Soooooo apparently the queen of all queens Marion Cotillard was not predicted to win best actress for the best performance ever in La Vie en Rose so I was wondering as to who people were predicting. I watched this primarily to see Julie Christie’s performance and yeah it’s great. Is it as good Marion’s? Absolutely not. Not even close. Buuuuut Julie Christie was still excellent in this role giving us a performance with depth, passion, emotion and realism. Her portrayal of this condition reminded me of Julianne Moore’s in Still Alice getting us to step into her shoes as she slowly starts to forget a lot of memories and everyday things. The screenplay of this movie was shockingly great giving…

It seems to be an incredibly rare thing, to deliver a cinematic love story that actually feels authentic and genuine. Over the course of each year, week after week, films are released that are supposed to convey the emotional power of love starring two gorgeous individuals between the ages of 18 - 35. In these 94 minute shit storms, we see these quirky characters deliver a clunky, predictable script with various pop songs playing as they at some point during the narrative break up, only to find each other again at the end, probably in Times Square at night when it's snowing. If these films demonstrate true expectations for romance, it's no wonder why every god damn couple gets divorced.…

Sarah Polley: Super Bowl XLII MVP

This is a story about how Sarah Polley made me a better person while helping the New York Giants defeat the 18-0 New England Patriots on February 3, 2008 in Glendale, Arizona at Super Bowl XLII.

To begin, due to failing health, mainly Parkinson’s disease, my grandfather (who everyone, including myself called "The Mick") is forced to move into a nursing home in January 2007. My aunt and I move him in, I clean out his old apartment, get all his affairs in order, closing bank accounts, making sure Medicaid was covering certain expenses, it was the first time I truly felt like an adult doing adult shit.

I was still mentally immature, though.…

#9 of 12 films in my Adapted Screenplay Challenge

Marital relationships are rarely easy or straightforward. In the 1999 short story entitled "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Canadian Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, we get to know Professor Grant Anderson from the inside, sharing his thoughts about his wife Fiona. It's a history stretching over some 50 years, from the first time he met her as a bright young student to the day he committed her to Meadowlake, a home for the elderly suffering from various degrees of dementia.

During her convalescence, Fiona strikes up a friendship with a wheelchair-bound resident named Aubrey Barque. The two become close, maybe too close, but as Grant recalls his earlier affairs and…

All throughout high school it was required we take skill assessment tests online to appropriately categorize what our futures would look like, career-wise. It'd take the subjects we showed interest in, the personality traits we exhibited, and our grades into consideration; countless questions eventually churned out a list of about 20 careers in which we displayed promise.

When asked - because, of course, preteens love to pry - I would always tell my classmates that my number one option was a teacher, because it was on my list after all.

Truthfully, every year the same unfavourable career landed on the top of my recommendations: geriatric counsellor. I was so opposed, so grossed out, so far up my own snobbish ass…

Watched with a livestreamed Q&A with Sarah Polley, courtesy of TIFF.

Something about the fact that this film is shot so brightly makes it feel almost all the more stressful, but it results in creating a more beautiful picture throughout. But I think that given the subject matter, it also feels so much more poetic - even adds a more haunting aftereffect, which makes the tragedy at the center resonate all the more.

Being Sarah Polley's first feature as a writer-director, Away from Her exerts a tenderness behind her own storytelling too. On top of that, Julie Christie's performance is just so heartbreaking to watch, she makes you feel like you've known her for all her life - which makes…