Film critic | Peter Howell Night Vision

"Dune" climbs the sci-fi mountain as a film ripe for modern times

Denis Villeneuve creates a blockbuster for the eye, the mind and the now.

All icing and no cake in Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch"

A film anthology that's too much of everything and not enough of anything.

The Velvet Underground on pink bananas, Jimi Hendrix and denying the influence

Taking the temperature of the coolest band ever.

"No Time to Die" needs James Bond to rescue it from itself

The name is Craig, Daniel Craig.

Julia Ducournau's Palme d'Or winner "Titane" seeks paradise by the dashboard light

Body-horror shocker revs up the extremes of filmmaker's earlier "Raw."

The garden of sin and death that is "The Many Saints of Newark"

Film prequel to "The Sopranos" is more like a pilot for a future TV series.

The 10 Best Films of TIFF 2021

"The Power of the Dog," "Dune" and "Spencer" topped my Toronto International Film Festival hit parade.

TIFF '21 midway catch-up — the good and the not so good

"Neptune Frost" and "A Hero" are good, "Last Night in Soho" and "Listening to Kenny G" are not so good.

Jessica Chastain on playing Tammy Faye Bakker: "She just sounds like such a kick"

It's OK to stare, but there's more going on behind the painted face.

Read all about it: 10 Hot Picks for the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival

Ten must-see features, plus a bonus short, at TIFF 2021 (Sept. 9-18)

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Movies I can't live without

Toronto Star movie critic Peter Howell has written a book about his 25 favourite movies, with highly personal reviews from Apocalypse Now to The Wizard of Oz.

Here's a sample of his review of 2001: A Space Odyssey, his all-time favourite film:

"It was billed as The Ultimate Trip and the hyperbole was justified, then as now.

Stanley Kubrick's space opus still seems like the future, 52 years after its release and 19 years after its significant title year. It never gets old and I never tire of seeing it, even after 50-plus viewings..."