The Toronto film community lost one of its own yesterday when Adam Lopez, founder of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, passed away at the age of 52. Lopez had been battling Stage IV cancer of the head and throat since 2021. Initially given only a year to live, Lopez defied all odds and went …
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As someone who is quite open to watching international cinema, I ended up rolling my eyes at the opening sentence of a Variety article announcing the US release of Watch the Skies, originally known as UFO Sweden: A foreign language action comedy is headed to U.S. movie theaters this spring, but audiences won’t have to …
Sean Baker‘s Palme d’Or-winner dramedy Anora won the 97th Oscars, taking home five statues for Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, Best Actress for Mikey Madison, and Best Picture. In his acceptance speech for Best Director, Sean Baker called for preserving the theatrical movie viewing experience. Movie theaters, especially independently owned theaters, are struggling, …
This Editorial Contains Some Spoilers for Emilia Pérez On October 30, 2024 I attended a morning press screening of Emilia Pérez in advance of its theatrical run at the TIFF Lightbox. A month or so earlier, the film was a runner-up for the TIFF People’s Choice Award. My first reaction upon exiting the theatre is …
The Blood in the Snow Film Festival just announced the line-up for their 2024 edition. This year’s festival will include 7 features, 1 short film anthology, and 5 short film programs. As I have previously seen three of the features at the 2024 Fantasia Film Festival, I will explain why I should consider seeing them …
It was somewhat quietly reported last June that the Cineplex Cinemas Queensway theatre in Etobicoke is being proposed for demolition for a condominium complex and park, to be built on the lot at Queensway and Islington, which already has a pair of condos under construction. Curiously, this news began to spread in the last month …
In some bad news that seemed inevitable, but still is quite sad, Toronto After Dark Festival Director Adam Lopez released a statement last night stating that due to forces beyond his control, the 2024 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival has been postponed until 2025. In addition, Lopez noted that he will be …
Back in January, it was first reported by TMZ that Mia Goth, director Ti West, and distributor A24 were all defendants in a lawsuit filed by a background actor on MaXXXine, alleging that Goth intentionally kicked him in the head while he was playing a corpse during a nighttime shoot. In the lead-up to the …
The 2024 edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is less than two weeks away. This morning, tickets went on sale for this year’s selection of films. As such, I thought I would list, in chronological order, ten of the films that I am most interested in seeing during the week that I will be …
One day after it looked like this would be the final weekend in operation for the Revue Cinema, the Revue Film Society headed by Grant Oyston received an injunction from the Ontario Superior Court preventing their landlord Daniel Mullin from evicting the society from the premises on Monday, July 1. The landlords are prevented from …
In January 2012, I wrote a blog post entitled Movie Theatres of My Life, listing the Toronto area cinemas I grew up attending, followed up a few months later by MORE Movie Theatres of My Life. The common ground of both those pieces is that many of those cinemas no longer exist, with one of …
The problems plaguing the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival are continuing. With the film festival’s financial challenges continuing, Hot Docs has announced a temporary hiatus of its year-round programming. The festival’s flagship venue, The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, still known affectionately to many under its former name of the Bloor Cinema, is scheduled …
The first full trailer has dropped for Wicked: Part One, marketed as just Wicked. The film is an adaptation of the 2003 Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, loosely based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which is in turn based …
If taken at face value, the opening weekend of the 2024 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival proceeded as it normally would. First-year president Marie Nelson would introduce the opening film Luther: Never Too Much by referencing her prom and a packed opening night party was held at the historic El Mocambo Tavern. However, there …
With the news of the mass exodus of ten programming team members still fresh on everyone’s might, and later updated to include news of the departure of Artistic director Hussain Currimbhoy, the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival announced its 2024. At the start of this morning’s Hot Docs 2024 Press Conference, the film festival’s …
Tomorrow morning the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is scheduled to announce the line-up for the 31st annual edition of the film festival to be held from April 25-May 5, 2024. Earlier this month, it was reported that the festival is still trying to recover financially post-pandemic and that there is a chance that …
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was the big winner at the 96th Academy Awards, winning 7 of its 13 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. The runner-up was Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, which won four Oscars. This includes a surprise Best Actress win …
A new Kickstarter campaign has launched for a new film reboot of the 1983 sword and sorcery epic Deathstalker. The film will be directed by Steven Kostanski (Manborg, The Void, PG – Psycho Goreman) and is set to star actor and stuntman Daniel Bernhardt (John Wick, The Matrix Reloaded). The film will also be Executive …
Film scholar David Bordwell has passed away at the age of 76 after a long struggle with a degenerative lung disease. The name would be familiar to anyone who has taken film school, as he was one of the key figures in film studies. Along with his wife and fellow University of Wisconsin-Madison film professor …
As a film franchise, Star Wars has been on hiatus since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. Several film projects went in and out of development in the years since, while Star Wars continued through various Disney+ series, such as The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka. In a project that …
Many media outlets rush to release their year-end lists at the end of a given year. In the cinema sphere, this often includes releasing films of the “Top Ten Best Films” or the more clickbaity “Top Ten Worst Films.” These lists have become ubiquitous, and many outlets rush to release them before the year is …
