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The Latest Articles and Appearances from Rachel Ho

Exclaim! •

Head to Muskoka with August 2026's Streaming Must-Sees (and Must-Skips) │ Exclaim!

Batman, pickleball, '80s cocaine, Muskoka, oh my!August's streaming options appeal to each of ours senses with varying degrees of success. Some series level up from the previous season, while a coming-of-age cottagecore series and a topical limited series make its mark. We've also got some time-wasters — a single location horror that confuses more than it frightens, and an ode to the '80s that's as bland as it is idiotic.For more recommendations, read our past editions of Tune In or Turn Off her...
Exclaim! •

'The End of Oak Street' Is the Year's Best Spielberg Movie │ Exclaim!

The End of Oak Street could only have been made by a filmmaker who grew up with Michael Myers and Jurassic Park, which I have to assume writer-director David Robert Mitchell did. A film so indelibly influenced by Steven Spielberg, The End of Oak Street gives it the old Cornell try in adapting the Amblin soul for modern audiences.The film opens with a situating montage drowning in 1970s/'80s nostalgia so saccharine it becomes nearly comical. A neighbourhood block party with sack races, the clicki...
Exclaim! •

'One Night Only' Is Curiously Optimistic │ Exclaim!

A world where the government dictates who can have sex and when doesn't exactly scream a natural setting for a happy-go-lucky rom-com. Director Will Gluck challenges that notion.In One Night Only, we're haphazardly placed into an America that's criminalized premarital sex through what's known as "the Mandate." Domestic news outlets report on the decreased rates of sexually transmitted diseases and the absence of teenage pregnancies, while international news agencies look on in amusement, bewilde...
Exclaim! •

'Rosebush Pruning' Director Karim Aïnouz on the Magic of Pamela Anderson: "She Read My Mind" │ Exclaim!

Two years ago, director Karim Aïnouz was at Cannes premiering his film Motel Destino. The film was selected to compete for the festival's coveted Palme d'Or (Anora would go on to win the prize that year), but Aïnouz's focus was on casting another project, a loose adaptation of Marco Bellocchio's 1965 film Fists in the Pocket that would go onto be titled Rosebush Pruning.At that point, Aïnouz had spoken to two actors to take on the role of Mother: a fleeting but important character in the film, w...
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'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' Is the Same Old Story for Marvel │ Exclaim!

It's a new dawn, a new day and a new life for Tom Holland's Peter Parker, and he is not feeling good.Ever since Peter had Doctor Strange neuralyze the world Men in Black-style so everyone would forget about Peter's existence, the Queens kid's been feeling a bit lonesome. Unlike the previous Home-themed Spider-Man movies' youthful upbeat energy, Spider-Man: Brand New Day begins with an emo, angst-ridden 2000s music video aesthetic — rain beading on the windows included.With no one remembering Pet...
Exclaim! •

'I Want Your Sex' Brings Complexity to Horniness │ Exclaim!

Considering how anti-sex Gen Z appears to be, especially when it comes to their viewing preferences, this year's slate of films and television has been very sex-forward. From the modern take on Wuthering Heights to two Apples series, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed and Margo's Got Money Troubles, and even the late-2025 phenomenon Heated Rivalry, storytellers have been captivated by the effect of sex on the individual and society's struggle between its archaic and progressive judgments.The latest add...
Exclaim! •

'Racewalkers' Filmmakers Reject Claims That "You Can't Do Comedy Like You Used To" │ Exclaim!

"I don't think we're in a spot where you can't do comedy like you used to," Phil Moniz, co-director/writer/lead of Racewalkers, says, addressing the oft-brought up opinion surrounding the state of comedy. "I think you just have to do it smartly."Kevin Claydon, also co-director/writer/lead, agrees: "You don't need to be punching down to make something funny."The Toronto duo heel-toe into the hip-swaying world of racewalking, where a washed up baseball player becomes the athletic muse of an undere...
Exclaim! •

'The Outer Threat' Never Finds Its Home World │ Exclaim!

In a year where Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day reunited us with a big studio close encounter, cinema is ready for the indie counter-attack. On its surface, The Outer Threat appears to have all the workings to fill this need — thoughtful performances, big ideas, well-executed visual effects on a budget — but it just misses the mark of becoming a hidden gem sci-fi indie à la The Vast of Night.The film begins with a tactile montage of Daniel (Mark O'Brien) taking his morning coffee on a short wa...
Exclaim! •

Don't Judge a Movie by Its Marketing in July 2026's Streaming Must-Sees (and Must-Skips) │ Exclaim!

