Playing like a more intellectual and more comprehensible Pain & Gain, Bart Layton’s American Animals is a clever adaptation of a true crime involving young unconventional thieves who fear their lives are aimless. They decide to be proactive by organizing a score that would later be known as one of the most audacious heists in U.S history.
By: Trevor Chartrand When a documentary filmmaker invests years of their life studying one subject, it goes without saying that this is a subject they have a lot of passion for. However, the real trick is to take this topic – whatever it may be – and get an audience equally invested. As much as the filmmaker may love the subject matter, the viewers need to care too. This is where The Coolest Guy Movie…
Madeline’s Madeline is a one-of-a-kind. I can’t remember the last time a movie was this uncomfortable yet so rewarding and fulfilling.
By: Graeme Howard Simon Baker’s directorial debut Breath (adapted from the international best seller by Tim Winton) is, at first glance, a by-the-numbers coming-of-age surfing tale. However, the audience is treated to a thought-provoking surfing drama that succeeds in capturing the raw nature of the sport, while also exploring the spontaneity of youthfulness and the joyful exploration of curiosity, fear, and self-understanding.
By: Trevor Chartrand The Happytime Gang is here! Directed by the son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, Brian Henson brings us The Happytime Murders, a comedy that takes fun and lovable puppets into some dark new territory.
Some of this year’s most endearing performances get buried by Andrew Bujalski’s faulty filmmaking in Support the Girls.
Toronto filmmaker Sofia Bohdanowicz travels to Paris, France to tentatively live with a colleague’s mother, Juliane Sellam, in the documentary Maison du Bonheur, a boring film that never lives up to its experimental ambition.
Gail Harvey’s latest movie Never Saw It Coming has a title so unintentionally fitting, it makes my head spin.
Crystal Moselle, who made a name for herself as a documentarian with the 2015 hit The Wolfpack, takes inspiration from Larry Clark’s career in her narrative feature debut Skate Kitchen. It’s a seamless transition for Moselle who is experimenting (and subtlety infiltrating) with documentary aesthetics to tell a scripted story about a young woman who is trying to gain acceptance while searching for independence.
