Noel Ransome

“I’ll be honest, I was close to hitting that moment several times,” admits Brandon Gonez, former CP24 anchor and host of the weekly YouTube news and entertainment program, The Brandon Gonez Show. At this particular moment, he’s providing context to an old story; the type of moment journalists of colour often hear about, likely live, and intimately know:

In the era of collaborations, the designer who can work with Disney can call themselves a king, queen, or any godly thing in between. It’s a process: the established company hooks up with the unbaptized designer, who devises the thing that needs a certain tang—giving their product a new swath of tactile flavour. In this case, a movie is coined Sneakerella, a career on the Venn diagram is introduced and Eske Schiralli presents his offering: A medley of kicks.

Somewhere, within the first five minutes of Revenge of the Black Best Friend, a CBC Gem six-part series, is a familiar but very unfamiliar moment:

“When you realized the cheers were stolen, did you stop performing them?” asks the lead Black cheerleader with her fellow head-tilting teammates. The lens homes to the accused, her stunned expression at the ready.

Melisa Ellis understands what it is like to work in spaces where no one looks like her.
While employed with a Canadian bank, a supervisor once told her that she didn’t seem to be the right fit for corporate. “He said this to me on my very first day of training,” Ellis (BA 2015 UTSC) recalls.

A side effect of playing a villain whose villainy is both clear and unmistakable is that it can be surprising when they make you laugh. That’s currently happening with the once part-time Cobra Kai villain Jacob Bertrand, who when asked a question—the sort that attracts your media-trained answer—he doesn’t disappoint:

Desire inspires motivation, and at times, self-destruction. But in the grand scheme, it’s a dance between one of the two. Enter Jamal Burger, a Toronto photographer turned non-profit starter who comes from that in-between.

He stood upright, smiled his debonair smile, and signaled to Hollywood that he was too flawless to ignore.

Such was Sidney Poitier's responsibility. He was every good-intentioned white American's Black friend, every hyper-visible good example. He was the chosen one invited to dinner parties and the exception to the assumed rule. But for Black Americans, he was a comfortable myth — not necessarily the Black man they wanted to mimic, but rather the Black man they needed him to be.

Public art can be for anyone in the same way their meanings can differ for everyone: a counter to oppression, a contour of possibility, or simply an object to lean on.
“Similar to my work with the Toronto sign, what I often try to do is a form of alchemy,” says Danilo Deluxo, the artist behind the first vinyl wrap on the very leaned-on 3D Toronto sign at Nathan Phillips Square. “I take all that negativity and lift it. I always want to make sure we’re presented in a bold, brilliant, and beauti...

Avan Jogia speaks like a man with range. Over the last few decades, the 29-year-old actor, writer, and newly minted director has appeared on TV as a shaggy-haired, much thirsted-after heartthrob (Nickelodeon’s tween sitcom Victorious), a cool-tempered 14th-century king (Spike TV’s Tut), and a sexually fluid actor turned stoner (Starz’s Now Apocalypse), among other parts.
But what seems to unify these dissimilar roles, as Jogia makes sure to mention, comes from the career brand being “boring a...

Yes, some years ago, "Game of Thrones" ended — a walker was killed, a dragon burned a throne, a boy who couldn't become king became the king, and a fanbase went wild. But whatever disappointments "Game of Thrones" ended with, the show still began with undeniable promise.

It should go without saying that knowing thyself ain’t easy. In other words, soul-searching demands action, movement, and even then, there’s the whole mess around finding it. Looking at your reflection, without pause, without shame—traumas and battles incorporated—can be a challenge that many may never have to take on in a lifetime. But if you do, it might help you reason through some things.

Spike Lee has been called many things — activist, historian, filmmaker, artisan, American interrogator, and general examiner of the Black condition. However, fighter may be the most familiar of them. Consider fighting as a shorthand for Lee's artistry, but also as a deceptive quality when his battles — on a script, in a Lee joint, in the news, and at a film festival — are just the byproducts of his truth; a Lee don't-give-a-damn sort of truth.

Next Stop—the CBC Gem anthology comedy series from Toronto creators Jabbari Weekes, Tichaona Tapambwa, and Phil Witmer—asserts an identity before a single frame is shown. It’s right there in the subway reference, “next” and “stop,” that promises two things if you caught the hint: That you’ve heard a TTC stop announcement to the point of hearing it in your dreams; and that this series is as much about a place as it is about a specific group of Torontonians.

Tony Soprano feels about the same we remember him, but his presence in "The Many Saints of Newark" cuts differently. His looming presence is gone, replaced with a younger and more unsure Tony.

When I think about loneliness as a mood, I refer to “the jump”.

The scene, self-explanatory: two people, designated as outcasts, racing along an extending bridge hand in hand. You first notice the eeriness of the stony castle at their backs in contrast to what's ahead.