The air sucks and it's hotter than the tenth circle of hell out there — never has a summer demanded more that we stay indoors and put our streaming subscriptions to good use.Chow down on the final season of once-beloved dark comedy, and start a journey to New England's wannabe finest with an actually comedic dark comedy. Revel in Hannah Waddingham's assassin badassery, and then be completely won over by a flock of sheep who demand justice.Also, Elvis's concert doc has finally hit streaming in Ca...
Exclaim! •

'The Odyssey' Is a Step in a Journey │ Exclaim!

Christopher Nolan has developed a reputation as a filmmaker obsessed with time and how its manipulation can effect storytelling. It's been a calling card of sorts for one of the preeminent directors of his generation, and one that's well-earned. Perhaps it's because Nolan's been so good at bending time all these years that I've been blinded to the fact that, actually, the through-line of his films has always been home.Whether it's a literal place or in the figurative sense, from Cobb in Inceptio...
Exclaim! •

Denis Villeneuve Brings the NFB to 'Dune,' Shouts Out Montreal Restaurant That's His "Favourite Spot on Earth" │ Exclaim!

During a global fan event in support of Dune: Part 3 this week, director Denis Villeneuve shared how the National Film Board of Canada influenced the conclusion of his space opera trilogy."I was raised watching experimental movies from [the] National Film Board," he said. "That's where my cinematic education started. I wanted to bring that experimental feeling to Dune: Part 3. To do so, I created a special, small unit — very tiny unit — of a few filmmakers and their task was to do experiments in...
Exclaim! •

'Evil Dead Burn' Is the "Perfect Playground" for Character-Driven Horror — Even When Its Stars Are Too Scared to Watch It │ Exclaim!

The cast members of Evil Dead Burn, the franchise's sixth film that opens in cinemas this Friday (July 10), understand what it means to be the current torchbearers of the Evil Dead legacy. More importantly, they respect what the lore means to those who have been following each story since Ash and his crew went on vacation up in the hills of Tennessee 45 years ago."The fans are so dedicated," says Luciane Buchanan, who plays Thya in the film. "They're also so knowledgeable of the world, more so t...
Exclaim! •

We'd Be Wise to Take a Lesson from 'Peter Asher: Everywhere Man' │ Exclaim!

Although presented as a docu-profile of one of music's great behind-the-scenes players, Peter Asher: Everywhere Man finds its step more as a meditation on life's long and winding roads. Armed with talent, hard work and favourable happenstances, Peter Asher may not have always forced the spotlight on himself, but he consistently lived on the periphery of those who revelled in it.By any metric, Peter Asher has led an extraordinary life built on talent, hard work and happenstances. The musician, pr...
Exclaim! •

'The Bear' Returns to Greatness in Fifth and Final Season │ Exclaim!

The Bear has been quite a whirlwind. The first two seasons were the best TV series in their respective years, but Christopher Storer's highly strung series didn't complete the three-peat in 2024; Exclaim! named Seasons 3 and 4 in our lists of the years' biggest disappointments.Now in its final season, Storer gives us a story that redeems his previous two efforts. The noise level has reduced, the fuck-yous are at a minimum, and yet the spirit of what made The Bear must-stream television remains....
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Angelina Jolie Steals Focus as 'Couture' Drags On │ Exclaim!

Among the spiderweb of stories spun by the various fashion models in Alice Winocour's Couture, a makeup artist attempts to pitch a book around her interactions with clients. A piece of feedback she receives, via the script written by Winocour, is that while all the stories she writes about may be real, not all are interesting. That is, not every story warrants being told.In theory, I disagree with this sentiment: seemingly mundane stories about seemingly unremarkable people have been the basis o...
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Craig Gillespie and Milly Alcock Make 'Supergirl' "So Oddly Human" │ Exclaim!

"What's really exciting for me about this film is to have a female superhero that is not perfect, that is embracing those imperfections," Supergirl director Craig Gillespie tells Exclaim! over Zoom. Milly Alcock, sitting next to her director, enthusiastically nods in agreement.Alcock is the latest to don the red, blue and gold uniform, leading the first Supergirl film since Helen Slater bore the iconic emblem in 1984 to less than stellar results. This time around, co-chairmen and co-CEOs of DC S...
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Nicolas Cage Channels Bugs Bunny in June 2026's Streaming Must-Sees (and Must-Skips) │ Exclaim!

