I like numbers, and I like comparing and contrasting different cultures, and last summer I discovered a website that posts the weekend box-office figures for both Canada in particular and North America in general. So, naturally, I began keeping tabs on this site and noting which films appeared to be more or less popular in Canada than they were in the States. I actually first started thinking about this around the time I read a news report to the effect... Read more

Political punditry aside, one of the reasons I like Mark Steyn so much is that he is one of the funnier and more entertaining columnists around, and, unusually for a right-wing kind of guy, his sense of humour is deeply influenced by his love of show tunes. P.J. O’Rourke may be up-to-date on the latest pop-culture fads, and Dennis Miller may love to flaunt his encyclopedic knowledge of every trivial thing under the sun, but Steyn has a uniquely passionate... Read more

I happen to have a soft spot for Bible movies, so I am glad to discover today that some of the better entries in ‘The Bible Collection’, a series of TV-movies produced between 1994 and 2002, will be coming out on DVD in a couple months. Because the series’ producers struck different production and distribution deals for different films in that series, part of the series is actually already on DVD — Trimark released a boxed set a few years... Read more

I was just reminded that a couple of good films that I caught at last year’s film festival are opening in Canada this coming Friday. Here are the rather informal blurbs — not reviews, as such — that I wrote about them at the time: Dear Frankie (UK, 105 min.) is a modest but charming film about a woman (Emily Mortimer) who hires a man to pose as the father of her 9.5-year-old son. The son, you see, has been... Read more

Just got home from Granville Chapel, where Ron Reed (of Pacific Theatre fame) did a mini-lecture on film. I happen to be doing a mini-lecture on film there myself in four weeks — Sunday April 17, 6pm, includes dinner, dessert, and a trivia game — so I was curious to see what Ron had to say, partly because Ron always has interesting things to say, but also because I wanted to make sure I didn’t repeat too much of what... Read more

The wife and I just finished watching the original 1979 version of The Amityville Horror, partly because I’m reviewing the remake in a couple of weeks. I had heard that both films claim to be based on true events, but I had no idea the original film was so full of Catholic elements — crucifixes, priests, a nun, the blessing of one’s house, etc.; I’m suddenly more interested in the remake than I expected to be, even if only to... Read more

You know how some films just grow on you? I saw The Barbarian Invasions (2003) at the Vancouver film festival two years ago, and didn’t get around to seeing it a second time until a few weeks ago — and I find it has occupied my thoughts quite a bit since then. This is partly because I was working on an article on the subject; and partly because I watched the film on a DVD double-bill with its predecessor The... Read more

Chattaway is not exactly a very common name, so it’s always fun to see it flit across a movie or TV screen every now and then. At school, I occasionally heard from sports buffs about a Chris Chataway who broke the 5,000 metre record back in 1954 — but my family was always notoriously bad at gym class, and anyway, he spells his name with only one “t”, so I always figured he didn’t count. I happen to be a... Read more

Jeff Overstreet has just posted an item on a couple of quotes he’s come across that remind him of the films he appreciates that prioritize images and sounds over “narrative”. His post, in turn, reminds me of one of my own pet peeves. I can be a very linear, very narrative-driven thinker — and I think it has a tendency to show up in my reviews, where I sometimes slip into synopsis mode — but I have long argued that... Read more

Two of my more recent film columns are now online. My review of Danny Boyle’s Millions for BC Christian News is here — alas, I didn’t have time or space to compare and contrast this film with Saint Ralph, but then, why take time out from discussing a vastly superior film in order to dwell on an inferior one? And my column on Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher for ChristianWeek is here, and also here. I... Read more