The line-up and schedule have been announced for the 2023 Toronto After Dark Film Festival. The 17th edition of the festival will be taking place from October 18-22 at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto. Over these five days, ten feature films and 29 shorts will be screened. Here are some of the highlights from the …
I consider myself to be a film critic in the loosest sense of the word. My reviews rarely get more than a few hundred views and except for what I get from advertising (not much) and Patreon supporters (not enough), I am not paid for giving my opinions on films. In light of SAG-AFTRA joining …
For the first time since 1980, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has voted to go on strike. SAG-AFTRA will be joining the striking members of the Writer’s Guild of America, who have been on strike since May 2. This marks the first time the two unions have …
In addition to being the primary writer, editor, and publisher of Sean Kelly on Movies, as the operator of a sole proprietorship, I am also the primary social media marketer. This is arguably the most important job of running a blog or website since it helps to ensure that people read whatever I write. As …
The Autobots join forces with the Maximals to save the planet Earth in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. In 1994 Brooklyn, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) resorts to carjacking to support his family, but the car he ends up breaking into turns out to be the Autobot Mirage (Pete Davidson), who is called into action by …
The first trailer has dropped for Asteroid City, the latest film by director Wes Anderson. Wes Anderson’s films have long since settled into a familiar formula, and stylistically Asteroid City looks reminiscent of Anderson’s output from the last decade, including Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The French Dispatch. The Asteroid City trailer features …
Daniels’ sci-fi action-comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once was the big winner at the 95th Academy Awards, winning 7 of its 11 nominated categories, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting Actress for Jamie Lee Curtis, Best Supporting Actor for …
This is a tough obituary post for me to write since it affects the rest of the Toronto film community and me quite personally. Suppose you have ever attended the Toronto International Film Festival or one of the dozens of other film and cultural events around Toronto. In that case, chances are that you have …
Thirteen years after the original, James Cameron is finally back with Avatar: The Way of Water. The full trailer for the film has been released ahead of the film’s release on December 16, 2022. Very little of the film’s actual story is revealed in the trailer other than showing a peak into the film’s underwater …
With the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in the cancellation of the 2020 edition and the relegation of the 2021 edition online, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival will return to the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto for a somewhat condensed 5-day edition running from October 19-23, 2022. The festival dropped its official line-up comprising 10 feature films …
After spending the 2020 and 2021 editions forced to cover the festival virtually, this year saw me return to Montreal to attend the Fantasia Film Festival for the first time since 2019. Other than I played it safe and wore masks to every screening, it honestly didn’t feel like I ever left. Without further ado, …
Source: Variety The 94th Academy Awards happened last night and Sian Heder’s CODA ended up being the big winner of the night, winning all three awards it was nominated for, including Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur, Best Adapted Screenplay for Heder, and Best Picture, the first time the award has been presented to a …
Source: Variety Revisiting a controversial plan from a few years ago, the Academy has made the announcement that there will be 8 categories that will not be presented during this year’s Oscars telecast. Instead, the awards will be presented during a ceremony prior to the telecast, clips of which will be edited into the broadcast. …
Director and producer Ivan Reitman has died at the age of 75. Reitman is best known as the director of many popular comedies in the 1970s and 1980s, including 1979’s Meatballs, 1981’s Stripes, and of course 1984’s Ghostbusters and its 1989 sequel. Ivan Reitman was arguably more prolific as a producer, with some of his …
Source: Variety (H/T Indiewire) For years, the Academy Awards have been accused of being out of touch with the tastes of mainstream moviegoers, with probably one of the most notable examples being a lack of a Best Picture nomination for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. In the latest example of Academy tastes versus popular opinion, …
Source: Oscars.org The nominations for the 94th Academy Awards were made this morning in a video announcement hosted by Leslie Jordan and Tracee Ellis Ross. Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog led the nominations with 12, which includes nods for Best Picture, Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch, Best Supporting Actor for both Jesse Plemons and …
Source: The Hollywood Reporter As is typical on the eve of the Academy Award nominations, the Razzie Awards released their nominations for the worst of the worst of 2021. Usually, I don’t like to give the Razzies the time of the day, since I think it’s in poor taste to publicly mock films as bad, …
I may have only seen the latest film earlier this week, but Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment have greenlit a sixth entry to the Scream franchise. Since its release on January 14, 2022, the new Scream, directed by Radio Silence’s Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, has earned a global gross of more than $106.7 million. The …
Welcome to the year 2022! In theory, this is supposed to be a big year for me, since I will be turning 40 in just a few months’ time. However, the year is really getting off on the wrong foot thanks to the seemingly never-ending COVID-19 pandemic, which is fast approaching its third year. Despite …
After having merely a taste last year, TIFF21 saw me returning to the in-person film festival experience for the first time since 2019. Despite continued concerns about COVID-19 and the Delta variant and few reported cases at festival screenings, I was ultimately satisfied with the safety measures put into place, which required proof of vaccination …
While Fantasia made a partial return to in-person screenings this year, I once again covered the festival virtually from home. I’m looking forward to a possible return to Montreal next year, but in the meantime, here is my wrap-up for the 2021 edition of Fantasia Top Ten Favourite Films All the Moons Mad God Ultrasound …