By BERNIE FLETCHER It’s Hockey Night in Canada. The NHL playoffs are here and long-suffering fans hope to see the Toronto Maple Leafs end their 55-year Stanley Cup drought. Go Leafs Go! The name Dolores Claman may not ring a bell, but everyone knows her iconic music, The Hockey Theme, her gift to Canada’s sport. […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER Who gets to tell their stories? Books and movies help us to look at the world through different eyes and feel empathy for others. Two new films give us a vision of Toronto’s diverse communities. Scarborough is centred around three children who attend a literacy program run by a wonderful social worker […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER If laughter is the best medicine, we could all use a laugh these days. Many of us have hunkered down at home watching comedy classics with a “maple” flavour like Ghostbusters, Airplane and Back to the Future…comfort food for the soul in troubling times. What do you remember about 1972, the year […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER People pass through the Main Street Subway Station every day, but how many know the name of the little park across the street? Stanley G. Grizzle Park runs from Main Street to Chisholm Avenue where the Grizzle family lived for many years. Who was Stanley Grizzle? Born in Toronto in 1918 to […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER Scams seem to be everywhere. Fraudsters try to redistribute wealth from your pocket to theirs. Apparently Canada Revenue is after me. Not only that, but my grandson is in jail, which is odd because I don’t have a grandson. One notorious conman sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap…twice. In Nightmare Alley Bradley […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER Almost two years after a film crew descended on the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant, Nightmare Alley opens this Friday, Dec. 17. The psychological thriller from Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro features a stellar cast, but it takes hundreds of talented people working together behind the scenes to bring a movie to […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER Beachers love our four-legged friends, but critters can be unpredictable. Name these films in which animal actors are put in tricky situations. 1.) In 1961 Sheila Burnford wrote a novel based on her own pets though it wasn’t a true story. Two dogs and a cat travel across the Ontario wilderness trying […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER We all have our “guilty pleasures”, especially during a long pandemic. Sometimes we just want to turn off our brains and laugh at dumb comedies like, well, Dumb and Dumber or Weekend at Bernie’s. I’ve been watching Impeachment: American Crime Story about the President Clinton / Monica Lewinsky scandal of the late […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER Cancer touches all of us, but it can be beaten. Thousands “stood up” to cancer with the Terry Fox Run and the Weekend to Conquer Cancer. With Thanksgiving weekend upon us, it’s a good time to remember small miracles like a healthy “cancer graduate” Lisa Ray taking part in the This is […]
By BERNIE FLETCHER Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been a busy summer for film production in Toronto. Besides the usual superhero fantasies, cameras rolled on some serious dramas about brave women confronting past abuse. Sarah Polley is directing a stellar cast (including Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara and Claire Foy) in Women Talking adapted from the […]
