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Wylie

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The Tribe

July 19, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s film is a foreign drama that isn’t subtitled, translated, or dubbed.  Every character communicates in sign language as movie goers are given the broad strokes of a crime-laden story.  However, Slaboshpitsky’s screenplay is unrelenting, and leaves little to the imagination when it comes to displaying desperate and heartless activity. For the first ten minutes, The Tribe is an unforgettable, sensory depraved experience.  One of the first scenes features a celebration…

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Reviews

1001 Grams

July 18, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The metric system has never been more sexy or sentimental than it is in Bent Hamer’s 1001 Grams.  Now that I have your attention, let’s move towards some of the drier details. Marie (played by Ane Dahl Torp) is a Norwegian scientist who is close with her intellect father Ernst Ernst (played by Stein Winge).  Both of their careers circulate around the analysis of measurements, and they both discuss work during their smoke…

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Reviews

All the Time in the World

July 16, 2015Addison Wylie2 Comments

By: Addison Wylie As an experiment and as an escape, Suzanne Crocker and her family packed up  necessities (including a video camera) and took to Canada’s Yukon Territory for nine months. Suzanne and her husband Gerard Parsons wanted their children to experience the great outdoors and witness the change of the seasons;  illustrating that technology and a fixed schedule doesn’t always capture what’s really going on in the world.  The trip, however, was equally refreshing…

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Reviews

Strangerland

July 14, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The characters in the Australian/Ireland import Strangerland are surrounded by miles of flatland.  The tattered town of Nathgari maintain a tight community, yet there is a sense of feeling forlorn and stranded.  Newly minted feature filmmaker Kim Farrant uses these qualities to effectively stir up restlessness and sputtering hope when her story of missing children is in full swing. Catherine and Matthew (played by Nicole Kidman and Joseph Fiennes) are still adapting…

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Reviews

My Ex-Ex

July 13, 2015Addison Wylie4 Comments

By: Addison Wylie American gross-out comedies were so popular during the birth of the 2000s, Canadian cinema hopped on board.  I vividly remember Mark Griffiths’ road trip flick Going the Distance and Dave Thomas’ workplace scrub clad comedy Intern Academy being released in 2004, and producing piddly groans. Canadian filmmakers are hitting another “monkey see, monkey do” phase as movie goers flock towards the comedic chops of Judd Apatow and his filmmaking protégés.  Just like…

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Reviews

The Wedding Ringer

July 12, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie With The Wedding Ringer, you get what you came for.  But, just barely. It helps when you compare Jeremy Garelick’s film next to other recent R-rated comedies that take place around a wedding.  It’s far better than That’s My Boy, and is narrowly beat out by What’s Your Number?.  That’s a pretty pitiful way to look at things, but at this point, I’ll take whatever I can get. The Wedding Ringer also…

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Reviews

Tangerine

July 7, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Jay and Mark Duplass hopped on board Sean Baker’s Tangerine to lend their support as executive producers.  The mumblecore founders are always keeping their eyes peeled for innovation in independent cinema, and Tangerine – a film shot entirely on the iPhone 5S – was their calling. Tangerine reminded me of Christos Sourligas’ Happy Slapping, a film that followed hopeless teens via handheld footage shot on earlier generation smartphones.  Happy Slapping may have more interesting things to…

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Reviews

It Follows

July 6, 2015Addison Wylie2 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Ambiguity can be a beautiful thing – especially for the horror genre.  Filmmakers can inject an idea, and then trust the viewers to fill in the blanks.  It does, however, take a certain skill and direction to utilize ambiguity to its fullest degree.  A skill that David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows is missing although the film is confident it has. It Follows goes heavy on creepy nuances, which benefits the experience.  Nothing…

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One-on-Ones

Wylie Writes’ One-On-One with Alex Winter

July 4, 2015Addison Wylie2 Comments

  By: Addison Wylie Movie goers will recognize Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston, Esq. from the time traveling cult classic Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its sequel Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.  I was one of  those people, but then I was exposed to Winter’s directorial efforts.  Now, I’m someone who instantly recognizes the actor-turn-filmmaker as one of the best documentarians working today. Downloaded, Winter’s chronicling of the rise and fall of Napster, was sensational.  It…

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Reviews

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry

July 3, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Mary Dore’s She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a solid film, and joins the ranks of other docs that remind us of how unbalanced the past was through.  The documentation stuns and embarrasses, but Dore sticks with professionalism and avoids turning her film into a shame project. Dore reinforces the power of communication in critical times.  Before feminism was taken seriously, women who felt discriminated were often ignored.  A female character type was established…

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