If you’ve been left scratching your head after last night’s Westworld Season 2 finale, you’re not alone. Much like Game of Thrones, I really enjoy the show but am fairly certain I’m missing some of the finer details.
So thanks to these smart TV writers, we can get in the know and reflect while we wait (and wait) for Westworld Season 3.
“Throughout the second season of Westworld, the talk has been of the concept of narrative. Lee complains about his narrative being ruined by the hosts gaining sentience, the host personalities are determined by certain loops, certain key points of their character and their day-to-day activities that make up the fundamentals of who they are. A few tweaks to a host’s sliders or a slight change in a host’s narrative can completely alter who the host is. All along, William has maintained that this is Robert Ford’s last riddle, one last story set in place by the old man to slight him, and in a sense, he’s correct. “The Passenger” seems to be the end of an era of Westworld. I can’t say for certain where things go from here, but I can confidently say that things will never be the same.”
“The first season of Westworld held a somewhat common dramatic shape: After a raucous start, it slowly devolved into some narrative wheel-spinning before it came roaring back to life with some late-game fireworks. Season two has been a trickier beast. After a tepid start, we’ve experienced a lot of peaks and valleys and the show was often at its best when it pulled away from the guessing games and layered timelines and told contained, humane stories. But we have come to the end and I have to admit that this finale is not only my least favorite episode since the season-two premiere, but also that I’m a bit perplexed.”
“Many weeks, after my recap of Westworld posts on Sunday nights, I hear from readers. Sometimes, those readers want to correct something I’ve gotten wrong, which is always welcome. But sometimes, those corrections aren’t actually correcting anything — they’re more trying to win me over to their theory of what the Man in Black is up to, or what Westworld is supposed to be, or which planet the series takes place on. “You missed…” these emails and tweets will often start, before launching into several paragraphs of explanation of how some tiny detail in the costume or production design reveals the truth about the Delos Corporation’s secret plans or what have you. But I don’t know that I “missed” anything, so much as I don’t share these particular readers’ theories about what’s going to happen. I tend to let the show present things to me as they happen, rather than trying to guess where it’s going. It’s just how I’m wired. I want to be clear: I’m not complaining about this. I love hearing from readers about anything I write. But the sheer number of these responses has made me think that I might be watching Westworld all wrong — or, perhaps, that it’s such a thin, thematically empty show that the only meaning it has comes from that which you bring to it. But is that on the show? Or is it on me?”
“So much of Westworld, this season
especially, has been about how much control individuals really have over
their destiny. It’s a classic question in science fiction: Is there
such a thing as free will, or is choice itself an illusion, each
decision beating the path to a predetermined fate? In a place like the
Westworld theme park, where day-to-day actions are literally programmed
into android hosts, there isn’t supposed to be any ambiguity on that
question. The predictability of the loops brings a necessary order to
the operation, like the control group in an experiment in which the
guests are the ones doing all the improvising. But
as Westworld has opened up and the hosts have gained self-awareness,
we’ve been left to guess about who’s really pulling the strings.”
New episodes of Westworld Season 2 air Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO Canada, and catch up on past episodes, including Season 1 in its entirety, on TMN GO
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network, HBO Canada& TMN Encore, the future home of STARZin Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
There’s so many reasons to love the month of June, and a big one is to honour and commemorate the LGBTQ+ community with Pride Month.
If you won’t be partying on Church St. in Toronto this weekend, or you’re planning on some serious couch time once the parade wraps up, here are 7 films that tell
LGBTQ+
stories and share
LGBTQ+
contributions to a mainstream audience that still often struggles with acceptance.
Gus Van Sant was one of the key
directors in bringing queer cinema to the mainstream in the 1990s, so it makes
sense that he should direct a film about California’s first openly gay elected
official, Harvey Milk (played here by Sean Penn). In terms of style, this is
one of Van Sant’s more conventional films, but it smartly avoids overshadowing
Dustin Lance Black’s poignant screenplay and Penn’s performance, both of which
earned Oscars.
Best known for Bruce
Springsteen’s Oscar-winning Original Song and Tom Hanks’ Oscar-winning
performance, this drama about a man with HIV who teams up with a lawyer (Denzel
Washington) to win justice after his wrongful dismissal by a law firm was one
of the first mainstream Hollywood films to tackle AIDS issues.
Formerly known as Steven
Soderbergh’s feature-filmmaking farewell (he has released two more since), this
HBO biopic explores the rise-and-fall relationship between flamboyant pianist Liberace
and his longtime partner Scott Thorson, portrayed with Golden Globe-winning
flair by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon.
