#and Sook-Yin Lee

[themnmovieman]

Movie Review ~ Close to You

Close to You Synopsis: Sam hasn’t been home since his transition. After four years in Toronto, he takes a long-dreaded trip back to his hometown for his father’s birthday. Once there, he confronts unresolved wounds and reconnects with an old flame.Stars: Elliot Page, Hillary Baack, Wendy Crewson, Peter Outerbridge, Janet Porter, Alex Paxton-Beesley, and Sook-Yin LeeDirector: Dominic SavageRated:…

[esqueletosgays]

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001)

Director: John Cameron Mitchell Cinematography: Frank G. DeMarco

[rickchung]

Paying for It (dir. Sook-Yin Lee) x VIFF 2024.

It certainly has some strong late-'90s Toronto alternative art scene and quirky indie movie vibes grounded by [Dan] Beirne and [Emily] Lê's strong performances as friends and ex-lovers who respect each other's personal spaces and romantic boundaries. It's both refreshingly sweet and explicitly provocative about its depiction of sensual desires outside of traditionally accepted normative relationships.

Premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival as as part of the Platform program.

[jontheblogcentric]

VIFF 2024 Review: Paying For It

Emily Le and Dan Beirne play a couple who try open love and go in unorthodox directions in the oddball romance Paying For It. I first took an interest to Paying For It knowing it’s directed by Sook-Yin Lee. I had no clue of what to expect. Boy was I in for a surprise! Chester Brown and Sonny Lee are a Toronto couple in a tough situation. They’ve had a romantic relationship together for years…

[fathersonholygore]

[Fantastic Fest Shorts 2024] A FERMENTING WOMAN / DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS

DISCLAIMER: The following reviews contain SPOILERS! A Fermenting Woman (2024) Directed by Priscilla Galvez Screenplay by Maisie Jacobson; based on a story by Galvez Starring Sook-Yin Lee. Drama / Horror ★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★) We need more menstrual horror. Women’s own bodies prepare them for a world of horror, in real life and in fiction, so why shouldn’t we see that represented more in horror…

[kamaradka]

neko case - knock loud

[sneakydragon]

Sneaky Dragon Episode 620

Episode 620 - This week, Dave and Ian talk about the toy of sex,, getting on the multiplane, ugly hags, hair shirts, overhyped wars, incoherent rock, uncomfortable viewings, deflating impressions, cults of one, and too much comedy.

Hola, Sneakers! It’s Episode 620 of the podcast no one needed! This week Ian and David talk: phone-y baloney; guys and sex dolls; the toy of sex; the multiplanes of existence; the way of all Fleischer; hag-iography; Snow what; Gulliver unravels; a Swift response; future past; world war wonderings; favouring Currie; Dads’ armies; golf bores; bridge nix; the problem with It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad…

[aeolianblues]

On Gentrification: No Tickets At The Door

No Tickets At The Door is an in-depth look into Toronto’s diverse underground music scene and the myriad of challenges that musicians, promoters, and venues are facing during COVID-19. Questions about creative survival and perseverance during lockdown, as well as the overwhelming effects of merciless gentrification, are actively raised and discussed by the community. Part documentary, part love letter to the scene, filmmaker and musician Danny Alexander explores the creative impulses that are driving musicians today while paying close attention to the endangered status of Toronto as an incubator for the arts. Featuring interviews with prominent contributors such as Sook-Yin Lee, Dan Burke, Luna Li, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, and TRP.P, owners of historic venues like the Horseshoe Tavern, and local politicians who are championing the arts, No Tickets At The Door examines the importance of music communities in the modern age and what is at stake if a city is no longer hospitable towards them.

[bookclub4m]

35 Non-fiction Graphic Novels by BIPOC Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

This Place: 150 Years Retold

Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei with Elettra Stamboulis & Gianluca Costantini

Nat Turner by Kyle Baker

The Talk by Darrin Bell

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

I’m a Wild Seed by Sharon Lee De la Cruz

Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao

Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America by Joel Christian Gill and Ibram X. Kendi

Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez

The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob

The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Man, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito: a Graphic Memoir by Shing Yin Khor

Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, and Ko Hyung-Ju

In Limbo by Deb J.J. Lee

This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian

Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martín

Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story by Sarah Myer

Steady Rollin': Preacher Kid, Black Punk and Pedaling Papa by Fred Noland

Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo

Your Black Friend and Other Strangers by Ben Passmore

Kwändǖr by Cole Pauls

Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine by Mohammad Sabaaneh

A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Grandmothers, Our Grandmothers: Remembering the "Comfort Women" of World War II by Han Seong-Won

