Hey look! A Friday post, like I keep saying I should do!

This week in NOW, you’ll find my reviews of Netflix’ Space Force, which is bad, and Apple’s Central Park, which is messy but bursting with potential. I also contributed a few capsules to our monthly Netflix and Crave previews; can you tell which ones? (I can’t, I wrote them in a fog.)

Also! It’s Friday, which means a new episode of NOW What introducing a string of interviews with Hot Docs filmmakers about their movies and the issues that inspired them. Today’s features Suzanne Crocker,  the director of First We Eat. My first backdoor pilot! Isn’t that great?

Oh, and the Toronto Jewish Film Festival starts up tomorrow night, so I picked some titles that might be worth watching. I’m helpful like that.

I’ve been trying to get Bruce McDonald for an episode of Someone Else’s Movie  ever since I first conceived of the podcast — and it shouldn’t have been this hard, he lives like five minutes away and we run into each other in the neighborhood at least once a month.

But he works a lot, which I can’t really fault him for doing, so every time we came close to locking down a session he’d have to run off to shoot something. It took a pandemic to get our schedules to line up, mostly because there’s literally nothing else to do.

And you know what? I’m not sorry. Because Bruce — who’s doing an at-home press tour for his new film Dreamland, arriving on VOD Friday — picked Quadrophenia, the undefinable mods-and-rockers fantasia from The Who that became an unlikely midnight-movie in the 80s despite having almost none of the qualities a midnight movie is supposed to have. (As we discuss in the episode, it’s like a Ken Loach film intermittently disrupted by musical montages.)

And that made for an awfully enjoyable conversation, which I think you’ll like if you can bear down through the occasional Zoom audio garble. Still haven’t quite figured this whole remote-recording thing out, I guess.

So give it a listen!  Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher and get it immediately, or download the episode directly from the web.

And don’t forget to check out the latest episode of NOW What while you’re at it; I talk to Hot Docs director of programming Shane Smith about the festival’s decision to take itself online this year, and what that might mean for future editions.

Speaking of Hot Docs, I made some recommendations if you’re trying to sort through the program. But it’s just a sliver of what’s available, so dig deeper. You’re sure to find something that grabs you.

I said I was going be better about blogging, didn’t I. And here we are with another crap-I-forgot update.

So! Friday’s episode of NOW What was an interview with former Toronto city planner (and mayoral candidate) Jennifer Keesmaat about how the pandemic could nudge Toronto towards embracing a cycling infrastructure. It’s a good conversation, you should listen.

And in more conventional movie stuff, I reviewed The Lovebirds, The Painter and the Thief and The Trip to Greece, contributed a few capsules to ourJune Netflix preview and dropped the latest edition of our VOD calendar … which includes a physical-disc recommendation for Shout! Factory’s complete-series Blu-ray of The Good Place, because god dammit we deserve something nice.

I also wrote a thing on Hot Docs announcing its  awards a full two weeks ahead of the festival, because this year is weird and only getting weirder.

… there, I think that’s all of it. How are you holding up?

I know it seems counterintuitive, but I’ve been busy, okay? And here are the fruits of my labor.

Here’s yesterday’s episode of NOW What, in which Toronto city councillor Mike Layton and I talk about the cancellation of this year’s CNE, and what the Ex might look like when it reopens in 2021.

And here’s NOW’s brand-new streaming review digest, where I review Joey Klein’s Castle in the Ground and Shane Belcourt’s Red Rover, both of which I liked very much. It’s different from my weekly VOD roundup, mind you; that’s just a big list of releases with a physical media recommendation stuck in at the end. Both projects have value, you’ll see!

Also, here’s a look at an intriguing new short-film project, Greetings from Isolation, which challenges Canadian filmmakers to shoot something with the tech they have on hand … and has already produced some really interesting work.

And in the next day or so, I’ll have a thing about Hot Docs announcing its 2020 awards two weeks before the festival starts. No, I don’t understand it either.

Now you’re caught up. Enjoy the sunshine!

Hey, look! I remembered!

Here’s the latest episode of NOW WHAT, in which I convene a panel about the ethics and politics of face masks with Nat, Sam and designer Jordan de Ruiter!

And here’s my review of The Eddy, the ambitious and mostly okay new limited series from Netflix!

And here’s a thumbsucker I wrote about film festivals’ inevitable embrace of online editions, and how it’s going to suck but it’ll be the best option for a while.

… oh, and also here’s the latest edition of NOW’s VOD calendar, if you’re looking for something to rent this weekend. (Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables is excellent, but it’s not out until Tuesday.)

Sooo, it’s Monday afternoon already? I’m sorry. I have lost my sense of time, and anything that doesn’t have a big bright blinking deadline just sort of falls to the wayside. I’ll try to keep a more consistent schedule on the blog, as I’m cranking out content pretty much constantly these days.

Here’s Friday’s episode of NOW What, in which Rad, Enzo and I talk to Rechev Browne, an Etobicoke grocery-store worker who is juggling the generalized stress of the pandemic with the entirely specific stress of working a frontline job in the middle of it all. (And yes, another episode is dropping tomorrow. Sorry.)

Also! I reviewed Alice Wu’s lovely new teen romance The Half of It, contributed to our Netflix, Crave and Amazon previews, and did things on the Lakeview diner offering itself up as a free location to filmmakers and Amazon launching its VOD service in Canada. I am a fount of information.