Jack Nicholson nabbed his third
Academy Award for playing an obsessive-compulsive, homophobic, and utterly
repellent author who turns over a new, less miserable leaf after befriending a
gay artist (Greg Kinnear) and a single-mom waitress (Helen Hunt, who also
scored an Oscar).
A unique twist on the
ugly-duckling-turned-beautiful-swan tale, this story follows svelte, successful
Sweet William, who returns to his hometown of Halifax a decade after escaping
to the big city as a gay and overweight teen. And in case you’re wondering what
kind of ’90s-era Canadian indie doesn’t feature Sarah Polley, relax: she plays
William’s teenage sister.
Less popular than last year’s Call Me by Your Name,
actor-turned-director Francis Lee’s feature debut is just as deserving of being
seen. Like this heartstring-pulling story of a philandering Yorkshire farmer
who unexpectedly falls for a Romanian migrant worker, the film’s harsh
countryside backdrop develops into a thing of idyllic beauty thanks to some
standout cinematography.
Quebec’s most prolific young
director, Xavier Dolan, continues to explore dysfunctional families with this
Canadian Screen Award-sweeping drama about an ill gay playwright who, after a
very long absence, returns to his hometown to reunite with his family and
inform them that he is dying.
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network, HBO Canada& TMN Encore, the future home of STARZin Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
~nk With an MA in film studies from Concordia University, Neila Karassik is Movie Entertainment’s in-house movie authority.
“”Vanishing Point” is a tale of two wildly different fathers. One is the father of a real-life daughter, and the owner of the Delos corporation. The other is the father of hosts, who didn’t have a biological child but instead was the father of hundreds of robots, all imbued with his own world view deep inside their code. Ford and William, business partners and eternal antagonists. One is consumed with his own darkness, with solving Ford’s riddle, and Ford is determined to keep William’s project from finding its way off the ground, and with keeping the other man’s darkness in check. They’re diametrically opposed in pretty much all things, with one capable of fantastic feats of love and the other, well… decidedly not capable of loving anyone or anything.“
“In the penultimate episode of Westworld season two, we have four main characters diving into the depths of their lonesome journeys, at once outward and ever inward. And it is a journey best characterized by a famous quote that William hears in the opening, “Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.” But William informs the man that this quote is actually a corruption of the original (damn telling word choice) and that the Plutarch quote is, in fact, “When Alexander was told there were infinite worlds, he wept. For he had yet to become the lord of even one.””
“I don’t entirely know what to make of “Vanishing Point,” an episode that promised to take this season in some interesting directions thematically and then sort of did and sort of didn’t. If you’re heavily invested in the question of whether the Man in Black is a Host, well, this was the episode for you. And even if you’re not, there was some interesting material on just how important death is to the experience of sentient beings — if you can’t die, or take control of your own narrative in some way by having the option to die, then you’re, in some ways, not really alive. Or something.”
“Off the top, let’s note that this week’s
episode of Westworld comes with its own “KICK ME” sign: “Humans will
always choose what they understand over what they do not.” This would be
your cue to pick up the remote and catch up on old episodes of
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”For those
humans who continue to choose Westworld, however, “Vanishing Point” is
a strange animal, the rare penultimate episode that taps the brakes
instead of building momentum for the season finale. There are plenty of
important developments in the hour, but a notable paucity of action or
forward movement. The Valley Beyond is visible in the horizon, but
there’s mostly just discussion here about what it is and who deserves to
get there.”
New episodes of Westworld Season 2 air Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO Canada, and catch up on past episodes, including Season 1 in its entirety, on TMN GO
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network, HBO Canada& TMN Encore, the future home of STARZin Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as the Iran-Contra Affair.
Set in the not-so-distant future in Britain, a violent teen sociopath is sent to prison where he agrees to aversion therapy in order to shorten his sentence, but finds his life in danger after being released.
Roman J. Israel, Esq., a driven, idealistic defense attorney, finds himself in a tumultuous series of events that lead to a crisis and the necessity for extreme action.
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network, HBO Canada & TMN Encore, the future home of STARZ in Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network, HBO Canada & TMN Encore, the future home of STARZ in Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
Fathers come in
all shapes and sizes and, thanks to our favourite movies and TV shows, we know
how and why our relationships with them can grow and change.
They always want the best for us. So, for Father’s Day this
year, we can splurge on the best for them…
Sometimes even
the most reluctant, high-flying playboy can’t quell those paternal urges, and
who better to guide an awkward tween towards coolness than a guy who is too
cool for school?