Death Threat by Vivek Shraya and Ness Lee

Palimpsest: Documents From A Korean Adoption by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom

Big Black: Stand at Attica by Frank "Big Black" Smith, Jared Reinmuth, and Améziane

Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith, Dawud Anyabwile, and Derrick Barnes

The High Desert by James Spooner

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker

Feelings by Manjit Thapp

The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson

Now Let Me Fly: A Portrait of Eugene Bullard by Ronald Wimberly and Braham Revel

[esqueletosgays]

SHORTBUS (2006)

Director: John Cameron Mitchell Cinematography: Frank G. DeMarco

[tocinephile]

Two books you've never heard of, adapted into films you'll likely never see... at TIFF 2024

It's only a few more sleeps until the official schedule for TIFF 2024 is released on Tuesday, August 13th. Every major and minor film site has reported on all the biggest and best the festival has to offer, run down the celebrities that are coming, the films that will be skipping the festival, and all the gossip and speculation in between. I'm not immune to the celebrity glitz and big name directors, but two films in particular that few people have their eyes on, have piqued my interest.

Last year while perusing a bookstore (I love bookstores!) a novel entitled Winter in Sokcho caught my eye. A thin volume about a young woman and her quiet life in Sokcho, South Korea, near the border of North Korea. The author is a French-Korean woman named Elisa Shua Dusapin, she depicted humble lives and simple interactions with beauty and intricacy.

Fast forward to last month, July 2024, with all its TIFF announcements... I see amongst the list of announced titles Hiver a Sokcho/Winter in Sokcho. My initial reaction included some surprise, I know that everything Korean is having a moment right now ("moment" be damned, I hope it lasts forever!) and Korean cinema is vastly popular. I guess out of all the Korean stories being told, Winter in Sokcho didn't strike me as the most "Korean". It's a story of introspection and contemplation, where one interprets much of the story from what is not said. This is the stuff you're more likely to encounter out of Japanese filmmaking.

Dig a little deeper and it'll come to light that this is the debut feature by a French-Japanese filmmaker named Koya Kamura. I don't want to typecast, but perhaps it makes sense that a Japanese filmmaker has selected this work to adapt to screen. I'm looking forward to seeing this film and what the filmmaker has to say in Q&A. How delightful it would be if the author were to come too!

Much closer to home is Paying for It, a novel by acclaimed graphic novelist Chester Brown, adapted by filmmaker/artist/actress Sook Yin Lee. If you grew up in Canada in the 90's you will undoubtedly remember Sook Yin Lee as the grunge rocker VJ on Much Music, she also took on some unusual roles in a middling Canadian big screen career in the 2000's. Fun fact: she's even played current Toronto Mayor, Olivia Chow, in a 2012 TV biopic of Chow's ex-husband, politician Jack Layton.

Chester Brown is probably still best known for his historical comic series about Louis Riel. Though far from a household name, he's well-known amongst indie comic circles - ie. the entire comic world that doesn't centre around superheroes (I assume you such comics exist) His 2011 graphic novel Paying for It, now gracing the big screen, was an autobiographical tale.

This is where is gets even more interesting, Paying for It is about Brown's decision to give up on romantic love and spend time with prostitutes instead following his real-life break up with Sook Kin Lee in 1996. Now here we are closer to 3 decades into the future, and Lee is adapting her ex's book into a movie! How can you not want to see this??

As mentioned at the top of this post, the official film schedule for TIFF 2024 will be released on Tuesday, August 13th at tiff.net The website also includes information about when single ticket sales will begin for the different levels of membership and general public.

[biggoldbelt]

Darkest Miriam - Review | Britt Lower, Tom Mercier, Sook-Yin Lee & Jean Yoon | Tribeca 2024

Darkest Miriam Review by Big Gold Belt Media with @AroundTheGeek –Synopsis:Miriam is a librarian working in an out of the way branch of the Toronto Public Library. Working among the marginalized eccentrics and cranks that frequent her branch, she is trudging through her life shrouded in a fog of grief. To add weirdness to sadness, she keeps finding vaguely threatening letters throughout the…

