Using his previous film, the embellished period thriller Operation Avalanche, as a stepping stone towards his latest feature, Canadian renegade Matt Johnson takes another crack at the biopic genre with BlackBerry. Director Johnson (co-writing with frequent collaborator/producer Matthew Miller) chronicles the rise and fall of the titular game-changing portable device that allowed users online access and exclusive text-based communication.
Hellmington centres on Detective Samantha Woodhouse, distressed over the recent death of her father and tormented by a forgotten yet mysterious case of the disappearance of a former high school classmate. In order to piece together the puzzle of the latter, Samantha reconnects with her past while she’s in town for the funeral; including meeting old acquaintances and people who were close to her late dad.
By: Trevor Chartrand Written and directed by Jon Keeyes, The Harrowing is a supernatural thriller that lacks nail-biting tension and edge that would keep viewers hanging on every word. Despite some decent visual effects and cinematography, the film fails to truly inspire fear from its audience.
Stegman Is Dead is the latest addition to the string of Quentin Tarantno copycats. Smooth anti-heroes and bumbling crooks come together in a quirky crime story played for laughs and gags. However, this debut feature film from TV director David Hyde edges out its sub-genre competition; mostly due to the chemistry of the film’s ensemble.
By: Mark Barber The post-apocalyptic Canadian film Turbo Kid has only one audience in mind: kids who grew up on Power Rangers. Yet the film is too gruesome and violent for kids, and too vacuous for anyone else. Set in a desolate post-apocalyptic world, an unnamed kid (Degrassi’s Munro Chambers; character simply billed as “The Kid”) finds a suit that formerly belonged to the comic book/real life superhero character Turbo Man (unrelated to a similar character…