Letter from the Editor: “I say we grow up, be adults, and die!” or TFS...
I’m going to come clean and admit that I’m one of those freaks you always hear about who actually had a great high school experience. Yes, it’s true. And it’s not because I was some uber-popular Queen...
View ArticleGrowing up gay in the ’90s with Gregg Araki
It’s kind of a weird thing to remember, but the first time I ever saw a Gregg Araki movie my mind was blown away. My friends and I weren’t “Breakfast Club” kind of teens, our lives weren’t directed by...
View ArticleInterview with Norm Wilner, programmer of Invented Worlds Free Flicks festival
Norm Wilner, a film writer for NOW Magazine since 2008, is the mastermind behind programming this year’s Free Flicks festival at Harbourfront. Following past Free Flicks festivals designed around a...
View ArticleReview: Despicable Me 2
With Gru (Steve Carell) now focused on his family, he’s moved away from being a villain and turned his attention to creating a line of jams. He’s contacted by Lucy (Kristen Wiig), a member of the...
View ArticleReview: The Lone Ranger
In the latest big-budget reimagining/origin story/whatever-it’s-called-now to come down the pipeline, John Reid (Armie Hammer) returns to his Texas hometown, fresh out of Ivy League law school,...
View ArticleGet your romance on: fun facts about TIFF in the Park 2013
One of the best things about summertime in Toronto is the annual outdoor celebration of cinema otherwise known as TIFF in the Park. Celebrating its fourth year as the outdoor film festival that no...
View ArticleSports movies every teen should see
I absolutely LOVE sports movies. There’s just something about them that just temporarily makes me forget about my doom and gloom nature. I was a sporto as a teen and watching these movies truly...
View ArticleInterview with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, directors of The Way, Way Back
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash are cheeky. Cheeky and clever are words best suited for the duo, who are following up their Academy Award-winning adapted screenplay for The Descendants with their directorial...
View ArticleReview: Museum Hours
Johann (Bobby Sommer), a guard at the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum in Vienna, befriends Anne (Mary Margaret O’Hara), a woman from Montreal who has come to the city after finding out her cousin is in a...
View ArticleReview: 20 Feet From Stardom
For music enthusiasts, 20 Feet From Stardom is a treat. Director Morgan Neville’s slick documentary explores the lives of several experienced back-up singers, musicians who are just as much attached to...
View ArticleScenes every teen movie needs
If you were making your own teen flick, are there any particular scenes that would be must-haves to make it work? I’ve noticed that many (most) teen films have similar scenes, but while some are...
View ArticleShoah: the most important film you’ll never see
It’s hard to know how a film like Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 epic Shoah could possibly find an audience in this day and age of two minute YouTube clips, cars morphing into robots and endless jump cuts, but...
View ArticleThe TFS List: Canadian teen films
While some great teen films have been made in the U.S. (e.g. anything by John Hughes), Canadian filmmakers also know how to punch above their weight in this category. The following are just a few of...
View ArticleWhat movies have taught me: fight for love!
“That little boy only throws spitballs at you because he likes you.” How many parents have told us that after a classroom incident, dismissing children fighting with each other as a manifestation of...
View ArticleParis vs. New York: Julie Delpy
North Americans find European cities like Paris different and intriguing, with Gothic churches standing alongside a modern art museum, where designers opening shop in converted historical buildings....
View ArticleCinema Revisited: 1999, the year teen cinema took over
Remember 1999? Freddie Prinze Jr. was in high demand, television audiences were hanging on Dawson’s every move, Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake were a happy couple, and in between stocking your...
View ArticleTruth in advertising: an interview with Syrup director Aram Rappaport
Syrup is only the second feature film from director Aram Rappaport, but his unique style and visual flair is apparent in each moment of the film. The movie follows Scat (Shiloh Fernandez), a young...
View ArticlePG-13, the new breed of teen terror
Growing up as a teen horror fan in the 80s was a glorious thing. With a video store usually a short walk away, you were always able to get your hands on the latest horror film that you weren’t allowed...
View ArticleEvery teen’s inner Gremlin
Ah yes, the beautiful little creatures known as Gremlins… Have you watched the Gremlins movies? If not you should, they’re weird but they’re good for “bad horror people”, that is, people who can’t...
View ArticleThe problem with teen makeover movies
She’s All That is a very specific kind of teen movie. It’s the quintessential teen makeover movie in which a “nerdy” character must change their appearance in order to be noticed in a positive way....
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