Tag Archives: film

Summertime, and the Watching’s Easy

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Summer may have just started, but is anyone else’s brain already in vacation mode? Are we all ready to be sitting on patios in the sunshine, sipping margaritas? If you need a little inspiration, or if you’re unable to head out into the sunshine just yet, now is a good time to dip your toes into summertime vibes with some hot weather movies. Below, I’ve pulled a list together of some of my all-time films for the summer season that you can find in the VPL catalogue (sorry, no Palm Springs or Fire Island just yet). But this list is by no means exhaustive (keeping it to five was a struggle, as you’ll see), so feel free to share your own favourites in the comments! 

Before Sunrise (1995) 

Really, any movie in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy would be a good choice (take your pick of locale: Vienna, Paris, or Greece), but since Before Sunrise is the first in the series, it’s best to start there. The 1995 film takes place on a single summer day. Jesse (American) and Celine (French) are on separate paths, but those paths cross for a moment on a train. Deciding to make the best of fate, they disembark and spend the rest of the day (and night) wandering the streets of Vienna, deep in conversation. That’s literally the whole plot, so your enjoyment of this kind of movie hinges on how much you love listening to people talk. The acting is so naturalistic that it’s easy to mistake Ethan Hawke’s and Julie Delpy’s performances as improvisations. The Before trilogy holds a special place in cinema history for its sequel rollouts: Before Sunset catches up with Jesse and Celine nine years later, this time in Paris. It’s a treat to see how they’ve matured, and we’re gifted another glimpse into their lives with Before Midnight, which takes place another nine years later, this time in Greece. But Before Sunrise holds a special charm owing to Jesse and Celine’s youth, with all their naïve philosophizing, and the will-they-or-won’t-they pull between them. These are two actors who play beautifully off each other, Delpy with a keenly European romanticism (and prettily messy French girl hair) and Hawke with the depth to match it (he has recently come out with what is, in my opinion, the correct take on the “are superhero movies art” debate—something very in line with Jesse!).  

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The Oscars: A Watchlist

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If you’re an Oscars aficionado, make sure to join us on the evening of Thursday, March 24 for our Oscars Trivia Night!

It’s that time of year again! Time for stars to strut down the red carpet and for the rest of us to watch from our couches with a glass of wine and sweatpants. Yes, the Academy Awards are upon us, and unlike last year’s sad, weird COVID ceremony, this year promises to return the glitz and glam we’re all looking for.  

The limbo period between the nominees being announced and the ceremony proper is always fraught for the film fan. We love to celebrate our favourites getting a nom, but we also love to rant and rave about who, in a just world, should really be getting them. Ostensibly an award ceremony recognizing the best in the craft, the Oscars are notorious for things like name bias (bestowing awards on big name actors), age bias (Adrien Brody is the only man to win Best Actor under the age of 30, though plenty of young women have won Best Actress—after all, Hollywood likes its men old and its women young), and playing catch-up on overdue awards (see: Leo DiCaprio finally winning for The Revenant instead of, like, anything else). Then there’s the Western, English language bias of it all—as Bong Joon-ho put it, the Oscars are a “very local” award show.  

And of course, the Oscars wouldn’t be the Oscars without a full list of snubs for people to rage about on Twitter. Every year there are some headscratchers, people or movies that seem like locks for nominations, only to be shut out. There was palpable shock when Lady Gaga was ignored for her House of Gucci performance (although, with that accent? I don’t know). Don’t Look Up’s Best Picture nom sparked highly annoying discourse from both fans and detractors.  

Since we all love to share our opinions on who is most deserving of these esteemed, slightly silly awards, below you’ll find my picks for the best films in the race this year—whether or not they were nominated for Best Picture (and a necessary caveat: I have seen many of the nominees, but not all!). And I, of course, have my own list of snubs that I would have liked to see get some recognition. Some of these are already available at VPL; for those that aren’t, keep an eye on our catalogue!  

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A Fresh Twist on Old Tales

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In July, uber-cool film studio A24 released The Green Knight in theatres, but with the new school year starting and sweater weather approaching, I feel there’s no better time to delve into an old Arthurian legend than autumn (except maybe Christmas, when the story takes place). If you haven’t seen the film, it is an adaptation of an anonymously-penned chivalric romance from Medieval England about Sir Gawain (one the famed Knights of the Round Table). And if you have seen the film, you’re probably like, “what in the world did I just watch?”

Arthurian legends in media are in no short supply. We all at least vaguely know the names King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Excalibur, right? You might have seen Disney’s The Sword in the Stone as a child (featuring, iconically, a Converse-wearing Merlin), or maybe the old parody staple, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government”). More recently, there was BBC’s Merlin, in which the titular wizard is a young man when he befriends the weirdly jock-like Arthur (cue shipping). Historically, the old tales have been interpreted in countless paintings as well (you might recognize this one especially, of Elaine of Astolat, harboring an unrequited love for Lancelot). No matter the version, they’re always recognizable as being Arthurian. The departure from that recognition, from the usual tropes, names, and places, is what makes The Green Knight such a bizarre, and modern, take. 

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