Latest

2015

Reviews

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict

November 18, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Lisa Immordino Vreeland continues to merge filmmaking with her love for fashion in Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict after debuting on the film scene with Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel in 2012. A newfound artifact serves as bedrock in Vreeland’s doc as the audience listens to the last interview given by world renowned art collector Peggy Guggenheim.  The interview remains conversational between her and biographer Jacqueline Bogard Weld, which allows Guggenheim…

Read More
Reviews

The Trick with the Gun

November 18, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The Trick with the Gun has a lighthearted voice, but the film shouldn’t be discounted.  Michael McNamara’s documentary is one of the most enjoyable and exhilarating films I’ve seen this year.  Though the film is easy for us in the audience, the same can’t be said for the film’s subjects who face a deadly task. Scott Hammel is a valiant magician whose illusions and motivational speaking have helped inspire young audiences.  He…

Read More
Reviews

Do You Believe?

November 17, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie I believe the saying goes: everybody gets one.  Screenwriters Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon got theirs last year with the highly successful faith-based picture God’s Not Dead.  I was indifferent towards the film featuring an Atheist professor and his devout student debating God’s existence because I genuinely felt the screenwriters didn’t know any better.  I even shrugged off the tasteless ending where the film flips the ultimate bird towards non-believers. A year later, I’m…

Read More
One-on-Ones

Wylie Writes’ One-On-One with Max Joseph

November 14, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Many will recognize Max Joseph from his co-hosting gig on MTV’s Catfish, a modern mystery program featuring Max and Nev Schulman helping online romantics track down their ambiguous lovers.  Faithful viewers of Catfish, however, were given episodes early on in season 4 that were absent of Joseph.  This was because the filmmaker was still busy working on his feature film debut, We Are Your Friends. We Are Your Friends followed a group of pals trying…

Read More
Reviews

Man Vs.

November 14, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Adam Massey’s broiling small-scale thriller Man Vs. follows reality television show host Doug Woods (a Les Stroud clone played by The Three Stooges’ Chris Diamantopoulos) on his latest survival adventure.  Woods gears up for a five-day retreat in Northern Ontario while his production crew camps out far enough away for Doug to fully seclude himself in nature.  As these wilderness shows often hammer in, fire and shelter is critical – Doug builds both using the…

Read More
Reviews
TheGamesMakerstill

The Games Maker

November 13, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Sneaking in under the radar during this year’s final quarter is an uplifting family film called The Games Maker.  For those who take a chance on it, they’ll be as pleasantly surprised as I was when Juan Pablo Buscarini’s film pulled me into a wonderful world of old-fashioned strategy. I say “pleasantly surprised” because the marketing for The Games Maker drives home its whimsy and fantastical elements a little too hard;  so much…

Read More
Reviews

The Reflektor Tapes

November 13, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Kahlil Joseph’s Arcade Fire docu-mishmash titled The Reflektor Tapes is like a fever dream with great music that has gotten too carried away with itself.  I imagine if I listened to the band’s discography and then crashed after a hard day’s work, I would start to visualize this film’s lurid activity. The Reflektor Tapes is one of these examples where you can’t stop fans from flocking to this thing, and newcomers will…

Read More
Reviews

Mavis!

November 12, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie The music in Mavis! wins us over in a flash.  I wouldn’t be surprised if filmmaker Jessica Edwards was actually tempted early on to make a straight concert film instead of a biographical documentary.  Mavis! is much more than the gospel music that enraptured listeners; including musicians Bonnie Raitt, Chuck D, Bob Dylan, and recent collaborator Jeff Tweedy (of Wilco).  The film is about Mavis Staples, the legendary singer behind a voice that…

Read More
Reviews

Kilo Two Bravo

November 12, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Shahbaz Khayambashi Kilo Two Bravo may have surprised me, but Paul Katis’ film would have ultimately been better if it ditched the first and third acts. There is nothing new about the setup of this film: it is yet another bit of neo-white man’s burden propaganda which shows the importance of war while almost completely erasing the local victims of the aggression.  It is only in the second act that the film finds its bearings – turning…

Read More
Reviews

Entertainment

November 11, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The award for this year’s most awkward movie goes to Rick Alverson’s Entertainment, a film rooted in morose career purgatory. Now, the last time I used the term “career purgatory”, it was when I reviewed Lenny Abrahamson’s delightful Frank.  Frank presented the argument that an artist stuck in a creative rut isn’t necessarily the end of the world.  Entertainment proposes a sardonic rebuttal with a comedian (played by real-life alternative comic Gregg Turkington)…

Read More