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).
Mixing humour into a documentary about a serious subject can be a dicey move. American Cats: The Good, the Bad, and the Cuddly, the second runner-up for the Hot Docs Rogers Audience Award pulls off this challenge despite some close calls.
After watching kids have a ball with subversive superhero fodder like Megamind, The Bad Guys, and the Despicable Me franchise, older audiences finally get to have their fun with Villains Inc. But instead of assuming that adults want another frenetic flick with balls-to-the-wall violence and a four-to-twelve-letter colourful dialect (ala Kick-Ass and its sequel), Villains Inc. works within a more patient element with organic wit while outrageous characters build charismatic rhythms.
