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Biopic

Reviews

Good Vibrations

By: Addison Wylie Across the pond, Good Vibrations has been considered a crowd pleaser.  During its release earlier this year, its swept audiences off their feet with vivacious music and a profound true story about Terri Hooley’s struggle with individuality in 1970’s Belfast and acquiring peace through music. This holiday season, Toronto gets the opportunity to see this highly regarded movie.  Well, call me a Grinch because Good Vibrations didn’t do it for me. I…

Reviews

Does It Float?: JOBS

By: Addison Wylie Upon watching JOBS for the first time, I had a hunch that it wasn’t going to be received with a wide round of applause.  The film about the life and times of Apple’s Steve Jobs didn’t sugarcoat its subject, but the overall product took the form of a typical biopic. I believe movie goers were still riding off the hot licks of the award winning David Fincher film The Social Network.  I…

Reviews

Parkland

By: Addison Wylie Is Parkland respectful towards its source material and depiction of the assassination of John F. Kennedy?  Yes.  Is it accurate to its time period?  Sure is.  Are the performances worthwhile?  You betcha. However, even though Peter Landesman’s film has plenty of good things going for it, I felt detached from the movie most of time.  I couldn’t fully invest my feelings into it, which is troublesome seeing as the film is an…

Reviews

La Pirogue

By: Addison Wylie The image of the feeble pirogue (the film’s featured boat) floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is a perfect metaphor to describe my abandoned interest towards Moussa Touré’s drama La Pirogue. I wanted to like Touré’s film.  A title card leading to the end credits dedicating the film to those who have made the trek – and may have died – from Africa to Europe to seek a better life…

Reviews

Jobs

By: Addison Wylie The good news: Joshua Michael Stern’s biopic Jobs never feels inappropriate or tasteless.  It hardly feels as if the film was made with ill-advised intentions or to meet a strict relevancy deadline. However, I can see a large portion of the movie going public leaving the theatre at the end wishing there was more to Stern’s film chronicling the life and times of the late inventor and Apple guru Steve Jobs. Jobs…

Reviews

iSteve

By: Addison Wylie Upon seeing Jobs, the Ashton Kutcher led biopic about late visionary and Apple CEO Steve Jobs, I was interested to see how a spoof would be handled in the future given how much material Joshua Michael Stern’s film unintentionally supplies. However, the jokers at Funny or Die have jumped the gun and created the satire before Jobs was made – earning it the title of “the first Steve Jobs movie”. Don’t worry…