‘Midnight at the Paradise’ is a Love Letter to Film, Music, and the City of Toronto
'Midnight at the Paradise' premieres tomorrow at Toronto's Paradise Theatre! I had the pleasure to sit down with Vanessa Matsui to discuss the making of this film.

Young yakuza Shujiro Hanada goes to prison after losing his cool in a rigged gambling game and slashing a few other players. When he's released in 1927, the world has changed. His sister died in the Great Kanto Earthquake and his father is also gone. His brother Jukichi invites him to stay at his in-laws and works in their family pub. He lies low, helping his blind mother-in-law and slowly developing a relationship with Ikuye, the hostess who helped him before his arrest. But trouble lurks when the resident gang decides to show its strength.
'Midnight at the Paradise' premieres tomorrow at Toronto's Paradise Theatre! I had the pleasure to sit down with Vanessa Matsui to discuss the making of this film.
Released on Disney+ during the pandemic, this musical tells the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton and depicts the formation of the United States with a diverse cast.
Sorry to Bother You ultimately speaks to the unfair advantages that the country’s power structures award to those with the resources to control others, as Lift’s easy access to the media allows his opinion to be the only one that matters in the eyes of the unsuspecting and easily impressed public. Moreover, it reveals the extent to which the American Dream has any true validity. It postulates how the promise of success and fulfillment as promoted by the American Dream more often than not leads to the undoing of the individual. Interestingly, in its revealing of the American Dream as merely a facade, Sorry to Bother You wisely questions whether or not anything can really be done to undo a system that has been accepted and in action for centuries.
Although bogged down by a slow pace and moralistic intent, ‘Deadly Garage Sale’ (2022) makes the most of its silly and nonsensical premise.
There is no aspect of this film that falls short, except perhaps in minor ways.
Soul takes intangible concepts like self and personality and makes them completely palpable and simple to digest.