Spice It Up does something really special that I hope will translate to general audiences. It rips on practically everything that has to do with making a movie, including those brave enough to take on such a task. It even doubles down on its niche by teasing student filmmakers and the amateur qualities they have yet to grow out of. Spice It Up isn’t mean, but it’s self-aware enough to shoot off some well-meaning friendly…
Eddie Mensore’s environmental thriller Mine 9 is a succinct depiction of trapped coal miners in Appalachia. Coming at a time when the preservation of the coal mining industry is improbably and invariably debated, thanks to a political climate incapable of addressing an alternative to fossil fuels, Mine 9 satisfyingly addresses worker’s safety, while interrogating large corporations who allow fatal accidents like this to happen.
Marlon Wayans has gone soft, and it’s the best thing that could’ve happened for his film career.
By: Trevor Chartrand Danish filmmaker/journalist Mads Brügger hits an incredible home run with his latest intense and heartbreaking documentary, Cold Case Hammarskjöld. The film sets out to explore a fifty-year-old unsolved mystery, which is intriguing enough, only to end up unravelling a much larger, gut-churningly appalling conspiracy.
The Toronto Youth Shorts festival is a great platform for aspiring filmmakers and for storytellers with a lot on their mind. I can usually count on the selections to cover themes from cultural reflections to personal discoveries, with an occasional fluffy piece to break up the weight of these programmes.
What do you do when you live in an age of renewed Trumpian nuclear anxiety and wish to express the doomed future of the youth therein? If you’re William Scoular, you make Survival Box, a film so navel-gazing in its execution that, by the end of its runtime, it can only be described as an answer to a question no one asked.
By: Jessica Goddard Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a halfway decent horror movie. However, those who grew up disconcertingly obsessed with the creepiness and morbidity of the anthologies this film is based on will be disappointed.
Just as a thoughtful retirement video or an in memoriam can do, Avi Belkin’s well produced outside-the-box doc Mike Wallace Is Here encapsulates its subject’s career and tells a personal story through archival footage.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but A Wizard’s Tale – a film intended for small children – took me a while to finish. The storytelling, so hyper. The humour, so random. And no matter how many times I rewatched pivotal parts, I was still left dumbfounded. When our heroes reached a kingdom of “balloon-people”, I knew I wasn’t losing it – the movie was.
A rising writer of a Palestinian soap opera tries to cater to everyone, while covering up his own secret, in Sameh Zoabi’s award-winning comedy Tel Aviv on Fire.