Articles by Alisha Mughal

iskwē's Vulnerable Strength: "I Had a Good Front, but I Was a Mess"

PUBLISHED Apr 9, 2024

When I ask iskwē why she recorded her fourth and latest album, 'nīna,' in Mexico City, she smiles in that honeyed way of hers that leaves...

Talia Schlanger Finds a Gentle Resilience on 'Grace for the Going'

PUBLISHED Feb 5, 2024

On 'Grace for the Going,' Talia Schlanger is complex and paradoxical, brilliantly balancing an impressive duality...

'Anyone but You' Is Anything but Convincing

Directed by Will Gluck

PUBLISHED Dec 22, 2023

There's something hollow about Anyone but You. In the now-well-known introduction to the film's trailer, costars Glen Powell and Sydney Swe...

Dogstar Turned Toronto into Reeves's Palace

Lee's Palace, December 9

PUBLISHED Dec 11, 2023

An hour after the frothy cinematic surf of California's Archer Oh washed away, a hush fell over the full house at Lee's Palace.  The garag...

'Thanksgiving' Is Basted in Blood

Directed by Eli Roth

PUBLISHED Nov 17, 2023

In 2007, Eli Roth and Jeff Rendell wrote a short film called Thanksgiving, with Roth directing what was effectively a two-minute-long spoof...

Yukon Blonde's 'Shuggie' Asks More of Life

PUBLISHED Oct 10, 2023

What does it mean to write in the second person? In literature, it means a great many hefty things, mostly to do with ascription. But in po...

'The Exorcist: Believer' Is Possessed by Being a Terrible Movie

Directed by David Gordon Green

PUBLISHED Oct 6, 2023

Near the end of William Friedkin's 1973 groundbreaking masterpiece The Exorcist, based on William Peter Blatty's electrifying book of the s...

Highlands Music Festival Stopped Time at Camp Walden

PUBLISHED Oct 5, 2023

Cell reception is lost about 10 kilometres before you need to turn off the two-lane highway curtained by thick wilderness — trees changing...