SCENE | A Decade of 'East Van Panto' – Reversing 'The Little Mermaid'

"Human beings are so emotionally manipulative!"

Mark Chavez / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—(November 18, 2022) East Van Panto, Theatre Replacement's beloved annual holiday tradition presented by The Cultch returns to the York Theatre to celebrate its tenth anniversary by going under the sea with a reimagined contemporary retelling of the classic mer-tale, The Little Mermaid. Gone is the underwhelming and patriarchal romance about an uncomfortably attractive teen princess literally giving up her voice for some bland random dude she met once—replaced here with a very charming pop musical parody about environmentalism, climate change, and unconventional love.

CINEMA | 'Glass Onion' Disrupts A 'Knives Out' Mystery x WFF 2022

"I'm very bad at dumb things."

Whistler Film Festival

The Knives Out duo, star Daniel Craig and writer/director Rian Johnson, return for another Benoit Blanc-led murder mystery comedy in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. They further elevate the Agatha Christie-esque whodunit genre with tons of stylish flair set against a tropical Greek private island off the Mediterranean coast as its gorgeous backdrop for some truly comically thrilling detective antics.

CINEMA | Spielberg's Home Movies – 'The Fabelmans' x TIFF 2022

"Movies are dreams that you never forget."

Toronto International Film Festival

Steven Spielberg has finally made a film directly about his dysfunctional family, growing up (sans aliens this time), and the power of cinema. Essentially a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale about his own childhood in New Jersey, Arizona, and later Northern California, The Fabelmans memorializes his Jewish parents raising a film-loving brat while struggling with their own desires as adults.

CINEMA | Ralph Fiennes Eats the Rich – 'The Menu' x TIFF 2022

"We're eating the ocean!"

Toronto International Film Festival

The Menu, helmed by veteran television director Mark Mylod, is a delightfully deranged satirical feast skewering everything from the arrogant ultra-rich to the snobbery of fine dining culture. Starring as a simultaneously controlled yet unhinged celebrity chef on a secluded private island, Ralph Fiennes relishes being both absolutely terrifying and maniacally hilarious in this bloody culinary horror-comedy deconstructing the consumption of art by an elitist upper class.

CABLE | 'Documentary Now!' Climbs High – 'Soldier of Illusion'

Broadway Video

Billed as "season fifty-three" of an acclaimed but highly fictional documentary anthology series, hosted by the very real Helen Mirren, also called Documentary Now!, the IFC comedy's actual fourth season of half-hour mockumentaries returns to its extreme sense of niche specificity with another enjoyable selection of dryly comedic episodes. Its two-part premiere, "Soldier of Illusion", goes for it in tackling Werner Herzog's venture into the jungle from the 1982 epic Fitzcarraldo whose making-of was seminally documented in Burden of Dreams.

CINEMA | 'Wakanda Forever' Young – Back to 'Black Panther'

"Only the most broken people can be great leaders."

Marvel Studios

Director Ryan Coogler returns to the titular fictional African kingdom from Black Panther after the tragic passing of its original star Chadwick Boseman from colon cancer in 2020. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever grieves and mourns its protector T'Challa and the actor who portrayed him just as a secret threat emerges from beneath the sea in another thrilling but messy blockbuster superhero sequel action spectacle.

SCREEN | Andrea Bang Wanders – 'Stay the Night' x VAFF 2022

"Just say yes to something for once."

Vancouver Asian Film Festival

Burnaby native and Kim's Convenience actress Andrea Bang stars in the Canadian romantic dramedy Stay the Night from writer/director Renuka Jeyapalan. Set and shot on the streets of Toronto, the film often feels like a contemporary riff on Richard Linklater's Before trilogy for our current age of dating apps and hookup culture.

KAFFE | Honolulu Coffee x Olympic Village x False Creek

Olympic Village—(October 13, 2022) Honolulu Coffee recently opened a brand new twenty-five-seat location in the False Creek area to complement its two other Hawaiian-style cafés.

VIFF 2022 | Renting 'I Like Movies' – Video Store Nostalgia

"I hate movies!"

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2022—Set in 2003 during the peak of home video culture, first-time feature filmmaker Chandler Levack very much captures what it's like to grow up as a lonely teenage cinephile in an Ontario suburb far away from greater film culture. I Like Movies feels almost way too real in its detailed depiction of a cinematic obsession with filmmaking when you have very little life experience yourself.