cultural horizons for moviegoers. It’s the first mainstream Hollywood film since The Joy Luck Club 25 years ago to feature an all-Asian cast, and that’s definitely something of a breakthrough. White British actors appear in the first scene, a set piece in racism and revenge, but […]
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The Last Suit
Pablo Solarz’s absorbing multilingual feature film, The Last Suit, is coming to Toronto’s Cineplex Empress Walk Cinemas on August 17 for a one-week engagement and to Quebec on August 24. Unfolding in Spanish, German, Polish and Yiddish, this feel-good movie is set in five countries — Argentina, Spain, France, Germany and Poland. Abraham Burszstein (Miguel Angel Sola), […]
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The Israeli Films Of Nadav Lapid
The Israeli movie director Nadav Lapid will be in the spotlight when the Toronto International Film Festival’s Cinematheque presents two of his feature films, Policeman and The Kindergarten Teacher, and a selection of his short films, on August 16, 17 and 18 respectively at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I sampled his work by watching Policeman (2011). […]
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Puzzle — A Mesmerizing Movie
Marc Turtletaub’s highly appealing debut film, Puzzle, which opens in Canada on August 10, bores into the personality of a devoted wife and empathetic mother who feels repressed and longs for self-fulfillment. Agnes (the Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald) shares a house in Bridgeport, Connecticut, with her husband, Louie (David Denman), the owner of an auto […]
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The Stranger: A Unique Film
The third movie directed by Orson Welles, The Stranger, is a melodrama about a Nazi who masquerades as a college professor in small-town America. Filmed in the autumn of 1945 and released in the summer of 1946, only a few years after the release of two of his finest films, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent […]