Quebec man who threatened Trudeau, Legault online sentenced to 20 months in jail
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Billy Eichner, right, and Luke Macfarlane in a scene from "Bros." (Universal Pictures via AP)
"I'm not the person to write a rom-com," says Billy Eichner as the acerbic Bobby in “Bros,” the first major studio LGBTQ2S+ rom-com to play exclusively in theatres.
It’s a meta line in a movie that is both subversive and cliched. Star, co-writer and producer Eichner has melded frank sexuality with rom-com conventions to create a funny, sincere movie that kicks the celluloid closet door wide open.
Eichner, the former host of the guerilla-style talk show “Billy on the Street,” plays Bobby, a gay, commitment-adverse podcaster. “I’m like whatever happened to Evan Hanson,” he says.
For Bobby, random and anonymous Grindr hook-ups are a way of life until he spots handsome Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) in a club. At first, they appear to be polar opposites. “I don’t think he’s my type,” says Bobby. “He’s like a gay Tom Brady.”
But soon, their mutual fear of commitment brings in the glue that bonds them. “Maybe we can be emotionally unavailable together,” Bobby says.
The confirmed bachelor who meets his partner is a standard rom-com set-up. “My whole life, I prided myself on being self-reliant,” says Bobby. “But this f***** has gotten into my head.”
But this story about the difficulty of dating is given a facelift by a meta joke about writing a gay rom-com and the addition of steroids, thruples, a hat shaped like the Stonewall Inn and extensive use of Grindr.
“Bros” has echoes of “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail” throughout. It’s a pure rom-com from the nice apartments, New York City backdrop and the trademark Drew Barrymore misunderstanding that leads to a temporary break-up. You know where the story is going, but rom-coms are not about the destination, they’re about the journey and, “Bros” is a fun trip.
Eichner layers this story of self-acceptance and love-at-first-sight with laugh-out-loud jokes, an unexpectedly caustic cameo from Debra Messing, and heartfelt observational humour. It embraces the innate vulnerability and complexity of Aaron and Bobby’s exploration of masculinity and queerness without forgetting the funny.
But just as it makes you laugh, Eichner subverts the form with some more introspective moments. As a gay man with aspirations to chronicle his community, Bobby has a long, earnest monologue about waiting for the world to catch up with him.
“Bros” is a queer rom-com; a subversive, new, crowd-pleasing take on a Hollywood staple.
Scene from 'The Greatest Beer Run Ever' (Courtesy of TIFF)
Heartwarming is not a word often used to describe movies based on the Vietnam War, but “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” is no “The Deer Hunter,” “Platoon” or “Apocalypse Now.” It’s an occasionally glib, often naive movie that studies the timely issue of the gap between the press and the public, and the horrors of war.
“Green Book” director Peter Farrelly presents another hard-to-believe-it’s-true story, set during the height of the Vietnam War in 1967.
Zac Efron plays an aimless, but well-meaning merchant marine named John "Chickie" Donohue, a playful patriot who accepts a dare from the guys at his local N.Y.C. bar to track down his army buddies in Vietnam and deliver good old American beer to them as a thanks for their service.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he says. "But I’m going to show them that this country is still behind them.”
With a duffle bag full of Pabst Blue Ribbon, he makes his way into the heart of the conflict, hanging out with hard-nosed war correspondents like Arthur Coates (Russell Crowe), and getting in over his head, but nonetheless, handing out “sudsy 'thank you' cards” to soldiers on the frontlines.
At the heart of the film is Efron in his meatiest role in years. His eager performance matches the tone of the film. He’s a charismatic actor who plays up Chickie’s good-natured, guileless side. Even as the weight of the war bears down on him, he’s still tossing chilly PBRs to his buds with a grin. He’s fine, but his trip to Vietnam feels more like a goofy—but dangerous— adventure and not a serious journey of self-discovery. He does find his way to a new understanding of the world, but the movie meanders along the way to revealing his enlightenment.
“The Greatest Beer Run Ever” is a Vietnam War movie with a twist. A story of loyalty and friendship, it comes with good intentions, even if it leans into its crowd-pleasing aspects a little too heavily.
This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Sosie Bacon, left, and and Kyle Gallner in a scene from "Smile." (Walter Thomson/Paramount Pictures via AP)
We’ve all heard it. “You should smile more.” But what if there is nothing to smile about?
Sosie Bacon, daughter of actors Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, stars as Rose Cotter, an emergency room psychiatric doctor. A traumatic incident from her past is brought to the fore when she meets a patient named Laura (Caitlin Stasey). In distress after witnessing someone take their own life, the woman is convinced she is being tormented by an entity who “wears people’s faces like masks.”
“It’s smiling at me,” she says. “But not a friendly smile. It’s the worst smile I’ve ever seen in my life.”
As if that wasn’t unnerving enough, the grinning, shape-shifting spirit utters death threats that only the frantic Laura can hear.
Rose, who, as a child, saw her mother die by suicide, has empathy for Laura, but the young woman’s torment is too much to bear and she kills herself in front of her doctor. Shaken to the core, Rose takes a week off work, but is soon overwhelmed by the same kind of visions that besieged Laura. “I’m really afraid something bad is going to happen,” she says. Is it PTSD from trauma or has the Laura’s evil been transmitted into Rose’s psyche?
As her relationships with her sister (Gillian Zinser) and fiancée (Jessie T. Usher) crumble, she turns to Joel (Kyle Gallner), an ex, who happens to be a police officer, for help, but time is running out.
“How long between each victim’s death?” Rose asks Joel. “None of them lasted longer than a week,” he replies. “Today’s my fourth day,” she says ominously.
“Smile” has an intriguing premise—although the idea of a transmittable evil has been done before, and better, in movies like “It Follows”—an anxiety inducing soundtrack and some unsettling imagery, but as far as real scares go, they’re as rare as smiles in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.
Director Parker Finn, whose short film “Laura Hasn't Slept” was the basis for this movie, creates a palpable atmosphere of dread, and knows his way around a jump scare, but is unable to hold that tension all the way through the movie’s too-long running time. At 115 minutes, “Smile” stretches the already thin premise to its breaking point. What could have been a tight 90-minute thriller, with compact thrills, outstays its welcome with a slowly paced finale that doesn’t deliver anything new.
There are some nicely staged scenes in “Smile.” A child’s birthday party scene brings the creep factor and the wide smiles of the infected will make you think twice the next time someone flashes a grin your way on the street, but the nitty gritty -- the examination of trauma as a source of evil -- does not turn that frown upside down.
This image released by Disney shows, from left, Kathy Najimy as Mary Sanderson, Bette Midler as Winifred Sanderson, and Sarah Jessica Parker as Sarah Sanderson in "Hocus Pocus 2." (Matt Kennedy/Disney via AP)
"Lock up your children," says Winifred in “Hocus Pocus 2.” “Yes Salem. We are back!"
Twenty-nine years ago, the original “Hocus Pocus,” a comedic fantasy about the Sanderson sisters, a trio of witches played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, was a middling hit in theatres, and labelled “dreadful” by Gene Siskel.
But despite critical lashings and a current score of 39 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, over the years, the Sanderson sisters have become Halloween favourites, so much so, that the town of Salem, Massachusetts threw a celebration in honour of the film's 25th anniversary.
Disney+ gives fans another wave of the wand with “Hocus Pocus 2,” a sequel that gives new life to the Sanderson sisters.
The new film begins with a flashback to hundreds of years ago in Salem. The Sanderson sisters, played as teens by Taylor Paige, Nina Kitchen and Juju Journey Brener, become outcasts, sowing the seeds of the rage that will consume them for hundreds of years.
Cut to present day. Salem teens Becca (Whitney Peak), Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) are best friends, who hang out at the local magic shop run by Gilbert (Sam Richardson). With the help of a special black flame candle, supplied by Gilbert, the teen trio resurrect the sister witches, just as Max (Omri Katz), Allison (Vinessa Shaw), and Dani (Thora Birch) did decades before in the original film.
But Salem is a much different place since the sisters last visited. In the midst of a Halloween celebration, the sisters don’t inspire fear as much as admiration. So many revellers are dressed as the Sandersons, that the city hosts a look-alike contest.
But it’s not all fun and games. The sisters are looking to gather up some tasty teen life-forces and get vengeance for the mistreatment they suffered years before. It’s up to the high schoolers to stop them.
Part horror comedy, part musical (the sisters don’t understand modern day traditions, but somehow are able to belt out Blonde’s “One Way or Another” at the drop of a witch’s hat), and all nostalgia. The spectre of the 1993 flick haunts the new film as it pays homage to the original to the point where the new stars—Peak, Buckingham and Escobedo—get lost in the shuffle once the original sisters show up.
As fans of the first movie might expect, Midler, Najimy and Parker chew the scenery, offering up larger-than-life performances, heavy on the whimsy. They are campy—particularly when singing a revamp of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back,” reworked as “The Witch Is Back”—and often funny in an outrageous, but family-friendly way.
“Hocus Pocus 2” is fan service. It expands the Sanderson sister’s story, providing an origin story (probably the best part of the movie) and gives Parker and Najimy more to do than the original. Mix in some modern sensibility about accepting people’s differences and you have an hour and 40 minutes of forgettable fun. It’s not nearly as bewitching as the 1993 film, but may cast a spell over longtime fans.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
The erstwhile group of senators and MPs studying the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act over the "Freedom Convoy" was supposed to present its findings in December. December of 2022, that is.
The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
A delegation of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was in Cairo on Saturday as Egyptian state media reported "noticeable progress" in ongoing cease-fire talks with Israel while an Israeli official downplayed the prospects for a full end to the war.
Saing Chhoeun was locked out of his Charlotte, N.C., home on Monday as law enforcement with high-powered rifles descended into his yard and garage, using a car as a shield as they were met with a shower of gunfire from the direction of his neighbor's house.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.