Goon: Last of the Enforcers arrives five years after the surprise hit Goon, and it’s as if the audience never left these characters. Even though the film is working under a different director (Jay Baruchel taking over for Michael Dowse), this sequel makes sure it stays within the same surly vein as its delightfully crude predecessor.
The Canadian Sport Film Festival sprints to Toronto for its ninth year. This weekend (Friday, June 9 – Sunday, June 11), audiences will be able to watch a diverse selection of feature films, documentaries, and short films about athletic subjects and themes. Wylie Writes’ Shannon Page received a sneak peek of the festival by watching the Emmy-award winning opening night selection Keepers of the Game, along with a haunting doc titled Hillsborough.
Movie goers waiting for a biopic to blow their socks off shouldn’t rely on Tommy’s Honour, a drama that seems to fulfil its non-fiction requirements procedurally. Tommy’s Honour would be par for the course (ba-dum-tss) if it wasn’t so underwhelming.
The original Goon (2011) was a special thing: an indie sports-comedy that was funny without being over-the-top, and heartfelt without being outright cheesy. It was also indisputably Canadian without relying on stereotypes or clichés. The film made the audience care about Doug (Seann William Scott), a dim-witted but kind bouncer from Massachusetts who uses his better-than-average brawling skills to become a professional enforcer for a minor-league hockey team in Halifax. We were invested in his…
Nice People is a very timely film. In our current state of mass migration of Arabic and African refugees to European countries and the right-wing propaganda that follows such events, it is important for audiences to get a view of the conditions of these people. The fact that Nice People’s view is all wrapped up in a feel-good narrative about a happy-go-lucky sports team is just a smart strategy from documentarians Karin af Klintberg and Anders…
Game Face (DIR. Michiel Thomas) By: Addison Wylie Game Face presents honest opinions and interviews from athletes who feel weighted by blanketed discrimination about their performance based on their personal lifestyle and sexuality. Determined, the jocks rise against the odds, and show their peers and LGBTQ audiences that they’re worthy contenders – not just in their sport, but in society. Michiel Thomas’ film follows two underdogs: transgener MMA fighter Fallon Fox and Terrence Clemens, an openly…
By: Addison Wylie After baseball, basketball, hockey, golf, dodgeball, figure skating, and ping pong all received big screen treatments, I think we all subconsciously knew a tetherball movie was coming along. Personally, I thought such a movie would ride off of Napoleon Dynamite’s freak success. I did not expect such a movie to be released, well, now. But, here we are. Director Chris Nickin and screenwriter Rick Dawson have given movie goers a competitive tetherball…
By: Addison Wylie Who would’ve expected one of the most important movies of the year to come swooping into theatres during the final weeks of 2013? Lucky Canadians are currently able to catch Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox – and I highly suggest they do. The documentary addresses a number of issues worth talking about, but it all begins with the stellar success of snowboarder Kevin Pearce. Pearce was garnering…