Movies
Biography of beloved, complicated comedic icon ensures legacy lives on
6 minute read Yesterday at 2:02 AM CDTJohn Candy would be — should be — celebrating his 75th birthday this Halloween.
When the Canadian comic actor, best known and beloved for his work on the sketch comedy series SCTV as well as in movies such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, Splash, Home Alone, Cool Runnings and so many more, died on March 4, 1994 at the too-young age of 43, it was nothing short of a tragedy.
Here was a man who brought so much joy to people, an open-faced, preternaturally youthful guy as sweet as his surname who had an enormous heart that eventually gave out on him in Durango, Mexico while filming Wagons East.
Paul Myers’ new biography, John Candy: A Life in Comedy, is a warm, thoughtful, sensitive portrait of a complicated comedian by a writer who clearly has great admiration and affection for his subject matter.
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Local filmmaker hopes to inspire an appreciation for the land with latest film
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6 minute read Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025When it comes to streaming options, we are living in an age of abundance. That sounds good, right?
But so much of this content is merely meh. This flood of middling series and movies, this glut of take-it-or-leave-it entertainment can lead to viewing inertia. The search for something truly compelling can feel so exhausting and overwhelming that decisions often get made more by the gravitational pull of the couch than by anything actually happening onscreen.
Amidst this purgatory of TV that’s not quite bad enough to give up but not quite good enough to truly hook you, streaming content can stand out by being great. By being original, intelligent, well-crafted — you know, all that hard stuff.
Or, in what feels like a depressing confirmation of the crappiness of our 21st-century attention economy, it can stand out by being absolutely, excruciatingly awful.
Hitman’s family vaction anything but relaxing in ramped-up locally shot action sequel
4 minute read Preview Friday, Aug. 15, 2025Nuanced 1965 drama delicate romance in complicated time
5 minute read Friday, Aug. 15, 2025This groundbreaking queer film, now available in a 4K restoration that revives its original black-and-white esthetic, never uses the words “gay” or “homosexual.”
It’s a marvel of subtext, a coming-of-age story in which the relationship between the two main male characters is kept quietly coded.
This discretion is understandable: Winter Kept Us Warm, written and directed by Brandon-born, Winnipeg-raised David Secter, was first released in 1965, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence in Canada.
In 2025, the film functions as a fascinating historical document, a significant marker in the long journey from the celluloid closet to contemporary queer representation.
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