Earlier this month, director Jon M. Chu was awarded Best Director for his work on Wicked, the long-awaited stage-to-screen spin-off of The Wizard of Oz. The award came to a surprise for Chu, considering the production had been campaigned heavily for its performances and more cosmetic attributes. The award came to a surprise for me too. Though I like some of Chu’s earlier work, I felt that the filmmaker was out of his depth with…
Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century) wraps his latest feature, Universal Language, in his admiration for fellow auteur Guy Maddin. Described in the press notes as an “autobiographical fever dream”, and much like Maddin’s My Winnipeg, Universal Language pitches an absurdist vision of Winnipeg from different embellished perspectives – some of these stories work better than others. Universal Language peaks early on with a fine-tuned comedy featuring eccentric gradeschoolers, their disappointed French teacher (Mani…
In Naoko Yamada’s beautiful anime The Colors Within, teenage wallflower Totsuko (voiced by Sayu Suzukawa) experiences life in colour. While this trait helps her identify someone’s true personality, she admits how difficult it is to fit in or be vulnerable. A difference that acts as a personal beacon for Totsuko as she navigates her high school career at an all-girl, Catholic institution. Totsuko finds herself attracted to the colour emitted by Kimi (voiced by Akari Takaishi),…
Last seen on screen in Close To You but more famous for her groundbreaking performance in John Cameron Mitchell’s sexually charged Shortbus, Sook-Yin Lee tries to match Mitchell’s knack for tender confrontations with her directorial effort Paying For It. The Shortbus filmmaker must approve. After all, Mitchell serves as an executive producer on this adult flick. The inspiration for Paying For It also comes from Chester Brown’s graphic novel that Lee is adapting, which drew inspiration from Lee and Brown’s real-life…
Fernanda Torres is an Oscar front-runner for Best Actress, after winning the Golden Globe for her sensational performance in the epic drama I’m Still Here – the buzz is well-earned. Despite the movie being too long while also rushing through the last period in this devastating story, I’m Still Here is a very strong movie about the emotional endurance of love. Torres plays Eunice Paiva, the mother of a large family who are trying to live under strict…
Take one of Tyler Perry’s earlier melodramas, use the same bundling the filmmaker/playwright uses when trying to tell multiple stories, give Madea some heart-wrenching secrets, and her husband Joe some internal conflict. That well-adjusted flick would be the closest comparison to Hard Truths, a memorable tragicomedy from writer/director Mike Leigh (Naked, Happy-Go-Lucky, Mr. Turner). Leigh’s character-driven story is centred around a black-Caribbean family in London. While trying to make ends meet, they’re constantly reminded of their failures…
By: Addison Wylie Last Summer, audiences were treated to the Canadian coming-of-age sports drama Backspot. Despite functioning at a glossy sitcom level, the indie was still a sufficient way to address serious topics for teens such as anxieties, competition, and family conflicts. Curl Power covers similar topics only, this time, their packaged as a documentary. Curl Power is a superior movie and an inspiration for teens (notably high schoolers) enduring the same issues expressed in Josephine Anderson doc, but…
Fresh Off Markham is a narrative collective between budding filmmakers Trevor Choi, Cyrus Lo and Kurt Yuen, and it’s a big swing to tell a story of small crime. The movie endures some bumps and bruises as it struggles to maintain a consistent tone while juggling too many character arcs, but this unpredictability also strings along the audience’s curiousity. He Li and Nian Chang portray Chinese immigrants who, having settled in the melting pot of…
In between shows, two titans tower over stage performer Shelly (Pamela Anderson) – statues of glamourous, golden age showgirls that represent the Las Vegas staple, Le Razzle Dazzle, that Shelly has built a career around. These idols may identify personally to Shelly, but she soon realizes they mean very little to most people; including younger dancers she shares the stage with (Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song) and the wayward daughter (Booksmart’s Billie Lourd) she has disassociated with to chase…
Young Werther is a witless comedy, which is awkward considering the production deems itself as a slick flick. While I can’t comment on whether Jose Lourenço’s feature-length filmmaking debut is faithful to its source material (the 1774 novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe), I can relay to my readers what Young Werther reminded me of. Werther (Douglas Booth of Netflix’s The Dirt), someone who considers himself to be a noble cosmopolitan and…