Academy Award nominee May December and, now, Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils are cut from the same cloth. Yet, I don’t know how to classify these types of heightened melodramas. These movies are not outright funny, but they have strange moments that are so deliberately jarring, the audience can’t help but giggle out of confusion. While this is a unique concoction, and can help the filmmaker achieve a specific brand of campiness, juxtaposing heavy themes within this…
Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is an intelligent and challenging anthropology student who impresses her teachers and peers. When she’s not in class, the Naples native embraces life with her brother, Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo), and lifelong best friend Sandrino (Dario Aita). The men around Parthenope are infatuated with her, and the women admire her. Is there anything she can’t do? The answer: no – she can in fact do it all; such as take a break from…
Take one of Tyler Perry’s earlier melodramas, use the same bundling the filmmaker/playwright uses when trying to tell multiple stories, give Madea some heart-wrenching secrets, and her husband Joe some internal conflict. That well-adjusted flick would be the closest comparison to Hard Truths, a memorable tragicomedy from writer/director Mike Leigh (Naked, Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Turner). Leigh’s character-driven story is centred around a black-Caribbean family in London. While trying to make ends meet, they’re constantly reminded of their failures…
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…
In between shows, two titans tower over stage performer Shelly (Pamela Anderson) – statues of glamourous, golden age showgirls that represent the Las Vegas staple, Le Razzle Dazzle, that Shelly has built a career around. These idols may identify personally to Shelly, but she soon realizes they mean very little to most people; including younger dancers she shares the stage with (Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song) and the wayward daughter (Booksmart’s Billie Lourd) she has disassociated with to chase…
By: Addison Wylie The Room Next Door is headlined by Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) and Julianne Moore (Being Alice), performing under the direction of Spanish filmmaker/screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her). While this drama feels like an easy task for these Oscar winners, that’s essentially the magic of the film and what makes The Room Next Door effortlessly great. For the Parallel Mothers filmmaker, Almodóvar makes his English-language debut with The Room Next Door; though the audience wouldn’t have noticed. Aside…
By: Addison Wylie Preceding an amicable exchange between ex-lovers, Andy Goodrich (Michael Keaton) is asked by his former wife Ann (Andie MacDowell) how he’s doing. “I’m okay,” Andy answers. “You’re always okay,” Ann teases. She isn’t wrong. Throughout Goodrich, the audience observes Andy doing okay. He occasionally has an awkward conversation that sometimes references his past as a flawed father but, otherwise, he’s a well-respected and levelheaded dude.
The assumption to presume there’s a personal connection between director Ellen Kuras and photographer Lee Miller, the subject of Kuras’ feature-length narrative debut Lee, isn’t that rash. An obvious interest for camerawork is shared between Kuras and Miller, and the passion for the craft may have also rubbed off on star Kate Winslet (who Kuras has worked with previously on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and A Little Chaos, and is credited as an executive producer on Lee). …
Invoking comparisons to Mass and Our Friend, His Three Daughters may not be as good as those character-driven dramas, but it’s still a fantastic chamber piece that should spark award buzz around its stripped-down cast.
