A Surprising Move from “The Dark Horse”

It’s easy to form a preconceived notion about The Dark Horse before it even begins. The film is based on a true story. It centres on Genesis Potini, a mentally ill chess prodigy. It involves a rag-tag group of underprivileged kids and a national tournament. There’s also a dark side to the film featuring a scary Maori biker gang and hints of a culture clash. Pick your movie cliche: a teacher learning more about himself as he teaches his students, an underdog sports story, a mental illness reclamation project. It’s all there and yet, The Dark Horse never quite feels rote.

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Unknown Retro Future: A “Midnight Special” Review

There’s a governing principle in screenwriting that says a scene should work to raise a question or answer one. The best scenes strive to do both. In this way, a movie pulls the viewer along, introducing new information to urge us from one moment to the next. Good films make us want to know more. There’s an implicit trust that forms here, a pact between audience and filmmaker; the film reassuring that if you give up your time, you will be rewarded with something. But when a movie tosses out more questions than it answers, when its mystery grows beyond proportion, the audience is asked something slightly different. Here, faith is required.

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25 Deep: The Blue Jays’ Adaptive April

In our newest monthly feature (an homage to the great Jonah Keri), intrepid Blue Jays fan Dan Grant takes a look at the current team roster and ranks what he finds within. An important distinction to make is that this set of rankings is not one designed to judge overall talent, current skill, potential upside or even strength of character. It is one simply designed to reflect how important the performance of the ranked players are to the success of the team, both in the recent past and near future. From top to bottom, who’s hot, and who’s not? And more importantly still, who needs to be?

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