Culture

National Observer's reviews of the new movies in Canada.

National Observer joins The Boston Globe and some 350 American newspapers publishing editorials today denouncing Trump's dangerous and demeaning war on the news media.

Members of Canada's Muslim community say recent tensions between Ottawa and Saudi Arabia are affecting some people's ability to perform what's seen in the faith as a fundamental religious right.

The Guardian’s extraordinary Defenders project recorded the deaths of people around the world fighting to save the planet. Here, the series’ lead writer remembers their stories.

Comics, including Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Kimmel, discussed Paul Manafort’s trial and the threat of climate change.

Moving from the pacific coast to the interior of B.C., the landscape and light shifted as a soft breeze became a thick blanket of heat, writes Emilee Gilpin. Five hours later, I heard the commotion, saw the lights and landed on an entire tent city — here was the Kamloopa powwow.

Probably the strangest attempt at retaliation came when Saudi bots started tweeting in support of Quebec independence, implying that Saudi Arabia could have meddled in Canada’s internal affairs during the 1995 referendum, but gracefully chose not to.

This week's movie reviews include Christopher Robin, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood, The King, Letter from Masanjia, and Darkest Minds

An open letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Lisa Thompson was released Wednesday that was co-signed by 21 groups in community and sexual health, reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy.

"You cannot, no matter how educated you think you are, tell our stories without us. That is just not possible. You need us to provide the context, the pain, the suffering, the texture. Without that you’re left with a vapid production that continues to perpetuate stereotypes and ignores our very existence today.” - Steve Bonspiel

This type of commentary brings out the worst in those of us who fear the other, and who want Canada to remain a monolithic nation.

The name of Vancouver's Stanley Park may be up for debate as the city's park board confronts its colonial past and pursues reconciliation.

“We’re being treated as if we’re a criminal organization or a terrorist group. I’m not speaking from a place of power, I’m speaking truth to power. And if people can’t connect the dots to understand that, it means that their level of denial is being enforced, protected and valued by a system that reproduces that." - Ricardo Lamour

"At this point, the only thing I can do to protest Trump is to not spend a penny in the U.S., so I won't be crossing the border until the immigration issue is resolved, and maybe even until he is out of office." - Virginia Champoux

I’ve seen mainstream Quebec columnists who enjoy platforms and media exposure writers of colour can only dream of call the decision by the Montreal Jazz Festival to cancel the show “intellectual terrorism,” “an attack on freedom of speech,” "emotional tyranny," “cultural Apartheid,” “a blow to artistic freedom,” “fascism,” and “censorship." Are you listening to yourselves?