Will Freeman’s London flat in About a Boyis the epitome of a high-tech bachelor pad in the early
aughts, so let’s modernize it with Google Home, the ultimate smart speaker and
digital personal assistant (even though he’s living in a pre-iPhone era).
The bumbling yet
thoughtful dad-to-be is a tried-and-true movie stereotype. But, it is an adorable one. We won’t spoil the
paternity results of Bridget Jones’s Babyfor you, but whichever suitor the possible father turns out to be, he will need
coffee in those early days. A lot of it.
The Contigo Extreme travel mug will
keep two cups of coffee hot for up to four hours and the carabiner handle can
clip equally well onto the attaché of a top human-rights barrister or the distressed
messenger bag of a digital disrupter.
As a widower,
Sam Baldwin seems to have it all together. But, as we learn in Sleepless in Seattle, eventually it’s
time to love again. An unexpected getaway to meet his endearing stalker from a
call-in radio show turns out well for Sam, but a modern, less manipulative take
could be a mini-break of his choosing and some time to peruse a dating
app.
Fairmont’s Le Manoir Richelieu in
Charlevoix, Quebec, is offering overnight accommodation, unlimited same-day
golf, golf cart, access to the driving range, and breakfast for two at Table et
Terroir or Le Point Cardinal as a special for dad. Fairmont properties in
Banff, Jasper, Montebello, Bermuda, San Diego, and Sonoma also have
stay-and-play specials perfect for Father’s Day.
Kids don’t
always share interests with their fathers or even have much in common with
them. And it can be tough to connect when you can’t ever seem to see eye to
eye. But if Jackie can find a way to support his son’s dreams in Billy Elliot, there’s hope for us all to
repair or strengthen the family ties that might have been stretched or strained
over the years.
A watch is a classic gift for every dad, and the Citizen Grand
Classic looks good enough to wear to the ballet while being tough enough to
withstand working in a mine.
You don’t have
to be a sports fan to understand that Field
of Dreams is about more than baseball. And we need only look to our
national sport to know that a child’s first hockey stick often represents more
than just a birthday gift.
Backyard rinks last a couple of months at most in
our tempestuous winters, and tickets to NHL games can cost more than a full
season’s minor hockey fees. But season tickets for American Hockey League teams
offer (almost) NHL-quality hockey at a fraction of the cost. And the farm teams
sometimes play at their big league team’s arena, so you can pay $30 for a beer
if you really, really want to. The Toronto Marlies games are really, really fun.
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network, HBO Canada & TMN Encore, the future home of STARZ in Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
““Kiksuya,” … is easily the best episode of the season after “The Riddle of the Sphinx.” For like that fourth episode, tonight’s pre-penultimate hour took a long step back to look in the mirror and evaluate what Ford’s mad dream is all about, as well as why we still enjoy playing in his convoluted game. Breaking away from the propulsive narrative of last week—where storylines entwined for a semi-climactic showdown in the Messa’s control center—“Kiksuya” is elegiac and pensive, taking a page out of the grand Western tradition, as well as a few of the more insidious notes out of American history, to survey its slice of God’s Country and figure out if there is a true ethereal quality to this world that lies beyond Ford’s scripts and loops.
“
“Everyone has a story.For two seasons, the Native American characters of Westworld have largely sat about the edges of the park, striking an imposing, dangerous, and unknowable façade, along with the occasional attack. At times, they even seemed like the mystic guardians of the Maze, knowledgeable keepers of a deeper world. But such notions were just mere projections, and stereotypical ones at that. Now, “Kiksuya” finally lets us into the beautiful story of Akecheta, elegantly brought into the deeper humanity behind the lore of the show.”
“"Kiksuya,” focused squarely on Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon) and his journey through the maze, was more than a beautiful hour of Westworld. It was a revelatory one, too. The mythic episode, directed by Uta Briesewitz, and written by Carly Wray and Dan Dietz, not only put the Ghost Nation warrior into firm focus, it also peeled back layers on many of the season’s greatest mysteries.
“Yet when you consider that Westworld’s primary storytelling mode is, “Here is what’s happening and why,” it’s not surprising that an episode that is mostly exposition works as well as this one does. I wouldn’t call “Kiksuya” perfect, but it does fill in some gaps in the Westworld timeline, occasionally too conveniently — see also that encounter with Logan out in the wilds of Westworld. It also offers a couple of terrific scenes, including a nighttime meeting between Akecheta (Zahn McClarnon) and Ford (Anthony Hopkins) that takes place amid a gruesome tableau of Ghost Nation hosts frozen in place and has more of the horror and eeriness of the “creation meeting the creator” feeling the show strives for than almost any other scene of its ilk. I even liked the sense that Ghost Nation had adapted the circumstances of what happen to hosts after they die into its mythology.”
