REEL | Bong Joon-ho and Robert Pattinson Kill Off 'Mickey 17'

"It looks like a croissant dipped in sh*t!"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Plan B Entertainment

British heartthrob Robert Pattinson continues his string of offbeat roles directed by international auteurs as the eponymous "expendable" clone astronaut in Oscar-winning South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho's science-fiction action-comedy Mickey 17. Based on the ten less novel Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, all the interstellar workers are tasked with completing dangerous tasks on a spaceship headed towards a new colony planet before being "reprinted" every time he perishes.

SCREEN | Trespassing A Magical Heist – 'Stolen Kingdom'

"Being a kid in the '80s, the future was not optimistic."

White Lake Productions / Bright Sun Films

Native Floridan director Joshua Bailey uncovers the sordid underground black market economy and hidden trespassing subculture of theft behind Walt Disney World in his pop documentary with true-crime undertones, Stolen Kingdom. Delving into the niche topic of "theme park urban exploration," Bailey employs backstage footage of mischief that eventually culminates in the stealing of a valued animatronic, "Buzzy," supposedly worth half a million dollars despite being left abandoned in disrepair.

GATHER | Ramy Youssef x 'What It Means to Be American' x UBC

"I wasn't gonna mention the whole fifty-first state thing."

Photo credit | Si Ming Zheng

UBC—(February 27, 2025) Award-winning Egyptian-American stand-up comedian, actor, screenwriter, and director Ramy Youssef casually captivated a full audience inside the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts as part of the 2025 Phil Lind Initiative's second-year speaker series discussing the topic of What It Means to Be "American": Navigating Identity in a Changing Nation.

WEEKENDER | Vancouver International Wine Festival 2025

"The wine world is here."

Waterfront—(March 1, 2025) Once again, the city welcomed the wine world during the 46th annual Vancouver International Wine Festival for its usual eight days of end-of-winter, grape-soaked fun. Thousands of VIWF attendees wined and dined themselves at countless seminars, minglers, pairing meals, and signature tastings.

REEL | Diving Under the North Sea – Taking the 'Last Breath'

"I'm just not ready for the scrap heap yet."

Focus Features / Elevation Pictures

Last Breath co-director Alex Parkinson remakes his 2019 documentary of the same name as a dramatized narrative deep sea survivalist film based on the harrowing real-life saturation diving accident in 2012 that left Scottish diver Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) stranded a hundred metres under the North Sea without any heat or light and only a limited oxygen supply.

SCENE | Arts Club Deposits 'Primary Trust' x Granville Island Stage

"I miss wanting to win."

Celia Aloma & Andrew Broderick / Photo credit | Mark Halliday

Granville Island—Arts Club Theatre Company brings celebrated African-American playwright Eboni Booth's 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama-winning off-Broadway stage play Primary Trust to Vancouver for its Canadian premiere. It stars Andrew Broderick as the Mai Tai-sipping Kenneth (a role originated by William Jackson Harper), a thirty-eight-year-old suburban bookstore clerk who embarks on a journey of self-discovery after being laid off.

WEEKENDER | The Downside Live x Just For Laughs x Biltmore Cabaret

"It's about all the weird ways hamsters die."

Photo credit | Andrew Kelly/NYT

Mount Pleasant—(February 17, 2025) On a crisp winter Family Day long weekend ("When's Joy Day?") night out, I gathered, amidst a jovial audience, to witness the energetic New York-based, Italian-Jewish-American stand-up comedian co-host a live edition of his semi-popular The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi podcast alongside fellow Uncle Function sketch group sidekick, Broadway performer Russell Daniels, on stage at the Biltmore Cabaret in the middle of the annual ten-day Just for Laughs Vancouver comedy festival.

GENRE | Theo James Kills 'The Monkey' Off His Back

"Who's smiling now? You eternal son of a wh*re!"

Neon / Elevation Pictures

From Longlegs writer/director Osgood Perkins (son of famed Psycho actor Anthony Perkins) and producer James Wan comes another Stephen King adaptation based on the 1980 horror yarn of the same name from the short story collection, Skeleton Crew. Revolving around the titular cursed drumming toy animal, The Monkey is a complete turn from Perkins' previous film as he wastes the central premise's jokey conceit for a broadly comical, gory '90s-inspired genre adaptation in the tradition of the Final Destination franchise.

REEL | Anthony Mackie Activates 'Captain America: Brave New World'

"Help me rebuild the Avengers."

Marvel Studios

Falcon sidekick Anthony Mackie officially takes over the superhero mantle in the long-awaited but bottom-tier Marvel sequel, Captain America: Brave New World, directed by Julius Onah. After many production delays, creative overhauls, and lengthy reshoots, the new Cap uncovers another deep criminal conspiracy seeded within the deepest depths of the now alien invasion-averse U.S. government.