By: Addison Wylie Morag McKinnon and Emma Davie’s documentary I Am Breathing is really good and moviegoers will be thankful that they were fortunate to see it. Audiences feel enlightened having spent time with Neil Platt. Platt, having been diagnosed with MND (Motor Neurone Disease), spends his life paralyzed as he plays with his son and humours his nurturing wife. He loves words and always has interesting things to say and even more interesting ways…
By: Addison Wylie For audiences needing a psychological horror fix, Derek Franson’s Comforting Skin may do just the trick. It certainly did for me. It’s a film that starts unsteadily as our main lead is introduced to us. Koffie (yes, that’s her name, and she’s played terrifically by Victoria Bidewell) is down and out and feeling as if no one wants anything to do with her. She’s dishevelled, has a past that hasn’t been bright,…
By: Addison Wylie The documentary Shooting Bigfoot follows three expeditions led by four different devoted and off-kilter trackers. One subject is Rick Dyer. Dyer has had his name besmirched in the world of hunting Bigfoot due to a scam that took the media by storm. Once he finds Bigfoot, he plans to capture it and take its life. Another hunter is Tom Biscardi, a well known tracker who has no interest in killing Bigfoot, but…
By: Addison Wylie First and foremost: Scary Movie 5 is not a funny movie. I know I usually state in my reviews that humour is subjective, but finding a joke or sight gag in Malcolm D. Lee’s comedy that could be deemed as hilarious or clever would be like sifting through the Pacific Ocean to find a sliver of gold. It’s a bizarre comedy that forces the audience to wonder about who thought these jokes…
By: Addison Wylie About six months ago, Canada’s Cineplex Entertainment held their Digital Film Festival featuring a variety of different classics restored and shown through new digital projectors. Steven Spielberg’s hit Jurassic Park was included in this special selection and being that I had some how missed watching the prehistoric epic in my early years, I decided this would be a more than appropriate choice for my first viewing. Jurassic Park is an excellent monster…
By: Addison Wylie Alias made me frustrated. Watching Michelle Latimer’s documentary provoked me in a way that pushed me to talk back to the screen – something I rarely do. Alias focuses on a small handful of Toronto rappers trying to be heard and to please an audience with their music and lyrics. According to the synopsis, Latimer’s doc “digs deeper than the usual portrait of the rap world as glamour, guns and swagger.” I…
By: Addison Wylie Todd Berger’s ill-timed and ill-titled comedy is being released at a perilous time – which isn’t the filmmaker nor the movie’s fault. However, It’s A Disaster! is too small and vague to be deemed as controversial or hateful, but it’s theatrical run is so quiet that it runs the risk of not becoming a blip on the average moviegoer’s radar. It’s unfortunate because Berger’s comedy of manners is pretty good and sophisticatedly…
By: Addison Wylie The premise for He’s Way More Famous Than You is risky for its main actress Halley Feiffer – who plays an exaggerated version of herself in the film. The comedy about a hopeful actress wanting to gain more recognition long after her “star-making” performance in 2005’s The Squid and the Whale can go two ways. It can be a sharply written satire about self-obsession and the Hollywood machine. It can be about…
By: Addison Wylie Fresh off his enigmatic Oscar nominated The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick hits theatres (and VOD in the USA) with To the Wonder, a character study of sorts – but even I have a hard time calling it a straight “character study”. The film is a character study in the sense that Malick’s film has a loose story and a small ensemble portraying fictional people written by the complex director, but To…
By: Addison Wylie The bass was booming with each explosion, the walls shook with every bullet fired, yet my ears weren’t ringing during my screening of G.I. Joe: Retaliation. On the other hand, my head was throbbing from trying to keep up with the sequel’s needlessly convoluted screenplay. Rhett Reece and Paul Wernick have joined forces to make a simple enough concept as untraceable as Roadblock’s small troupe of Joe’s. Dwayne Johnson plays Roadblock while…