“As the second season has opened up Westworld to new parks, new characters, new timelines and new options for the liberated hosts, the show has allowed for more episode-by-episode variety than the previous season did. Rather than inch all the stories forward in the same hour, it can fiddle with structure, like tracking three decades of experimentation on a host version of Jim Delos, or taking a detour to exotic locales like Shogun World or the Raj. This week’s episode, titled “Kiksuya,” included a couple of big, homestretch-of-the-season moments, but it was mostly a discrete and digestible unit, bringing one piece of the periphery into full view.”
New episodes of Westworld Season 2 air Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO Canada, and catch up on past episodes, including Season 1 in its entirety, on TMN GO
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network,HBO Canada& TMN Encore, the future home of STARZin Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
Bill Skarsgård’s Got It The acclaimed Pennywise actor was destined, from his birth into a beloved Swedish acting dynasty, to someday win cheers as a clown in It…
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“You never really know how much you can miss someone until they’re gone. Nor do you realize how crucial Anthony Hopkins’ pseudo-philosophical and congenial malevolence is to the Westworld algorithm until he comes back. And it really did feel like the HBO sci-fi saga regained something this week that we all intuitively felt was lost, right?
Such is the case when we spend much of tonight inside of the Cradle with Robert Ford, or at least some facsimile of the man’s genius, waxing poetic to Bernard. Hearing him quote William Blake’s “To See a World…” while surveying his own universe, his “Heaven in a wild flower,” is like being welcomed home by a particularly cruel father figure. He might be a bastard, but hey, it’s home.”
“You ever play pub trivia and they have a “tiered question” round? That’s when you have several rounds to guess the correct answer and it starts with really obscure clues (that net you more points) and it gets progressively easier and more clear with every round? Yeah, that’s how Westworld approaches storytelling. Tonight it even verbalized this MO directly to us. When Bernard pressures Ford to answer him as to what’s in the valley beyond, Ford completely refuses to answer, instead gently chuckling, “Isn’t the pleasure of a story discovering the ending for yourself?””
“It’s official: Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is back in action.
After his shocking appearance at the end of season two’s sixth episode, “Phase Space,” Ford returned in full in this week’s Westworld, albeit in new form. The new hour, “Les Écorchés,” confirms Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) was unwittingly tasked with creating a control unit that would house Ford’s continued consciousness following his death. The Westworld architect remains alive, at least digitally, appearing as almost a force ghost for Bernard — a force ghost with some decidedly Sith-like overtones. After all, hard to imagine the appartion of Obi-Wan Kenobi forcing Luke Skywalker to mercilessly destroy his enemies from beyond the grave, isn’t it?”
“This second season of Westworld has had more jittery stops, starts, and resets than Bernard’s brain. There are only so many times you can see Teddy get off that train, or hear that telltale “Welcome to Westworld” theme, before you start longing for a release from repetition that the show has perpetually denied viewers.
Seven episodes into season two, the show is clearly and deliberately keeping most of its characters rooted in place even as they travel. Sure, everyone is going to meet up eventually, but metaphorically and often literally, they’re trapped — stuck in the park with no way out, stuck in cycles of manipulation, stuck in endless programming loops, and stuck experiencing realizations that we’ve already had revealed to us.”
“There are points during Westworld when even non-casual viewers could be forgiven for losing the plot a little, mired in the assortment of timelines, puzzle pieces and shifting identities, if not some combination of the three.
From the beginning, the primary exemplar of that confusion has been Bernard, the inscrutable head of Westworld’s programming division, who was revealed to be a host back in the seventh episode of the first season, when Dr. Ford ordered him to murder his lover, Theresa Cullen, inside a secret lab. Ever since, Bernard has been a walking question mark, with a near-hallucinatory clutter of memories and impulses that are competing for space inside his head. Characters like Dolores and Elsie have been testing his loyalties, and not even he seems sure which team he’s on. Melancholy trails Bernard like Pig-Pen’s dirt-cloud, but Jeffrey Wright has always kept the character’s true feelings close to the vest.”
New episodes of Westworld Season 2 air Sundays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO Canada, and catch up on past episodes, including Season 1 in its entirety, on TMN GO
TMN GO is included in your subscription to The Movie Network,HBO Canada& TMN Encore, the future home of STARZin Canada. There’s almost 3000 movies and series and documentaries available for streaming or offline viewing anytime on any device.
