Articles by Addison Wylie

Festival Coverage

Canadian Film Fest 2025: ‘Gold Bars: Who the F*ck Is Uncle Ludwig?’

Surly lawyer Glenn “Joseph” Feldman is certain that a former business partner was profiting from a hidden stash of stolen Nazi gold.  In fact, Joseph’s infamous conviction becomes detrimental to his career and personal life, and has brought on a defamation lawsuit against him by his old friend.  His skeptical and inquisitive daughter, Alex, wants to help bring closure to this chapter with some tough love and some outsider expertise. Billie Mintz’s documentary looks slick…

Reviews

The Penguin Lessons

The Penguin Lessons is a period dramedy that sings a familiar song but director Peter Cattaneo knows how to play this music really well. With The Full Monty and Military Wives under his belt, it only makes sense for Cattaneo to keep churning out audience-friendly biopics that are inspired by, or based on, true stories. Steve Coogan (of Greed and Alan Partridge fame) portrays Tom Michell, an educator who travels to Argentina to teach English to teenage boys and…

Uncategorized

Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants

The understanding that animals in their natural habitat lead a healthier life than caged and displayed animals is, I hope, a generalization that everyone can agree on. Even though this is safe to assume, seeing comparative footage of these two examples can act as such an eye-opener. In Lucy: The Stolen Lives of Elephants, activist/filmmaker Fern Levitt exhibits this same comparative method to educate viewers on the controversies of captured elephants. As a launchpad for…

Reviews

Magazine Dreams

Jonathan Majors gives one of the best performances you’ll ever see in Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams. Bynum’s sophomore feature (co-produced by Nightcrawler filmmaker Dan Gilroy) is centred around an aspiring bodybuilder, Killian Maddox (Majors), who works as a bag boy at a local supermarket when he isn’t pushing himself at the gym or demonstrating his muscular build at competitions. Maddox takes his passion for body building very seriously, which also means that Killian eats, sleeps, and breathes his…

Festival Coverage

Canadian Film Fest 2025: ‘Vampire Zombies…from Space!’

Vampire Zombies…from Space!: if you think that title tries hard to impress the audience, wait ’til you see the movie! Vampire Zombies…from Space! aims to be a pastiche of black-and-white creature features of the 1950s. Director Michael Stasko (co-writting with Alex Forman) nails the visual attributes of this era, yet always remembers that he’s making a cornball comedy. The best jokes in Stasko’s film are the gags that don’t necessarily satirize the genre or the period,…

Reviews

Can I Get a Witness?

Going from one perception of dystopia (O’Dessa) to another, Can I Get a Witness? proposes a much “sunnier” version. At least, on the surface. Canadian filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming pitches a reality where the Earth’s sustainability is balanced and resolved. The only trade-offs being that nobody can use technology or travel or live past 50. If you’re reaching that age, an end-of-life ceremony (of the sacrifice’s preference) is prepared where you’ll self-euthanize yourself. In your presence, as…

Reviews

O’Dessa

Take dystopian science fiction, spike it with musical numbers, and add a delayed pinch of satire – you just whipped up a glass of Geremy Jasper’s O’Dessa. The film is punchy and boasts confidence and attitude and, yet, still doesn’t feel like it completely commits to its concepts. Jasper condenses, what feels like, a self-penned series into a single movie. But just like what usually happens with trilogies, a strong start is followed by a…

Reviews

We Forgot to Break Up

We Forgot to Break Up, a great Canadian indie, will make movie goers feel like they’re part of the film’s featured band. A fitting experience considering the leading musicians always feel part of their own collective; no matter how old they are, how inspired or bored they become, and despite feeling the strain of their own growing pains. Canadian filmmaker Karen Knox (Adult Adoption) chronicles the pinballing career of The New Normals, a fictitious trans-fronted…

Reviews

Seven Veils

Academy Award nominee May December and, now, Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils are cut from the same cloth. Yet, I don’t know how to classify these types of heightened melodramas. These movies are not outright funny, but they have strange moments that are so deliberately jarring, the audience can’t help but giggle out of confusion. While this is a unique concoction, and can help the filmmaker achieve a specific brand of campiness, juxtaposing heavy themes within this…

Reviews

Night of the Zoopocalypse

Last Halloween, Netflix released a short spin-off of Sing featuring the animated cast taking part in a fairly faithful recreation of John Landis’ iconic music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”. It was an innocuous distraction, fit for the season, that introduced kids to zombies. Any kid who was interested, entertained, or joyfully spooked by that short film should make Night of the Zoopocalypse their next watch. It’s basically a longer version of that short film except, in this…