Exploring popularity, waste, and consumer culture Meet the Labubu. These ultra-trendy monster character keychains created by Kasing Lung are both cute and disturbing. As the hottest item on social media, these blind-box items have been spotted on the bags of Dua Lipa and Rihanna. However, since consumers never know which Labubu they will unbox, this […]
What’s the deal with Labubus? Read More »
Who gets a spot in the collective unconscious? /Content Warning: Discussions of racism and homophobia./ Thanks to a series of events involving a broken button maker and my coworker being late, I managed to score myself a free ticket to Vancouver’s outdoor Shakespeare festival, Bard on the Beach. As I settled into my seat for
What’s the deal with the romanticization of the 80s? Read More »
The illusion of subversion: how Hollywood packages “progressive” stories Recently, the new Superman film sparked significant discussion online about supposedly being an allegory for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Or maybe it was about Ukraine. Or Kashmir. Truthfully, it was hard to discern the film’s political messaging. Superman depicts a generic oppressed nation, without giving
Is the new superman movie really pro-Palestine? Read More »
The strange paradox of student apartments If you’ve ever lived in a student apartment, you already know the script: the shower that you can never quite get clean, the landlord who ghosts you once rent is paid, the mysterious smell that no amount of Febreze can fix. My place, the bottom half of a creaky
Why we love the rats in our walls Read More »
Nouvelle Vague is no masterpiece. But neither does it want to be. Nouvelle Vaguea film directed by Richard Linklater and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025 Issue 152 of the French film review, Les Cahiers du cinéma, was a tribute to the seminal French filmmaker Jean Cocteau, who passed in October
« Qu’est-ce que c’est dégueulasse? » Read More »
Or, the Roger’s experience of America’s making Train Dreams a film directed by Clint Bentley and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025 Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams—an adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same title—has the same sentimentality and prodigious lens flare as an Ozempic advertisement. It’s important to establish
Frankenstein a film directed by Guillermo del Toro and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025 In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Victor’s ambitions lead him astray. How ironic, then, that Guillermo del Toro’s lofty aspirations to vivify this classic novel end in disaster. With any literary adaptation, fans will naively point to
Vaulting ambition o’erleaps itself in del Toro’s Frankenstein Read More »
Egghead Republic is a multifaceted film about many things. Possibly, a bit too much. Egghead Republic a film written and directed by Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 4–14, 2025. Speculative art often has a way of being quite . . . lacklustre. The ground mandatory to
Sometimes spectacle isn’t quite spectacular Read More »
Lessons in Guilt from MacKinnon and Foucault Content Warnings: Mentions of Sexual Assault. Before I begin, I must confess to a handful of biases because to do otherwise would be irresponsible. I am a survivor of a sexual assault perpetrated by a young hockey-playing man from southwestern Ontario and am therefore anything but an unbiased
Is consent possible? Read More »
Reclaiming the culture of cowboyism and revolutionising buckaroos, cowpokes, and Canucks Everybody wants to be a cowboy. The culture of cowboys has become an overwhelmingly prominent trend in popular media over the past decade, with stereotypical western faux prints and cowboy boots dominating the masses. This upper-class phenomenon of ‘playing pretend’ tends to glamorise the
Me more cowboy than you! Read More »
