Fresh Off Markham is a narrative collective between budding filmmakers Trevor Choi, Cyrus Lo and Kurt Yuen, and it’s a big swing to tell a story of small crime. The movie endures some bumps and bruises as it struggles to maintain a consistent tone while juggling too many character arcs, but this unpredictability also strings along the audience’s curiousity. He Li and Nian Chang portray Chinese immigrants who, having settled in the melting pot of…
Young Werther is a witless comedy, which is awkward considering the production deems itself as a slick flick. While I can’t comment on whether Jose Lourenço’s feature-length filmmaking debut is faithful to its source material (the 1774 novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe), I can relay to my readers what Young Werther reminded me of. Werther (Douglas Booth of Netflix’s The Dirt), someone who considers himself to be a noble cosmopolitan and…
For 25 years, Mike Smith has co-starred in the Trailer Park Boys cult franchise as a surly yet compassionate, shed-dwelling kitten enthusiast known as Bubbles. While he may be referred to as a “second-or-third banana” in the get-rich schemes hatched by his pals Julian (JP Tremblay) and Ricky (Robb Wells), Bubbles’ side stories about his pets and his love for music has scratched the interest of fans; serving as a reason for fans to keep returning…
Your Monster is billed as a horror-fantasy, with notes of a rom-com, featuring a Broadway hopeful (Melissa Barrera) discovering a hunky beast (Tommy Dewey) in her closet. Sounds wild, right? What if I told you writer/director Caroline Lindy plays everything “straight”? What if I told you that the film is so quiet, you can hear the emptiness between lines of dialogue? Granted, this is a deliberate choice to play up the film’s quirkier qualities, but…
I can picture filmmaker Braden Sitter Sr. watching the news and becoming sidetracked by the ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen. I can also picture the filmmaker getting lost down a rabbit hole of ridiculous clickbait articles on social media. This isn’t a knock against Braden because a movie as off-the-wall as his unauthorized comedy The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man needs sheer mischievous curiousity to make it work, and there’s no shortage of…
Canadians are currently witnessing a funny contrast in their local multiplex – Reagan is screening at the same time as Deaner ’89. If Reagan is supposed to accurately depict what the United States was like in the 80s, Deaner ’89 is the “meanwhile in Canada” example.
By: Trevor Chartrand The notoriously quirky Jason Schwartzman (The Overnight) stars in Between the Temples as – brace yourself – an odd-ball character. Shocking, right? In all seriousness though, Nathan Silver’s offbeat film does ultimately prove to be a relatively serviceable, if tired, indie-style dramedy. To the movie’s credit, Silver explores an otherwise formulaic narrative with a character-focused vulnerability that truly enhances the material.
Comedienne Megan Stalter receives an overdue leading role in Hannah Pearl Utt’s Cora Bora. While the film may not make her an overnight star, similar to the likes of Bridesmaids’ Melissa McCarthy or Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’s Maria Bakalova, Cora Bora is a solid enough vehicle for Stalter to show her capabilities as a potential character actor.
Sporting an unstoppable slew of passive-aggressive, allegedly improvised, humour and a refreshing spin on man-child comedies, Dad & Step-Dad is one of the funniest films ever made. Don’t believe me? How about if I told you I’ve watched Dad & Step-Dad four times, and have doubled over with hearty laughs with each viewing? How about if I told you I’m worried that my fifth viewing will put me in the hospital?
Versatile, academy award nominated filmmaker Richard Linklater (The Before… series, Boyhood, Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood) and rising star Glen Powell (reuniting with Linklater after 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!!) have combined their charm to make Hit Man, a strange caper loosely adapted from the double life of college professor Gary Johnson (played by Powell).