Welcome to a new roundtable from the WWAC team! Every month, “What’s WWAC Watching?” brings you our top recommendations for films and TV shows that we’re watching and loving. This September, me (Louis), Lisa, Alenka, and Paulina share our favourites on the big and small screen.
ESSAY: Dead at 55: The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Continuing a series that celebrates the fifty-fifth anniversary of Night of the Living Dead with a look at the classic zombie film and its many follow-ups. While George Romero was building his trilogy, his former collaborator John Russo was following a tangled route towards the production of his alternative sequel, the details of which are covered…
TIFF 2023 Review: The Movie Emperor Hilariously Satirizes the Film Industry and Class Divisions
In The Movie Emperor, a superstar Hong Kong actor decides to experience real life in preparation for a new role. But can he rise above the pressures of the film business and a general apathy towards poverty-stricken people?
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: American Fiction Hilariously Challenges the Commodification of Identity
A down-on-his-luck writer decides to create the most cliché novel possible about the Black experience in the US in American Fiction. But his experiment to indict the literary industry may have ensnared him in a trap instead.
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: It’s the Patriarchy Against Love in The Queen of My Dreams
In The Queen of My Dreams, a queer Pakistani-Canadian woman and her once-outgoing mother find their way back to each other after a family tragedy gives them new, unconsidered insights.
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: Sing Sing Uses Theatre to Fight the Dehumanization of the US Prison System
In this drama, a group of incarcerated people in New York state’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility come together for a shared love of theatre. Doubts, fears, and the unjust prison system they’re in threaten to tear the theatre troupe apart as they prepare to put on their most audacious stage play.
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: Mountain Queen Challenges Gender Stereotypes on the Slopes
In Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, director Lucy Walker charts the incredible life story of the Nepalese mountain climber Lhakpa Sherpa and her lifelong love affair with Mount Everest.
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: Close To You Questions Why We Should Accept Bigotry Just Because It Comes From Family
Sam (Elliot Page) is returning home for the first time since transitioning in Close To You. His hopes and fears for his family reunion are both debunked and validated, especially when he meets his old school friend, Katherine (Hillary Baack).
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: Woman of the Hour is a Chilling and Uncomfortable True Crime Story
Set in the 1970s, Woman of the Hour recounts the real story of how aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) and serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto) met on the game show, ‘The Dating Game.’
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: The Premise of Mother, Couch Goes Nowhere
In Mother, Couch, a woman sits down on a couch and refuses to get up. Why this couch? Why this store? Why won’t she get up? It’s up to her three children to sort out, unless they want to buy the couch and carry her out.
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: The Boy and the Heron Explores Grief and Displacement
A grieving boy finds himself on a wild adventure to save his stepmother in Hayao Miyazaki’s latest Studio Ghibli film, The Boy and the Heron. There was understandably a lot of hype around The Boy and the Heron at TIFF 2023 as this was supposedly the last Studio Ghibli film by Hayao Miyazaki. However, Miyazaki has since said that…
TIFF 2023 REVIEW: The Critic Tries to Do Too Much, and Focuses on Nothing
In The Critic, Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen) is a cranky theatre critic whose career is at stake. Then he hits upon a brilliant but horrifying plan to secure his future, but only if he can get theatre actress Nina Land (Gemma Arterton) to help him.