So Much Tenderness reunites me with Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Lina Rodriguez eight years after reviewing her feature-length debut Señoritas. While I can see a bit of growth between then and now, Rodriguez is still stuck in her naturalistic, fly-on-the-wall approach to personal character studies.
The exposure of Canada’s reprehensible history with its former residential school system and the overall injustice towards this country’s Indigenous population keeps garnering attention. Written and directed by Marie Clements (The Road Forward), Bones of Crows is the latest movie to continue presenting the contemporary prejudice that mirrors the past.
Using his previous film, the embellished period thriller Operation Avalanche, as a stepping stone towards his latest feature, Canadian renegade Matt Johnson takes another crack at the biopic genre with BlackBerry. Director Johnson (co-writing with frequent collaborator/producer Matthew Miller) chronicles the rise and fall of the titular game-changing portable device that allowed users online access and exclusive text-based communication.
The End of Sex is the latest collaboration between director Sean Garrity (Borealis, I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight) and screenwriter/actor Jonas Chernick (Ashgrove).
Drawing from some of his own experiences, in Riceboy Sleeps, writer/director Anthony Shim tells an immigrant’s tale of a Korean mother, So-Young (Choi Seung-yoon), and her son Dong-Hyun (a shared role by young Dohyun Noel Hwang and teen Ethan Hwang) attempting to build a new life in Canada after the loss of So-Young’s schizophrenic husband. While in Canada, they’re faced with discrimination towards their race and So-Young’s meekness – both of them dealing with variations of…
After watching the insane adolescent behaviour featured in MSC: The Movie and Magnum Opus: The .MOVie and vying for something deeper than amateur stunts, Therapy Dogs does a decent job answering my wishes.
Simulant is a good recommendation for those looking for a solid sci-fi action/thriller and in-the-moment entertainment. The film doesn’t have much resonance after the credits roll, but I thoroughly enjoyed being in this futuristic story that’s executed well enough by director April Mullen (88, Farhope Tower, Badsville) and adequately written by screenwriter Ryan Christopher Churchill.
I Like Movies, a coming-of-age dramedy set in the early-2000s, alternates between the double life of 17-year-old Burlington native Lawrence Kweller (Isiah Lehtinen): an outspoken high school senior and an obsessive film buff at his local video store, Sequels Video, who is simply trying to fit in. Lawrence is an opinionated know-it-all under both roofs, but he feels more in his element at Sequels and is elated when they finally hire him on as an…
It’s been over a decade since being first exposed to Canadian cult hit Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and Lee Demarbre’s wholesome filmmaking for mature audiences. Underneath its goofy and ambitious premise about our lord and saviour socking it to some blood-suckers was an infectious love for filmmaking and community. It’s main concern other than entertaining audiences was having fun with friends behind-the-scenes. And while that rallying doesn’t always work for all indies, it benefited Demarbre’s…
