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The Spectacular Now

By: Addison Wylie The Spectacular Now is the movie about high school I wish I had growing up.  It’s easily identifiable and relatable to anyone who felt growing pains or knew someone having a wobbly time through secondary education. James Ponsoldt’s coming-of-age dramedy features two exceptional performances from up-and-comers Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, who play unexpected friends who eventually become smitten with each other.  Though, Teller’s motormouth Sutter Keely won’t directly admit it since…

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The Lifeguard

By: Addison Wylie  The Lifeguard deals with the discouraging feeling of going nowhere and the urge to flee home for comfort.  It’s a circumstance that some of us may be all too familiar with; especially those who are fresh out of their post-secondary education.  Liz W. Garcia’s film, however, gets very little right about events that take place after the retreat to a personal turf. Garcia is able to capture that initial awkwardness that ensues…

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Looking is the Original Sin

By: Addison Wylie Everyone has their own type of vice.  Helene’s is her camera.  Although she’s able to enthral people with her stunning photography, it’s an interest of hers that she chooses to take up a large portion of her life.  The high she gets off of the perfect picture is that of a drug. Like a drug would do, Helene’s talent keeps her in her own world while others are kept out.  Her daughter,…

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The Dirties

By: Addison Wylie What do I say about The Dirties?  A film that shook me up and has hung around with me days after I’ve seen it. Matt Johnson’s courageous and ambitious feature film debut is a tough film to recommend to a wide audience because of its timely, controversial material handled with a sense of humour.  You definitely have to be in a specific mood for its darker approach to school shootings and the…

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On The Film Army Front: August ’13 Edition

Well, now that TIFF has come to an end, let’s take a trip back to August. If you can believe it, August was busier than my experience with the Toronto International Film Festival.  At Film Army, I was checking out different programmes hosted by Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox, watching smaller independent fare, as well as getting ready for TIFF while setting up IFFFT coverage – the International Fetish Film Festival Toronto. It’s great to cover…

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The Canyons

By: Addison Wylie Once upon a time in a high school drama master class, a group of friends and I were given a one-act play to perform for our final exam.  The play was Anton Chekov’s The Proposal. Myself and my other cast mates had no clue what to make of the exaggerated work or of our bumbling characters ; and, our director didn’t know any better.  We agreed that the amount of time given…

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Prince Avalanche

By: Addison Wylie Taking a break from his independent fare, filmmaker David Gordon Green got familiar with the Apatow brat pack – launching him to direct the uneven but oddly memorable Pineapple Express.  His directorial hand was embraced and pushed him down a path helming louder movies like Your Highness and The Sitter, two off-putting crudities that aren’t worthy of Green’s time and talent. With Prince Avalanche, it feels as if Green is making the…

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The Oxbow Cure

By: Addison Wylie The Oxbow Cure had me shivering for all sorts of reasons. Directors Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas are able to flawlessly create moods and feelings using minimalist tactics.  With its few instances of dialogue aside, this low budget Kickstarter passion project is practically a silent film as we watch a distressed but tranquil woman named Lena (played carefully by playwright Claudia Dey) escape to a snowy cabin in the woods to carry…

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On The Film Army Front: July ’13 Edition

Everyone has a list of things they want to do. These things aren’t towering milestones that are waiting to be crossed off a bucket list, but their big enough to constantly hang out in your head and remind you that you’ve been wanting to accomplish whatever you wanted to do. It seems I usually have a list like this for every month, but July seemed to be that month where I finally was able to…

Reviews

Computer Chess

By: Addison Wylie Unique.  That’s the word I’d use to describe Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess, an utterly ambitious film about a competition featuring duelling men (and a woman) and their computers as they square off in a round robin of chess. Bujalski is ambitious in the way that he’s trying to make an entertaining movie about nerdy technicians and their comprehension of chess and their machines.  But also, because he’s shot his film using Sony…