By: Jolie Featherstone Brayden DeMorest-Purdy’s feature film debut, Beyond the Woods, is a mind-bending, slow-burning crime drama where lost and troubled individuals burn like smoking flames flickering against the bitter-cold, snow-capped landscape that threatens to consume them.
Written and directed by Stella Hopkins, Elyse is an uninventive and poorly-written depiction of mental illness. To watch Anthony Hopkins, Stella Hopkins’ husband and arguably one of the greatest actors of our time, perform in a film this tedious and inexpert is a truly baffling experience. Mental illness is a complex and nuanced theme, but Elyse’s exploration of a wealthy but unsatisfied white woman’s inner world is obvious and riddled with clichés.
By: Jessica Goddard Our own Addison Wylie mentioned I probably shouldn’t watch the trailer for Lawrence Michael Levine’s Black Bear, since it would be better to go in cold.…and boy was he right. When I tracked down the trailer after seeing the film, I was shocked by how much it gives away. So in that spirit, I’ll warn that this review contains what are, effectively, spoilers (though that’s not the perfect word).
Screenwriter Darius Marder teams up yet again with filmmaker Derek Cianfrance. Only this time, the roles are reversed with executive producer Cianfrance taking a story credit and Marder (still penning the screenplay) stepping into the director’s chair. The finished film, Sound of Metal, is as much of a masterpiece as their last collaboration, The Place Beyond the Pines.
We’ve all seen a movie that pairs an uncomfortable adult with a precocious child, and usually the humour stems from their awkwardness that develops into an endearing dynamic as their chemistry develops. Saint Frances is no different, and about halfway through the movie I thought I had Alex Thompson’s film figured out. Little did I know that the film was quietly providing the groundwork for inspiring feministic themes that would elevate the material above its…
Lenin M. Sivam’s Roobha explores two intersecting narratives: one, a young dancer, Roobha (Amrit Sandhu), a transgender woman living on the streets; two, an older bartender Antony (Jesuthasan Antonythasan) whose poor lifestyle choices have severally worsened his health. The two unexpectedly fall in love, creating tension in both characters’ lives.
By: Trevor Chartrand Based on a short film of the same name, The Climb was written and performed by Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. Covino also directed the film, which chronicles the life and times of a dysfunctional friendship over the course of many years. In the film, Kyle (Marvin) and Mike (Covino) are long-time best friends who slowly drift apart – and then back together again – after Mike admits to sleeping with…
The Kid Detective has done the best job, in recent memory, explaining why a mystery’s leading sleuth is such a sad sack. The enigmatic and eccentric personality has become such a cliché in the genre, that the audience just expects and accepts the detective to be grizzled, or unhappy, or an unpredictable hot head. In The Kid Detective, Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody) carries those traits, but writer/director Evan Morgan provides compelling motivation which fuels Brody’s top-form…
György Pálfi’s His Master’s Voice is a thoroughly confusing, questionably plotted sci-fi film that is hindered by a myriad of subplots, vague ideas, and an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to combine traditional fictional filmmaking practices with mock-documentary elements.
A story of possible infidelity gets an anti-Hollywood spin in Sofia Coppola’s sophisticated dramedy On the Rocks.