La Chimera
Filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher is on the cusp of making a good movie with La Chimera but, in a feigned and suspicious manner, the writer/director can’t help but break the reality of her story to satisfy her own needs.
Wylie Writes
The Greatest Hits
High Fidelity meets The Butterfly Effect in Ned Benson’s hipster rom-com The Greatest Hits. While that sounds like a fun movie mash-up, The Greatest Hits is anything but.
With Love and a Major Organ
Pardon my cautiousness with this review. I’m just trying not to sound like a hypocrite.
Monkey Man
By: Jeff Ching Are we seeing the genesis of Dev Patel as Hollywood’s next big action star? Will Monkey Man become a colossal action movie franchise similar to John Wick? Monkey Man is certainly in the running for this year’s best action movie.
Good Burger 2
I liked Good Burger 2, but it also feels like it was made for me and, maybe like, ten other people. Good Burger 2 is the sequel to its 1997 predecessor, which began as a recurring sketch on Nickelodeon’s variety show All That. Milking nostalgia is a current trend, but when does it become too much of an inside joke?
Someone Like You
Faith-based movies don’t really bother me. They speak to a specific crowd, and drive home values that make those movie goers comfortable. If the films strike a discord in the messaging, the filmmaking is usually so hokey that the movies are easy to ignore. The odd exception exists (Unplanned, 2019’s worst movie) but, otherwise, these movies are like water off a duck’s back. Fickle faith-based movies, on the other hand….
Wylie Writes’ Two-On-One with Jeremy LaLonde and Dax Ravina
Daniel’s Gotta Die is one of my favourite comedies of the year so far. It sports a terrific cast and inspired direction, and fearless dark humour. Since this exotic ensemble comedy has many working parts, I was interested in finding out more details about how the production came together so well.
Canadian Film Fest ’24: Daughter of the Sun
When I wrote about Ryan Ward’s directorial feature debut Son of the Sunshine, I was humbled by the filmmaker’s response to my unenthused review. I had labeled his film as “maple syrup melancholy”, a term I coined to encompass Canada’s ongoing trend of churning out depressing, empty movies. I thought the term was clever, Ward didn’t think so. The Canadian writer/director advised that, while disliking a movie and its motives is fine, labelling art can…
Canadian Film Fest ’24: Place of Bones
Movie goers may instantly attribute Audrey Cummings’ Place of Bones with fellow westerns, but theatre aficionados may lean more towards low-end productions with sloppy offerings. As someone who finds themselves in the intersection of both groups, Place of Bones pulls me towards my fellow theatre nerds and that, well, sucks.
The Black Mass
By: Trevor Chartrand Readers, please note – if you’re not familiar with the serial killer Ted Bundy, The Black Mass will likely leave you feeling confused and alienated. Then again, if you are familiar with Bundy and his capture, you’ll also feel just as confused and alienated…but probably disgusted as well. By making this film, director Devanny Pinn has wasted the time of her crew, her cast, and anyone unfortunate enough to make the mistake…