A fact-based drama set during the 1967 Detroit riots in which a group of
rogue police officers respond to a complaint with retribution rather
than justice on their minds.
An all-new dramatic series based on the crime novels by J.K. Rowling
(under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith) that follows weathered
war-veteran-turned-private detective Cormoran Strike and his resourceful
assistant, Robin Ellacott.
A young blade runner’s discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to
track down former blade runner Rick Deckard, who’s been missing for
thirty years.
A provocative, bitingly funny HBO drama series that explores
themes of power, politics, and family through the eyes of an aging,
uber-wealthy media mogul and his four grown children.
With their father in prison for murder, siblings Alison and Brandon are
instantly considered suspects when a string of killings plagues their
town, and they must fight to clear their names.
Roman J. Israel, Esq., a driven, idealistic defense attorney, finds
himself in a tumultuous series of events that lead to a crisis and the
necessity for extreme action.
The story of Barry Seal, an American pilot who became a drug-runner for
the CIA in the 1980s in a clandestine operation that would be exposed as
the Iran-Contra Affair.
This five-part limited series based on the acclaimed novels by Edward
St. Aubyn tracks Patrick from a privileged but deeply traumatic
childhood in the South of France through severe substance abuse in his
twenties in New York and, ultimately, toward recovery back home in
Britain. At once harrowing and hilarious, Oscar® nominee and Emmy®
winner Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the troubled titular character.
The war between hedge fund king Bobby ‘Axe’ Axelrod and
ruthless U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades has gone nuclear and the fallout could be
devastating. They’ve crossed too many lines, broken too many laws and ruined too
many lives. Now, for both men – and everyone around them – self-preservation
is the name of the game. With everything on the line, they’ll do anything to save
themselves. But when loyalty is bought and sold, who can you trust?
The story of 22-year-old Tess, who finds a job at one of the best restaurants in New York and is
quickly intoxicated by the behind-the-scenes world of the restaurant
industry, tasting expensive wines, exploring dive bars, and learning who
she can trust.
Set in a vibrant and changing area of the Eastside of Los Angeles, this
of-the-moment half-hour STARZ Original Series takes place amongst a
Latinx community, where LGBTQ and gender-neutral, -fluid, and empowered voices resonate with pride.
In a small, remote village in upstate Quebec, things have changed.
Locals are not the same anymore - their bodies are breaking down and
they have turned against their loved ones. A handful of survivors hide
in the woods, looking for others.
Stranded after a tragic plane crash, two strangers must forge a
connection to survive the extreme elements of a remote snow-covered
mountain. When they realize help is not coming, they embark on a
perilous journey across the wilderness.
Long past the secrets that brought them together and tore their lives
apart, Noah, Alison, Helen, and Cole are on separate journeys with the
promise of new relationships and a fresh start. But, as the past
continues to surface, they question what they’re holding on to as their
lives keep crashing back into one another.
James
“Ghost” St. Patrick owns Truth, New York’s hottest, up-and-coming new nightclub for the city’s
elite. When he’s not at the club, he’s kingpin of a lucrative drug network. Ghost wants to go legit
but once you’re in, it’s hard to get out.
A team of experts re-investigate the cases of three inmates who claim
they’re innocent. The series follows investigators into prisons and to
the scene of the crimes as they hunt for new evidence, track down
witnesses and talk to law-enforcement, while exposing the flaws in our
criminal justice system.
An intimate portrait of lives in transit, unfolding between Italy and
the Balkan corridor, intercutting two unforgettable refugees stories of
human strength and resilience.
When their headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage, the
Kingsman’s journey leads them to the discovery of an allied spy
organization in the US. These two secret organizations must band
together to defeat a common enemy.
A half-hour comedy that follows Cam Calloway, a basketball phenom in his
early 20s who is suddenly thrust into the limelight after signing a
multi-million dollar contract with a professional basketball team in
Atlanta. Cam, and an unforgettable group of characters, wrestle with the
rewards and pitfalls of stardom, love, and loyalty.
In the futuristic fantasy park known as Westworld, a group of android
“hosts” deviate from their programmers’ carefully planned scripts in a
disturbing pattern of aberrant behavior.
A prestigious Stockholm museum’s chief art curator finds himself in
times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a
controversial new exhibit.
The inspiring real-life story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who
captured the hearts of his city and the world to become a symbol of hope
after surviving the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
In the summer of 1989, a group of bullied kids band together to destroy a
shapeshifting monster, which disguises itself as a clown and preys on
the children of Derry, their small Maine town.
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