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] While the party died years ago at MuchMusic’s broadcast centre on the corner of Queen and John streets in Toronto, the screening of a new documentary on Friday proved nostalgia for the nation’s music station is still very much alive. Thousands of people filed into Roy Thomson Hall, only a few blocks away from Much’s former headquarters, to catch the Canadian premiere of 299 Queen Street West, a feature-length look at the legacy of the TV channel.Joining the crowd were some of Much’s most famous video jockeys, better known as VJs, including Rick Campanelli, Erica Ehm, Sook-Yin Lee and Electric Circus host Monika Deol.Many of them were stunned by the enthusiasm around their reunion.“This is surreal,” Campanelli, known to viewers as “Rick the Temp,” said from the red carpet as he surveyed the crowd outside the venue. Story continues below advertisement “I didn’t expect it to be like this, but in the back of my mind, I sort of was hoping,” he added.Bill Welychka, who worked as a VJ on the station throughout much of the 1990s, found himself at a loss for words as he reflected on his former job.“I had no idea the fascination with Much was still there after all these years,” he admitted. Filmmaker Sean Menard was less surprised than the VJs at the thundering reception. The Hamilton native spent about six years making 299 Queen Street West and mortgaged his house to afford the time to dig through the archives.He’s confident the enthusiasm felt for Much at Toronto’s screening will be replicated across country when he takes the movie on a Canada-wide roadshow next month.The MuchMusic Experience Tour pairs a screening of the movie with a conversation between Menard and select VJs, who will take questions from the audience and share memories.The MuchMusic tour crosses the country with 12 stops that include Montreal (Oct. 17), Halifax (Oct. 25), Calgary (Nov. 1), Vancouver (Nov. 24) and Winnipeg (Nov. 27).Packed to the brim with archival footage, the two-hour documentary retraces MuchMusic’s origin story, starting around its inception on Aug. 31, 1984. Story continues below advertisement MuchMusic launched as an unpolished 24-hour music video channel created by Toronto media visionary Moses Znaimer and a team of inexperienced but creative young people.This was three years after MTV launched in the United States, and the concept of a music video station was no longer new, yet the look and feel of Canada’s version was much different, partly because there was no rule book.“We were kids in the trunk of the car getting into the drive-in, that’s how it kind of felt,” former VJ Steve Anthony recalled outside the premiere.The documentary collects the VJ’s memories and presents them entirely in voiceover as the origin story of MuchMusic plays out through footage of the era.Michael Williams recalls his move from Cleveland to Canada where his do-it-all mindset eventually led to the creation of the Rap City program, while Erica Ehm retells how she was upgraded from a receptionist to a TV personality with no experience.“They gave me the opportunity to sink or swim, and I certainly sank at the beginning, but they didn’t kick me out,” she says in the film.299 Queen Street West makes pit stops at some of MuchMusic’s most innovative ideas, from the annual Christmas tree toss to Combat des Clips, the 1-900 viewer-voted music video show. Trending Now Billy Chemirmir, accused of murdering 22 women, killed by cellmate in jail Taylor Swift sends voter registration numbers surging with a single post Story continues below advertisement It also captures some of the channel’s biggest moments, including when the area around the street-level studio was shut down to accommodate rabid fans of the Backstreet Boys for the boy band’s appearance on Intimate & Interactive.Electric Circus, an in-studio live dance club program, is presented as a guilty pleasure that Canadians couldn’t deny.“Nobody wanted to admit they watched it,” host Monika Deol says in the documentary.“And I was like, if nobody is watching this show, how does everybody know who I am?”In a live panel conversation after the Toronto premiere, Deol returned to defending Electric Circus, which was often ridiculed at the time. She credited the dancers for being the lifeblood of the program.Denise Donlon, who climbed the ranks from VJ to general manager at MuchMusic, told of a memorable encounter with David Bowie at one edition of the MuchMusic Video Awards.“I heard him say, ‘This place is chaos,'” she said in a fake British accent. “‘It seems to be run by children.'”While the documentary is a fulsome account of MuchMusic’s history, some topics are left out, including the channel’s oft-forgotten influence outside of Canada.There’s no mention of how the MuchOnDemand program, driven by viewers’ music video requests, helped inspire MTV’s Total Request Live or the Much channel’s mid-1990s iteration south of the border called MuchMusic USA. Story continues below advertisement Sook-Yin Lee said even though time has passed, she believes MuchMusic’s influence remains embedded in the Toronto.Recently, she walked by the former headquarters  — now home to Bell Media’s offices — and observed a few “wayward young people” snapping photos against the building’s facade.“That corner is very different now: it’s much more corporate; it’s very much the antithesis of live rock ‘n’ roll … (but) there still resides a little bit of energy.”“That spirit of MuchMusic,” she added. “It doesn’t ever go away.”299 Queen Street West will premiere on Bell Media’s Crave streaming service in December. [ad_2]