Home About Writing Media Contact

The Latest Articles and Appearances from Rachel Ho

CBC Radio: Edmonton AM •

The legacy of Catherine O'Hara

It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem.

It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.

Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem.
Even Jason Statham Deserves Better Dialogue than ' •

Even Jason Statham Deserves Better Dialogue than 'Shelter' │ Exclaim!

I love a January action slop movie. Plane, Greenland, The Beekeeper — the sloppier the better. Give me a Jason or a Gerard doing the most with a gun and a prayer, and I'm down for the cause. But even I have my limits, and that, apparently, is Shelter, the latest Jason Statham-led movie to take the cinematic graveyard shift of January.Directed by Ric Roman Waugh, Shelter actually contains a compelling story, in theory: a mysterious man (Statham, naturally) living in an abandoned lighthouse with h...
Exclaim! •

'Mercy' Is a Fun Time That Glitches in the Final Minutes │ Exclaim!

Every filmmaker has their thing. Christopher Nolan flips and reverses time, Kelly Reichardt slows cinema down to a simmer, Quentin Tarantino loves feet — and for Timur Bekmambetov, it's telling stories through the screens that dominate our lives.When "screenlife" films became popular in the 2010s, movies like Unfriended and Searching experimented with telling stories through desktop screens and mobile phones, utilizing Skype chats, texting and Google Maps-like applications. The films themselves...
Exclaim! •

Maggie Gyllenhaal Finds a "Kindred Spirit" in Jessie Buckley as She Unveils New Trailer for 'The Bride!' │ Exclaim!

On the heels of Jessie Buckley's Golden Globes win for Hamnet over the weekend, the actor will be back in our cinemas in a hop, skip and electric shock.Written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride! brings to life the Bride of Frankenstein (or as Buckley says in the trailer, "just the Bride") with the Irish actor as the titular betrothed and Christian Bale starring as Frankenstein's monster.The official trailer for the film (due in theatres March 6) gives us an almost musical glimpse at w...
Exclaim! •

Horny Hockey Hijacks January 2026's Streaming Must-Sees (and Must-Skips) │ Exclaim!

To ring in the new year, this edition of streaming recommendations comes courtesy of catching up on a lot of movies and television over the holiday break. From a show I very inaccurately presumed was just about hockey to the medical drama of the moment, it was time well spent on the couch as the snow fell in abundance. It also proved a fruitful time to catch up on the latest Knives Out mystery and a collection of Season 2s of beloved shows. Happy 2026!For more recommendations, read our past edit...
Exclaim! •

'Primate' Is Lean, Gruesome Fun │ Exclaim!

We've rolled into 2026 with a lot going on in the world, and not to make light of any of the very real violence, injustice and helplessness being felt right now: a single-location horror film about a rabid chimpanzee will offer a 90-minute respite from all of this devastation.Johannes Roberts's Primate begins in the middle, with a dashingly gruesome display of Ben (our antagonist chimp) and his vicious physicality. The overuse of the in medias res device has become something of a pet peeve of mi...
Exclaim! •

Monkey Business: 'Primate' Continues Cinema's Simian Tradition │ Exclaim!

Since the dawn of cinema, primates have inspired filmmakers and provoked audiences to visceral levels. Famously in 1933, Kong stormed the Empire State Building in King Kong, while just last year, Osgood Perkins's The Monkey saw a wind-up toy monkey wreak havoc on small town America. Gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, orangutans and the like have been a source of unsettling terror in a variety of ways, perhaps because of their human-like qualities and intelligent nature.In Primate, an original film...
Exclaim! •

'Father Mother Sister Brother': The Eclectic Cast and Where You've Seen Them Before │ Exclaim!

After six years, Jim Jarmusch returns to the silver screen with a typically Jarmuschian film filled with the director's trademark wry humour and poignant commentary on contemporary life, this time focusing in on a complex familial dynamic.Telling the story of three separate families, Jarmusch moulds Father Mother Sister Brother as a triptych. Beginning in Northeast America before heading over to Dublin and Paris, the writer-director investigates the varying relationships of parents and their adu...
Exclaim! •

Exclaim!'s 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2026 │ Exclaim!

