ARTS & CULTURE
Finding safety and confidence in childhood art
The first time I ever saw Howl’s Moving Castle, I was entranced. I must have been around 10 or 11, on a manic Studio Ghibli marathon in the middle of the night. I fell in love with the vivid colours and warm characters. I fell in love with this entire fantasy world filled with witches and portals ...
Like a pop song
Reflections on Madonna’s Like a Prayer 30 years later
Review: Everybody Knows
The theme of broken family runs deep through Asghar Farhadi’s movies, and Everybody Knows, his latest, carries on this motif in a grand, if not always plausible, way. This is a movie that begins with much happiness and celebration and ends in speculation and disbelief. That could make for a ...
Towards youth and towards ourselves
A play on radical hope proves its resounding message
Basma Alsharif at the MOCA
Mapping narratives and journeys into the collective subconscious
Donkey Kong says trans rights!
What a Twitch stream can teach us about activism
Kurt Marshall and the ethics of masturbating to the pre-tragic
Content warning: HIV/AIDS, pornography, sex, unprotected sex James Allen Rideout Jr. died on October 10, 1988 from kidney failure due to substance abuse and AIDS. He was 22. Before he died, he starred in four very successful gay porn films under the name Kurt Marshall. *** My relationship with Marshall’s filmography begins down a ...
Valentine’s Day (2010): finding beauty and brilliance in a so-called “bad” movie
It’s my favourite movie and I’m not ashamed
Review: Remind Me Tomorrow by Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten’s latest album begins with the retelling of a story. Accompanied by a simple keyboard, the first track sets up the theme for the rest of the tracks on the album, with Van Etten emotionally opening up to the audience. The result is a compilation of ten tracks of various sonic sounds, from dreamy synths to fuzzy guitars, all bound by the thread ...
Feminine singular
On the women in Frances Ha, Girlfriends, and Broadcast News