If you weren’t living in Toronto in 1989, it is hard to accurately convey to you the true, bat-shit crazy magnificence of the Skydome’s opening ceremony. The newly-built, multi-purpose stadium was a massively big deal at the time. It was the first new stadium to open in the city in decades. It had that singular cutting-edge, retractible-roof technology, which was the only one of its kind worldwide. It cost an astounding $978 million (in 2016 dollars), paid for via an …
Author: emmanently
→One could say I'm an unapologetic film, TV, music & lit nerd...but should one? 9-to-5-wise, I'm a senior media producer/film journalist .
As the Toronto International Film Fest wraps up yet another fortnight of film, it’s time to take a look back at some of the memorable musical tracks from this year’s slate of festival flicks. From the purposefully jarring (the upbeat harmonies of The Beach Boys in the atmospheric Marrowbone and cheery ABBA clashing with the chaos of Three Billboards) to the sublimely perfect (“Love My Way” in Call Me By Your Name‘s already classic dance scene and “I Know Places” soothing nerves over In the Fade‘s …
Another day watching Trump’s America unfold. A night and day spent watching white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK gather in the thousands to rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a location chosen by the alt-right because the city dared to condemn its Confederate roots. They came from all over the US and marched with torches–confidently yelling slurs and chants filled with vitriol, shouting about taking back THEIR America and getting what they’re entitled to. Echoing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” rhetoric again …
This past February I said goodbye to one of my very favourite people on the planet, my 92-year-old Grandma Toni. The world (my world) got just a little bit darker that day–a little less sassy and a lot less fun. To give you an idea of just who my grandmother was – let me tell you a short story about her before we go any further. Toni had been battling pancreatic cancer for over a year when she passed away. …
Given how news from France’s pre-eminent film festival comes at interested on-lookers both fast and furious over the Mediterranean fortnight, it may not be all that surprising that I missed out on the initial hubbub that bubbled out of a Cannes Mad Max: Fury Road Q&A involving the Toronto Star’s own movie critic, Peter Howell. Essentially Howell posed the following question to the film’s titular male star, Tom Hardy: “I’ll preface my remarks by saying that I have five sisters, a wife, a daughter, …
To put it succinctly: I’m enraged by the Sex-Ed “controversy” and protests happening at home in Toronto right now. Education should be a right and not a privilege worldwide, but it is not. Ontario is lucky to have the amazing PUBLIC school system it does. Parents boycotting school in Ontario over sex-ed should be ashamed of themselves. Not only are most of those same parents ill- or mis-informed about what the curriculum actually contains, but they are actively preventing their …
Picture it: Toronto’s O’Keefe Centre (now the Sony Centre), early March 1988. A seven year-old girl takes a seat near the front of the theatre’s balcony section, trying to figure out why she had to get all dressed up to sit for hours of this Shakespeare stuff instead of being allowed to stay at home and play. But then that little girl gets a glimpse of the night’s playbill. Wait…is that Captain Von Trapp on the cover? He’s in this thing? This night is …
Most people, if they’re lucky, fall in love at least once in their lifetime. I, for better or worse, have fallen head over heels for a city. It was surely love at first sight but I played hard to get, waiting nearly 25 years after our first meeting to move in and commit. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t keenly feel our quarter-century separation. How did I cope? With a crap load of distracting television, film and music, that’s how. But I went …
…not, strictly speaking, me. But it’s all fine. I’ve been in London now for just over a week and I’m feeling as at home as I’ve ever felt. It’s the natural fit I’d assumed it would be – at least it is so far. The weather has been rainy but hovering around the 10 degree mark, so absolutely no complaints from this ex-pat girl. The week kicked off (very, very early in the morning) with watching Hollywood’s biggest night…the 87th …
Day Three of the Best Trip Ever ™ dawned bright but chilly. We were not deterred as we made our way to South Kensington for a spot of shopping followed by a bit of history. The first stop of our Friday fun-day had my mother’s eyes alight with joy…but who could blame her, with the joy that is Sophie Conran’s flagship store, The Conran Shop. A brief walk from the Tube station, the store was hard to miss with its seasonally-bright …