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July 2015

Reviews

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

Mr. Holmes

July 16, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Mark Barber Current representations of Sherlock Holmes are filled with weighty world-threatening stakes and explosive action sequences.  Bill Condon’s more peaceful and contemplative Mr. Holmes seeks to rectify that inclination, offering a more poignant take on the famous deerstalker-wearing detective. Indeed, Sherlock’s trademark cap never appears in the film, and for good reason.  Mr. Holmes is about the interplay between fact and fiction, spending much of its running time reconciling the elderly Holmes’ (Ian…

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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

Cartel Land

July 11, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Shannon Page There is a saying that maintains that there are two sides to every story.  At its most basic, surface level, Cartel Land is an examination of the homegrown militia movements that have sprung up on both sides of the U.S.A./Mexico border in response to the presence of organized crime and drug cartel-related violence.  In Arizona, an American veteran leads a paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon that aims to stop the violence…

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Reviews

The Yes Men Are Revolting

July 10, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Trevor Jeffery The Yes Men Are Revolting is something like reality prank drama meets comedic character documentary, with social justice slathered through out. Back for their third documentary, cultural activist conmen Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (stage names for Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, respectively) stick it to the man by pretending to be the man and raising awareness through fake press conferences and publicity stunts.  The Yes Men hit climate change hard, and…

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Reviews

Going In and Coming Out: Self/Less

July 9, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Anthony King GOING IN: There are a lot of films out there that help us escape our lives and live out a fantasy.  For men in particular, some want to be an international spy who always gets the lady, an astronaut exploring the galaxy, a mobster in a fancy suit tossing out the kiss of death left and right… or some of us just want to be able to discard our gross bodies and be…

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