Sci-Fi
Short Film Showcase: ‘Ghost Beaver Kick’ and ‘The Tattooist’
Wylie Writes’ Short Film Showcase acknowledges exclusive screenings of short films across Canada. Short-form filmmaking is sometimes overshadowed by larger projects or, worse, ignored completely. With this showcase, Wylie Writes wishes to not only provide a unique opinion for filmmakers, but to also spread awareness of these special screenings for our loyal readers.
A Breath Away
A Breath Away emerges in the midst of a growing number of films dedicated to portraying the horrors of environmental disaster. Timely as it is horrifying, A Breath Away is an emotionally-charged thriller that broadly follows the algorithmic pattern set by previous disaster films, and has little to say ideologically about its central issues.
The Thinning: New World Order
YouTube has attempted to revive interest in YA franchises with their original film series The Thinning. In The Thinning: New World Order, the first sequel in the series, the plot thickens as a country-wide intelligence test is further examined in a futuristic dystopia. The annual quiz, which is supposed to be moderating America’s steep population by eliminating the lowest-scoring students, is revealed to have a bias that’s connected to the country’s presidential election.
Overlord
A J.J. Abrams production is like the latest hipster eatery: they take a lot of effort to put together and people apparently like them, but once you have experienced one, it becomes apparent just how incredibly overrated they are. This is why I’m always so wary of these productions, and why his latest produced feature has been such a surprise – Overlord, directed by Julius Avery, is actually enjoyable!
Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘Extracurricular’, ‘Lifechanger’, ‘Nightmare Cinema’, and ‘You Might Be the Killer’
Extracurricular (DIR. Ray Xue) As the Canadian pop-punk band Sum 41 once sang, “motivation, such an aggravation.” That seemed to be Ray Xue’s complaint as well when he was directing Extracurricular, which is the only way to explain why anything in this film happened. Long time readers may recognize the number one rule of TAD: if a film is having its world premiere here, it will be terrible. This is not a knock against any of…
Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘Overlord’
Overlord (DIR. Julius Avery) American soldiers are dropped into German-occupied France and need to prepare for the D-Day invasion, but they find that the Germans are involved in some messed-up stuff.
Toronto After Dark 2018: ‘Prospect’ and ‘The Ranger’
Prospect (DIR. Chris Caldwell, Zeek Earl) First, we lived through “mumblecore”. Then, we were subjected to “mumblegore”. Now, it seems like the next logical step is to “mumblego” where no man has gone before. Case in point: Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl’s exercise in furious navel-gazing, Prospect, a film so enamored by its own cleverness that it manages to make its modest runtime seem endless. A film whose total lack of direction in favour of world-building…
TIFF 2018: ‘7A’
Filmmaker Zack Russell and actor Kayla Lorette team up for another surreal short film with 7A.