Gird your loins, everyone, in 2026 we'll be welcoming back to our screens not only Miranda Priestly, but Paul Atreides, Charli XCX and Heathcliff — oh my!After a relatively lukewarm year for Hollywood in 2025 (save for a few clear favourites, of course), we're looking at a rebound year with some of our greatest directors filling the multiplexes as Denis Villeneuve closes out a trilogy, Christopher Nolan takes on an ancient epic, and the great Steven Spielberg brings us an original science-fictio...
Exclaim! •

'We Bury the Dead' Flips the Script on Zombie Films │ Exclaim!

Even with the resounding success of films like The Babadook and Relic, and not to mention the global impact of the Philippou brothers with Talk to Me and Bring Her Back, Australia still somehow seems like an undercover secret in the world of horror. There must be something in the water Down Under that enables Aussies to not just create visceral films that unsettle the mind, but to layer the horror and tension across, over and under poignant ideas and discussion points.Previously, Zak Hilditch st...
Exclaim! •

Kate Hudson Discusses Opening a New Career Chapter in 'Song Sung Blue' │ Exclaim!

"I think what happens is that when you become famous in something that people love to see you in, like a rom-com, that becomes the thing that people want to continue to put you in, bet on you with," Kate Hudson contemplates.Speaking to Exclaim! in front of a freshly decorated festive backdrop in her Los Angeles home, Hudson is quick to stress that it's not that she doesn't think Hollywood hasn't given her a chance. She's aware of the "many amazing opportunities" the industry has offered her, but...
Exclaim! •

Bradley Cooper and Will Arnett Are Divorced from Expectations in 'Is This Thing On?' │ Exclaim!

The dramatic turn of a comedian has become a time-honoured tradition in Hollywood at this point, and next in line to receive his drama mask is Canada's own Will Arnett.Following years of bringing the funny on Arrested Development, 30 Rock, BoJack Horseman and many other shows (and lending his gravely baritone to Lego Batman, and those unfortunate RBC commercials), Arnett takes on a role that not only broadens his dramatic abilities, but one that also delivers a more personal side to the actor we...
CBC Podcasts: Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud •

Rob Reiner's legacy, plus the shows and movies you may have missed this year

Elamin Abdelmahmoud chats with critics Roxana Hadadi, Rachel Ho, and Radheyan Simonpillai about their favourite Rob Reiner movies, his impact on the entertainment industry, and the best things they watched this year that didn't get enough love.

Thumbnail photo: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for TCM

Commotion is where you go for thoughtful and vibrant chat conversations about all things pop culture. Host Elamin Abdelmahmoud calls on journalists, critics, creators and friends to talk through the biggest arts and entertainment stories of the day.

Subscribe to our podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/74eCEvD5LU56cNRrhzNSAb
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/commotion-with-elamin-abdelmahmoud/id1531347005
Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/commotion
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/commotioncbc

#podcast #popculture #robreiner
POV Magazine •

Investigating the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous - POV Magazine

Every year, we’re inundated with narrative biopics about our favourite singers, actors, athletes and political figures. The way Hollywood moves now, it has become a rite of passage for “legacy acts” in particular to receive the biographic treat­ment at some point, typically within their lifetime.
Often these dramatizations are produced adjacent to a documen­tary that tends to provide a more thorough and thoughtful retelling of their stories. For example, Asif Kapadia’s powerful 2015 documentary...
Exclaim! •

'The Housemaid' Makes a Mess of '90s Tropes │ Exclaim!

We often bemoan the death of the mid-budget film that would fill out theatres for a few weeks and enjoy a rich second life on the stands of video rental stores for months, or even years. While many filmmakers today adapt to the 2025 blockbuster-or-bust approach of Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve and James Cameron, some directors have tried to keep the mid-budget movie alive, like Paul Feig. But even the man who brought us Bridesmaids can't spin an airport novel into the mid-budget magic of y...
CBC Arts •

Three TV shows and movies that should have gotten more love this year | CBC Arts

Let’s be honest: there are so many movies and TV shows to watch out there, and so little time.As the year winds down, Commotion is taking one last look back at the year on screen, to shed some light on the shows and films that may have flown under your radar.Today on the show, critics Roxana Hadadi, Rachel Ho and Radheyan Simonpillai join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to make their pitch for the best things they watched this year that didn’t get enough love.We've included some highlights below, edite...
Exclaim! •

Kate Winslet Discusses Directorial Debut: "I Don't Believe in Manipulating Audiences" │ Exclaim!

