REEL | Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd End Their 'Friendship'

"There's a new Marvel out that's supposed to be nuts!"

A24 / VVS Films

First-time feature filmmaker Andrew DeYoung directs comedian Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd in the blisteringly funny, anti-buddy tragicomedy, Friendship. A nightmarish combination of an extended version of Robinson's very funny sketch comedy show, I Think You Should Leave, and the adult male friendship premise of Rudd's I Love You, Man, the darkly absurdist bromance film turns sour for a sidesplitting experience that's filmed deadly seriously like a serious crime thriller.

REEL | Accomplishing 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning'

"This is where you leave me."

Paramount Pictures / Skydance

Our IMF team of star/producer Tom Cruise and now four-time co-writer/director Christopher McQuarrie reteam for the retitled and reworked second half of the originally-planned two-part Dead Reckoning films and eighth, supposedly last entry in the current iteration of the TV-to-film franchise. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning takes a Spectre-type approach but with better stunts to retcon the mythology of all the previous seven movies across three decades in a more cohesive but also overly complicated finale. It pays off the stubborn competence of Ethan Hunt and his inability to not save the world despite being the one putting it in such grave danger in the first place.

REEL | Top 10 Films of the 21st Century So Far

"She turns and walks away."

Janus Films / Block 2 Pictures

1) In the Mood for Love ¹ (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

2) Mulholland Drive (dir. David Lynch, 2001)

3) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry, 2004)

4) Ghost World (dir. Terry Zwigoff, 2001)

5) The Social Network (dir. David Fincher, 2010)

FEAST | Global Flavours x Bar Asra x South Granville

"We want to celebrate the connection between cultures, ingredients, and people."

Tokyo Silk (sake, Calpico, pomegranate, and vodka) + Nigata Paper Plane (bourbon, spritz, grappa, and lemon)

South Granville—(May 9, 2025) Bar Asra, the brand new cocktail bar and restaurant, comes from seasoned Sirka chefs Kanwardeep Ahluwalia and Baldeep Singh (also co-owners) and occupies the original hundred-year-old location of the legendary Vij's and later its sister restaurant Rangoli.

GENRE | Non-Stop Action – Josh Hartnett Boards 'Fight or Flight'

"I guess this is my last shot at redemption. "

Vertical Entertainment / Asbury Park Pictures

A blonde-haired Josh Hartnett stars as a disgraced former Secret Service operative blacklisted and exiled to Thailand in director James Madigan's "John Wick on a plane" style (same producers) non-stop action-comedy, Fight or Flight, about a commercial airplane possibly full of unknown hired mercenary killers fighting each other to eliminate the same mystery high-value target.

SCREEN | Hiring A Chinese 'Mistress Dispeller' x DOXA 2025

"When a fish takes the bait, your heart will beat with the fish."

DOXA Documentary Film Festival

Director Elizabeth Lo documents the eponymous Chinese phenomenon of wives hiring professionals to save their crumbling marriages through one particular middle-aged couple in Mistress Dispeller. How she follows the raw, unfiltered emotions, feelings, and motivations of these strangers is nothing short of fascinating.

SCENE | A Historic Royal Visit – Arts Club Cares for 'Casey and Diana'

"This is like the homosexual version of the Make-A-Wish Foundation!"

Casey House / October 25, 1991

South Granville—Arts Club Theatre Company stages North Vancouver playwright Nick Green's acclaimed, fictionized AIDS crisis dramedy, Casey and Diana, inspired by the late Princess Diana's historic 1991 Toronto visit to Casey House, Canada's first freestanding hospice caring for people (primarily gay men at the time) dying from the HIV/AIDS virus. A real tearjerker of a stage play that premiered at the 2023 Stratford Festival, it's a powerful tale that lives up to the actual impact the event had, destigmatizing the epidemic and humanizing those afflicted.

SCREEN | Catching the Real 'Predators' x DOXA 2025

"I see To Catch a Predator as trying to make a public service entertaining."

DOXA Documentary Film Festival

Director David Osit, a survivor of child sexual abuse by and adult himself, investigates the lasting impact of the hit 2004 Dateline NBC news magazine program To Catch a Predator, famously hosted by journalist Chris Hansen. His documentary, aptly named Predators, revisits the television phenomenon that turned true crime into popular entertainment as it lured otherwise mild-mannered potential sex offenders with no previous criminal records into a trap where they were confronted and arrested on camera.

REEL | Marvel Redeems the 'Thunderbolts*' – Our Saddest Avengers

"Righteousness without power is just an opinion!"

Marvel Studios

Marvel reforms and redeems their own lesser misfit roster of anti-heroes (or past villains) in their off-brand Avengers-style team-up, Thunderbolts* (note the asterisk). Beef producer/director Jake Schreier helms the latest refreshingly straightforward adventure that tries hard and mostly succeeds in recapturing the MCU's original flavour of unlikely superhero fun, not too dissimilar from Guardians of the Galaxy or Suicide Squad.