In 1998, 70-year-old Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser was sued by the giant agricultural Monsanto company for “patent infringement”. That battle provides the source material for Clark Johnson’s film, Percy vs Goliath. Schmeiser grew canola crops on his property near the town of Bruno. Apparently some genetically modified canola seeds blew onto his crops and Schmeiser…
A fun-filled, animated adventure, Migration focuses on a family of four wild ducks, also known as mallards. This is a delightful, humorous film, with much to commend it. The story is from Mike White (who wrote the screenplay) and Benjamin Renner (who directed the film, alongside Guylo Homsy). The father of this ducky brood is…
Martin Cruz Smith’s Russian detective Arkady Renko has been kicking around since 1981’s Gorky Park. Even in that book he was already a senior investigator. If Renko aged at the same rate as his reality that would make him pretty old by now. Luckily for readers, Renko follows the rules of most fictional detectives in…
Thought-provoking and confronting, Imperfect by Lee Kofman is the book I’ve been recommending to anyone who asks lately. Imperfect (clever cover design makes the title read I’m Perfect, sans apostrophe) skillfully weaves memoir with interviews in a compelling and heart-tugging way. The blurb reads: By the time she was eleven and living in the Soviet…
Alexander Payne doesn’t make movies all that regularly – only five full features between 2000 and 2020. But when he does, everyone takes notice. And while his previous film, Downsizing (2017) might have been a little underwhelming, there’s nothing disappointing about The Holdovers. Payne’s best-known film is probably Sideways (2004), and here he teams with…
Performances worth of Academy Award nominations highlight a politically complex drama reminiscent of All the President’s Men. Foremost among them are Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford, with Noni Hazlehurst also showing the way in a small but telling scene. Written and directed by James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man), who makes his directorial debut, Truth is…
Chimerica, is a three hour (plus interval) play of epic scale, written by Lucy Kirkwood, that premiered at the Almeida Theatre, in London, in 2013. The play is epic in length, epic in production values, epic in cast, and best of all, epic in ideas. On a virtually empty stage, with the action of a…
The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe is a moving and life-affirming documentary about courage, the triumph of the human spirit to overcome trauma, and the power of theatre and art to transform lives. Four refugees talk about their horrific experiences in war torn countries in Africa – tales of rape, kidnap and violence. We get…
Director Perry Lang offers a polished but polarizing work in An Interview with God. This Bible-bashing drama promised much, but ultimately delivered little. Covering the war in Afghanistan provided journalist Paul Asher (Brendon Thwaites) with some of the best stories of his young career. But that endeavor ended up costing him so much more than he…
It may have been decades since its last outing, but we’ve never forgotten one of our favourites, Unsolved Mysteries. Popular in the late night market with those who liked to combine their conspiracy theorist TV viewing with their interest in true crime stories, Unsolved Mysteries was one of those fascinating but creepy TV shows that…
