I’m Thinking of Ending Things
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a melancholic psychodrama with spurts of deliberate awkwardness, but should you expect anything else from writer/director Charlie Kaufman?
Thriller
Target Number One
Daniel Roby’s deftly directed thriller Target Number One fictionalizes the true story of a Quebecois drug addict who was imprisoned in Thailand as a result of a set-up by Canadian intelligence in the 1980s. Taking some of its procedural cues from Spotlight, Target Number One is a kinetic, uncompromising look at the impacts and importance of journalism on the overreach of power in counter-intelligence.
Unhinged
Russell Crowe gives an absolutely terrifying performance in Unhinged. The film is a high-octane, single day thriller, but there are times when Derrick Borte’s movie is a straight-up horror because of Crowe. As the story’s antagonist Tom Cooper, Crowe ditches his inhibitions. He’s purposely underdeveloped to build an aura of mystery and terror. The audience is given minor clues of who Tom could be, but he still resembles a stranger; someone who could break under…
She Dies Tomorrow
The title She Dies Tomorrow refers to a line spoken by the film’s lead character Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) to her sister Jane (Jane Adams) early on in the movie. Jane shrugs it off, but then slowly becomes obsessed by the possibility that she too could die tomorrow. She goes to a birthday party where she passes on her distressed theory to a group of four (Chris Messina, Katie Aselton, Jennifer Kim, and Tunde Adebimpe),…
The Burnt Orange Heresy
“Soapy” is usually a word with a negative connotation, but The Burnt Orange Heresy seems to challenge that. The film is a to-do list of soapy thematic tropes, such as using sex, deception, and even murder to drive its story, yet director Giuseppe Capotondi, screenwriter Scott B. Smith, and a great cast get away with it because the central drama is so interesting and the characters are so beguiling.
Random Acts of Violence
If I was Jay Baruchel, I don’t know if I would’ve followed up my breakout directorial effort in Goon: Last of the Enforcers with a typical horror film like Random Acts of Violence.
A Perfect Plan
By: Trevor Chartrand With a title like this, it’s too easy for reviewers like myself to open with something like, “A Perfect Plan is not a perfect movie”, so allow me to go one step further. It would be more accurate to say this film falls monstrously short of perfect. In fact, it’s about as far from perfection as you could possibly get. A mediocre thriller at best, the film is littered with problems in…
The Old Guard
The Old Guard, a boring misfire from director Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, Beyond the Lights) and writer Greg Rucka, is an action/thriller with no stakes.
