By: Trevor Chartrand In Sorry for Your Loss, a humble everyman with a dead-end job (Justin Bartha), learns of his estranged father’s death shortly after the birth of his own son. In order to claim a sizable inheritance, he’s tasked with spreading his father’s ashes on the playing field of his dad’s favorite football team. The closer Ken (Bartha) gets to the stadium though, the more he learns about his dad and the pathetic legacy…
If you prefer science fiction to be grim, perhaps Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja’s Aniara will be your “thing”. Although I can’t comment on the film’s faithfulness to its source material (Harry Martinson’s Nobel prize winning poem of the same name), Aniara is very good in terms of riveting near-future sci-fi, but it’s definitely for a specific crowd.
Big Brother is an action-comedy with a heart of gold that pulls plenty of punches and heartstrings.
By: Trevor Chartrand I’m Going to Break Your Heart is an observational documentary that explores the relationship between Canadian indie-rock legend Raine Maida and his Juno-Award winning wife Chantal Kreviazuk as they collaborate on their first album together. The couple struggles as all couples do, with the added challenges and frustrations of working together to create art as a team.
Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke have a calling for slacker comedy, though their sense of humour hasn’t been well-received. They collaborated on Happy Madison’s Strange Wilderness, and while that film is pitiful, it’s also exactly what it set out to be – a scrappy stoner comedy conceived by a crew of people who must’ve been on heavy hallucinogens during the making-of. In that sense, it finds success as a guilty pleasure that willingly goes in some weird…
By: Jolie Featherstone The latest film from Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sils Maria) is a classic comedy of manners imbued with dry wit and social commentary aplenty set amongst the bourgeois-bohemian Parisian publishing world.
The How to Train Your Dragon series receives a fulfilling finale with The Hidden World, a sensational sequel that not only ties its saga back to the creation of legendary stories, but also features the best visuals DreamWorks Animation has ever produced.
Ryan White’s The Case Against 8, while very good, was a straightforward example of the documentary genre’s expectations – the film explained a controversial issue, gave a platform to those opposing it, and gave viewers an uplifting feeling about an encouraging future. White’s latest doc Ask Dr. Ruth, while also very good, is different. It presents facts in a way that’s much more personable.
This Is North Preston is a spinning top. One moment, you’ll have your mind made up about what the documentary is presenting only to have your opinion changed a few more times. I was so gobsmacked by the end that I was almost inclined to rewatch the film to see if my opinion would change again – I dare you to find a more riveting documentary than this.
