By: Trevor Jeffery The Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival screens at the Innis College Cinema on Saturday, August 8, and I’ll be co-judging the event along with other selected online journalists. However, I was lucky enough to be given a sneak peek at some of the submissions.
By: Addison Wylie Ecology activists finally have their own Muscle Shoals. Just as Muscle Shoals made audiences feel as if they were living through incredible years of music, Jerry Rothwell’s How to Change the World takes the viewer through a vivid recollection of the conception of Greenpeace. Paul Watson, Patrick Moore among others (including Robert Hunter, who co-founded the movement which promotes anti-war and eco-friendliness) are interviewed about various expeditions that were eye-openers to the public…
By: Addison Wylie Horror masterminds Richard Powell and Zach Green will always pull the best performances out of character actor Robert Nolan. This has been the case with their vividly gruesome short films Worm and Familiar, and while their third collaboration HEIR may be their weakest entry, Nolan unstoppably beams as Gordon – a man suppressing a secret. Powell is back in the director’s chair with HEIR, as well as holding the pen that writes the…
By: Addison Wylie Superfast is a spoof of the Fast and the Furious franchise brought to audiences by infamous filmmakers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. How long do you think it takes for them to set up a joke where someone swaggers onto the street and gets hit by a car? Not too long. The aim of the Superfast game is to reenact a scene and point out the obvious. I would’ve gone in another…
By: Addison Wylie My experience with Cody Calahan’s Antisocial 2 started with a surprise. Antisocial offered some squeamishly great effects but was by no means “one for the books”. While ultimately forgettable, it did leave on enough of a cliff-hanger to provoke thoughts of a sequel. However, it was a small production and the chances of seeing another Antisocial were slim. For Calahan to push himself to continue the story of Sam – the Social…
By: Mark Barber In 1968, an ailing ABC network hired progressive author Gore Vidal and conservative intellectual William F. Buckley to shed some light on the 1968 Democratic and Republican Party Conventions. This dialectical meeting of minds changed the way politics is mediated through television. It overemphasized opinion and discussion, bringing about the birth of punditry. Best of Enemies tells the riveting story behind this “political odd couple.” Despite their toxically unamicable relationship, Buckley and…
By: Trevor Jeffery Horror works best in extremes: if you can’t make a film that is legitimately bone-chilling, then you better make it so over-the-top that the value comes from its absurdity rather than its potential to fear. Unfortunately, non-camp horror is a hard beast to tame: you need a plot and a cast that can effectively scare people. Bite is a campy horror film at heart that tried to go full-out scare mode, and…
By: Addison Wylie Director Gabriel Carrer’s screenplay of The Demolisher is practically speechless until 18-minutes into the film. However, the audience is so acquainted with the heart-aching leads by then, that Carrer’s film could’ve gotten away with completely being a silent film. If film critic-turned-filmmaker Chris Alexander is carrying out a similar yet more minimalist approach with the horror genre, Carrer could’ve done the same with this crime thriller. Nonetheless, The Demolisher is really good. And…
By: Addison Wylie A hard day is right. Nothing appears to be going well for Detective Gun-soo (played by Seon-gyun Lee). On the eve of his mother’s burial, he hits a drifter with his car while a corrupt operation to which Gun-soo was deeply involved with crumbles away. The sudden hit-and-run has the unconventional homicide detective thinking on his toes. He stows the body in the trunk of his car and brainstorms a connecting idea…
By: Addison Wylie Cobie Smulders continues to collect indie cred with Kris Swanberg’s Unexpected, where the How I Met Your Mother actress plays high school teacher Samantha who learns of her surprise pregnancy during her final year at an inner-city school ceasing closure. At the same time, Samantha discovers one of her students is also with child (Jasmine played by firecracker Gail Bean). Unexpected doesn’t issue a new perspective on poverty-stricken pregnancies, or a new display of…