Latest

Wylie Writes

Articles

CrowdFUNding: BigJackFilms’ King Kong and Fatal Pictures’ HEIR

January 26, 2014Addison Wylie1 Comment

Are you wanting to shoot your dream project, but have a restriction on your budget? Are you wanting to support independent cinema by helping filmmakers, but have no idea how to lend a hand? CrowdFUNding, a new series on Wylie Writes, is hoping to answer those questions by helping guide filmmakers and would-be financiers towards the right opportunities.  All while putting the “fun” back in crowdfunding. CrowdFUNding will highlight online campaigns looking for financial backing.  Some filmmakers…

Read More
Reviews

Does It Float?: Parkland

January 26, 2014Addison Wylie0 Comments

So far in this series on Wylie Writes, re-watching Parkland has been the closest I’ve come to agreeing with the other side of the fence.  However, I won’t be persuaded so easily. Peter Landesman’s drama Parkland, a film documenting the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the next few days that followed it, has plenty of accomplishments.  Landesman’s ability to capture 1960’s period detail is spot on, and there no sign of fabrication when the film…

Read More
Reviews

The Final Member

January 24, 2014Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie The Final Member – an outrageous documentary from filmmakers Jonah Bekor and Zach Math – is cheekily strange and hilariously honest.  I half expected mockumentary legend Christopher Guest to come running out at any moment. There’s no way this documentary about the world’s lone penis museum could be real.  Fortunately, it is.  And, don’t be surprised if this fascinating film becomes one of your favourite docs of the new year.  Not since…

Read More
Reviews

Devil’s Knot

January 24, 2014Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie The on-going trials and debates about The West Memphis Three have been discussed in Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s revered Paradise Lost documentary series.  The docs have always been on my list of films to watch, but I’ve never been able to find the time. As I watched Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot, I wished I had watched those documentaries about the controversial child murders first, rather than being educated by Egoyan’s ham-fisted reenactment….

Read More
Reviews

Linsanity

January 23, 2014Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Basketball superstar Jeremy Lin had a rise to fame that was the epitome of an underdog story. Having set aspirations to become an athlete someday, Lin rarely winced when faced with challenges.  He played basketball because he enjoyed it, planted reasonable expectations while cementing his priorities, and gained notoriety by naturally being a talented player. Evan Jackson Leong’s uplifting doc doesn’t phonily paint Lin as such an upstanding individual.  He simply comes…

Read More
Reviews

American Hustle

January 21, 2014Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie American Hustle is like watching a group of distinguished hard boiled card players play poker when you’re only learning the ropes.  None of them will break their deadpan expression or expose their hand.  Suddenly, someone will make a game changing move and raise the stakes.  Someone to your left leans over and – with pure exuberance – tells you how important the move was.  Meanwhile, you nod with acknowledgment and when they’re…

Read More
Reviews

Big Bad Wolves

January 20, 2014Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie It’s easy to see why Quentin Tarantino named Big Bad Wolves as the best film of 2013.  It’s basically a love letter to the filmmaker’s earlier work – an elaboration on that infamous torture scene in Reservoir Dogs. Filmmakers Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s bottled thriller has three men (a father who’s daughter has been kidnapped and murdered, a renegade cop, and a tied up potential criminal) spar with one another to…

Read More
Contests

WIN a DVD of Jacob Vaughan’s ‘Bad Milo’

January 19, 2014Addison Wylie0 Comments

One of my favourite surprises of last year was finding out how Jacob Vaughan’s creature feature Bad Milo played with a packed crowd.  The scene was set at Toronto’s Scotiabank Theatre during one of Toronto After Dark’s pre-screenings to hype up the upcoming and highly popular genre showcase. The pre-screening audience award ended up going to Matt Johnson’s innovative indie The Dirties, but hanging in as a close runner up was Bad Milo.  It proved…

Read More
Reviews

Stranger by the Lake

January 17, 2014Addison Wylie2 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The realism in Stranger by the Lake (or, L’Inconnu du lac) is what initially draws audiences in.  It’s paced deliberately slow to match life’s sunny tranquilities, and the cruising men who attend this private beach looking for a getaway and the occasional hook up come across as real people. Stranger by the Lake is uneventful for the most part, but its serenely baked atmosphere is musing.  Once a dangerous dramatic turn comes into play, that…

Read More
Reviews

Blue Is the Warmest Colour

January 15, 2014Addison Wylie2 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Colour is an intellectual work about observing and defining sexuality.  It’s a raw look allowing the viewer to be in clear view of everything, but by no means presents itself as indecent. In fact, those graphic scenes of sexual content that seem to be flooding the media surrounding Blue Is the Warmest Colour with controversy are represented this way because there is no other way…

Read More