By: Addison Wylie As much as I love Wild Card’s straight-to-the-point capsule synopsis, it’s a little misleading. In the e-mail I received describing Jason Statham’s latest film, it read: “A recovering gambling addict finds work providing protection to his friends. Statham-style action follows.” Statham-style action does follow, and it’s a sock to the solar plexus. However, it’s not as frequent as you would imagine from the gruff action star who has kicked so much ass…
By: Addison Wylie Bradley Cooper has shown time after time how worthy of a performer he is. Many will agree that the Pennsylvanian native is one of the best actors working today. And, his producer credits show audiences he isn’t afraid to challenge himself. American Sniper, Clint Eastwood’s latest film and produced by leading star Cooper, is another example of how strong the actor is. Not only is his performance as real life war sniper…
By: Addison Wylie There’s an unspoken rule to being a film critic that states we’re not allowed to complain about our job. We are offered free movies, we get to talk to fascinating people, and we get to offer our two cents to our own moviegoing communities. But, I would like to think – every once in a while – we’re allowed to vent about how much mediocrity we take in on a yearly basis….
Tru Love hits Toronto’s Carlton Cinema today, and it’s a wise choice to support it. While it occasionally dabbles as a soap opera, I found its romantic intimacy lovely. The characters are innocent when facing the premise, which makes their maturity manifest naturally. Recently, I talked Tru Love shop with the film’s co-directors, Kate Johnston and Shauna MacDonald. We discussed the film’s snowcapped Toronto setting, the importance of setting a general tone, and if post-production altered that original mood….
By: Addison Wylie The 50 Year Argument documents the persuasive, opinionated history of the highly regarded publication The New York Review of Books. The film chronicles the exclusive timeline decently, although the doc’s pacing and organization feels like it keeps us in our seats for fifty years. In the early 60’s, during the New York printers strike, The New York Review of Books found its footing as a magazine that didn’t feel tethered by opposing…
By: Addison Wylie The Humbling is one greasy ham of a film. It has no plan. It has no skill. It knows no volume. When director Barry Levinson senses the audience is recognizing how little his film has to offer, he has his actors yell and ramble. Not many movies get more annoying than The Humbling. I had found a redeeming quality in Levinson’s film, and I desperately hoped that detail would grow into the…
By: Addison Wylie As much as technology has progressed and storytelling has creatively evolved, the film industry still remains on a playing field where movie goers – all too easily – can look at a project and label it as something that’s either for males or for females. Of course, there are exceptions, but this sort of divvying haplessly exists. Moviemaking thankfully advances as films open themselves for its audience to overlap. When I sat…
By: Addison Wylie An onslaught of revolting violence is on display in Killers. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you nauseous, wondering how the filmmakers choreographed such hard-hitting nastiness. The bloodshed, however, has a purpose and contributes to the cunning study of obsession Killers also displays. This Indonesian hybrid of a thriller and a horror looks at the digital age’s fascination with snuff and the power of control. The story, written by Takuji Ushiyama…
By: Addison Wylie I consider Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson as two of today’s most capable actors. Elba is becoming more of a household name thanks to his appearances in Marvel’s universe, and his highly regarded turn as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. Henson remains as someone who makes you breathe a sigh of relief when they suddenly grace the screen in middling fare like Date Night and Larry Crowne. She…
By: Gesilayefa Azorbo Last Days in Vietnam, directed by Rory Kennedy, is a gripping look back at the massive, often unsanctioned evacuations of South Vietnamese citizens and Americans in Vietnam that were undertaken in the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War. This is a story told through meticulously researched archival footage and interviews with key players in the US and Vietnamese military and state departments – including Henry Kissinger himself – as well as…