The imminence of death can inspire some seemingly inappropriate behaviour — and not necessarily from the one laying in wait, but rather their loved ones, who are also waiting in their own way."When you're losing someone, there are odd things that happen," Kate Winslet says with pause. "You laugh and you're like, 'Oh my gosh, why am I laughing? This is so twisted.'"It's an element of her latest film, Goodbye June, that she's particularly proud of: the raw and authentic portrayal of watching someo...
Exclaim! •

James Cameron Blue It with the Script for 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' │ Exclaim!

James Cameron has long said that he had to wait for technology to catch up with his ideas in order to bring his epic Avatar franchise to life. His 2009 re-hashing of Pocahontas in blue used new motion capture technology and other VFX innovations to create a spectacle in 3D. Thirteen years later, Avatar: The Way of Water offered a visually stunning film, proving Cameron didn't simply spend the decade-plus in between films counting his box office coin. A short-for-Cameron three years later, a thir...
Exclaim! •

December 2025's Streaming Naughty or Nice List │ Exclaim!

Evidently Netflix isn't just out to grab the Warner Bros. catalogue — they want to replace Lifetime as well. The streamer has an almost impressive amount of holiday movies this year to pop onto the background while fussing over appetizers and gift wrapping, although only a few can truly hold the attention. Disney also gets into the holiday spirit with the Jonas Brothers, while Prime Video attempts to be merry and bright with a new girl and a Hollywood legend.Wishing everyone a safe and happy hol...
Exclaim! •

Park Chan-wook Explores Fragile Yet Relatable Masculinity in 'No Other Choice' │ Exclaim!

"Korea, especially, has stronger traces of a patriarchal society of the past," director Park Chan-wook muses about his country's culture, "and especially Korean men with a family."Speaking to Exclaim! through an interpreter the day after the North American premiere of his latest film, No Other Choice, at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Korean auteur is pensive and possibly a bit road-weary, having hit the festival circuit going from Venice to Toronto within a week's time. After scre...
CBC News: The National •

Paramount launches hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros.

Paramount Skydance made a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery for $108 billion US just days after Netflix announced it made a $72-billion US deal with the legacy studio. It’s a move that even has U.S. President Donald Trump weighing in.

The National is the flagship of CBC News, showcasing award-winning journalism from across Canada and around the world. Led by Chief Correspondent Adrienne Arsenault, our team of trusted reporters helps you make sense of the world, wherever you are.

Subscribe to get the latest news daily, and watch live starting at 9 p.m. ET.
https://www.youtube.com/user/CBCTheNational?sub_confirmation=1

More from CBC News | https://www.cbc.ca/news
Exclaim! •

Exclaim!'s 10 Hidden Gem Movies of 2025 │ Exclaim!

With all due respect to all the other end-of-year lists we've all worked so tirelessly on, this is the list our Film Editor favours the most. Given the sheer quantity of theatrical releases and streaming options every single week, it's easy for incredible films to miss our radars — and, in all fairness, a few of these movies will be less known because of algorithms, distribution companies or other industry forces.It's easy to press play on the movies streaming services thrust onto your homepage,...
Exclaim! •

Exclaim!'s 10 Most Disappointing Films and TV Series of 2025 │ Exclaim!

For every movie and show that we recommend until we're blue in the face, there will inevitably be those that don't quite add up. It's not to say that they're bad — in truth, most of the titles listed here are reasonably well-crafted, -performed and -written — they just failed to live up to their potential.Perhaps its another music biopic falling on its boring face, or a documentary about a Canadian icon being so maple syrupy sweet that it does a disservice to the subject, or maybe it's the final...
Exclaim! •

Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckely and Chloé Zhao Hail the "Great Selflessness" of Shakespeare in 'Hamnet' │ Exclaim!

"There is selfishness that comes with the expression of art, but there's also great selflessness," Paul Mescal says thoughtfully.It's a sentiment that lies at the heart of the Irish actor's latest film, Hamnet. An adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's historical fiction novel about the death of William Shakespeare's young son Hamnet and the play that was (speculatively) born out of the tragedy, Mescal portrays the great playwright during one of his darkest moments.In O'Farrell's novel, which she adap...
Load More