As World Cup fever sweeps the nation and summer blockbuster season kicks off, we turn to streaming to fill those in-between moments — in between matches, in between acts at our favourite music festivals, in between day drinking and bonfires.Luckily this month brings a wealth of options: international music docs, Nicolas Cage and a few underrated series that deserve all of our attention. Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez and Jason Segel deliver middling film options that we can take or leave.For more rec...
The Globe and Mail •

Sheila McCarthy explores mother-daughter relationships in new horror film The Voices of Our Mother

Reflecting on the death of her mother, legendary Canadian actor Sheila McCarthy remembers that time as being “such a heartbreaking watershed moment.” She describes knowing that you have become the generation the rest of the family looks to for care and guidance as “a hard pill to swallow sometimes.”

As a parent of her own kids, she wondered, “What am I doing to screw them up? What am I doing that they’re going to hold against me?”

This idea of the familial life cycle runs throughout McCarthy’s...
Exclaim! •

'Scary Movie' Picks Up Right Where It Left Off │ Exclaim!

It's been 25 years since the Wayans family brought audiences a Scary Movie, and it's safe to say they haven't missed a beat. Although Scary Movie technically marks the sixth entry in the parody franchise, the first family of comedy has been noticeably missing since Scary Movie 2. David Zucker (of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker) made a valiant effort with Scary Movie 3 and 4 (the less said about 5, the better) by bringing in satire heavyweights like Leslie Nielsen and Charlie Sheen, but the film los...
The Globe and Mail •

D-Day thriller Pressure is the Saving Private Ryan of meteorology

Pressure

Directed by Anthony Maras

Written by David Haig and Anthony Maras

Starring Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser and Kerry Condon

Classification PG; 100 minutes

Opens in theatres May 29

Critic’s Pick

Arguably no other moment in history has been more memorialized in cinema than D-Day. From the 1962 epic The Longest Day that captured the scale of the attack to the visceral opening sequence in Saving Private Ryan, Hollywood has had a particular fascination with the invasion that would secure...
Exclaim! •

'Best Boy' Is Absurdly Universal │ Exclaim!

Writer-director Jesse Noah Klein offers up some wild visuals and circumstances in Best Boy. From two siblings instinctively stripping down and saying, without shame, "I lost so I am a loser" to the matriarch of this bizarre family sporting a cape and horned helmet, the film delivers one ridiculous notion after another. The ingeniousness of Best Boy lays in its ability to boil down the preposterous to reveal something strangely moving and, against all odds, universal.The film begins with the deat...
Exclaim! •

'I Love Boosters' Is Boots Riley's Most Audacious Takedown of Capitalism Yet │ Exclaim!

Across all of Boots Riley's work, whether in film, television or music, a sharp critique of capitalism prevails. Alongside this examination, Riley has always offered his audience optimism and an encouragement to fight against the systems that created this social construct and the people who steadfastly maintain its position.Riley's latest movie, I Love Boosters, takes these concepts hand-in-hand and pushes them to their extremes in the filmmaker's most audacious work yet.To deliver upon his mess...
Exclaim! •

'Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu' Is Low-Risk, Low-Reward │ Exclaim!

The concept of the "bottle episode" dates back to the 1960s when Leslie Stevens, creator of The Twilight Zone-esque television show The Outer Limits, coined the phrase to mean an episode of television made at a very low cost, like pulling a show out of a genie's bottle. The idea is to sacrifice the budget of one episode in order to allocate the savings toward another episode. Because of this, bottle episodes tend to be self-contained stories with no impact on the primary arc of a season of telev...
Exclaim! •

'Is God Is' Ascends with Righteous Anger and Holy Retribution │ Exclaim!

The "angry Black woman" stereotype has survived generations and currently experiences an unsettling life on the internet. The beauty of Aleshea Harris's Is God Is comes from the spaghetti Western mythologizing of this idea as an ecumenical practice, creating one of the most uniquely visceral films in recent years.The film follows twin sisters, Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson), both of whom literally and figuratively carry the scars of their father's abuse. Anaia has received the b...
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