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2015

One-on-Ones

Tru Talk: A Two-On-One With Kate Johnston and Shauna MacDonald

January 23, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

Tru Love hits Toronto’s Carlton Cinema today, and it’s a wise choice to support it.  While it occasionally dabbles as a soap opera, I found its romantic intimacy lovely.  The characters are innocent when facing the premise, which makes their maturity manifest naturally. Recently, I talked Tru Love shop with the film’s co-directors, Kate Johnston and Shauna MacDonald.  We discussed the film’s snowcapped Toronto setting, the importance of setting a general tone, and if post-production altered that original mood….

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Reviews

The 50 Year Argument

January 23, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The 50 Year Argument documents the persuasive, opinionated history of the highly regarded publication The New York Review of Books.  The film chronicles the exclusive timeline decently, although the doc’s pacing and organization feels like it keeps us in our seats for fifty years. In the early 60’s, during the New York printers strike, The New York Review of Books found its footing as a magazine that didn’t feel tethered by opposing…

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Reviews

The Humbling

January 22, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie The Humbling is one greasy ham of a film.  It has no plan.  It has no skill.  It knows no volume.  When director Barry Levinson senses the audience is recognizing how little his film has to offer, he has his actors yell and ramble.  Not many movies get more annoying than The Humbling. I had found a redeeming quality in Levinson’s film, and I desperately hoped that detail would grow into the…

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Reviews

Tru Love

January 21, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie As much as technology has progressed and storytelling has creatively evolved, the film industry still remains on a playing field where movie goers – all too easily – can look at a project and label it as something that’s either for males or for females.  Of course, there are exceptions, but this sort of divvying haplessly exists. Moviemaking thankfully advances as films open themselves for its audience to overlap.  When I sat…

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Reviews

Killers

January 20, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie An onslaught of revolting violence is on display in Killers.  It’s the kind of stuff that makes you nauseous, wondering how the filmmakers choreographed such hard-hitting nastiness.  The bloodshed, however, has a purpose and contributes to the cunning study of obsession Killers also displays. This Indonesian hybrid of a thriller and a horror looks at the digital age’s fascination with snuff and the power of control.  The story, written by Takuji Ushiyama…

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Reviews

No Good Deed

January 18, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie I consider Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson as two of today’s most capable actors.  Elba is becoming more of a household name thanks to his appearances in Marvel’s universe, and his highly regarded turn as Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.  Henson remains as someone who makes you breathe a sigh of relief when they suddenly grace the screen in middling fare like Date Night and Larry Crowne.  She…

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Reviews

Last Days in Vietnam

January 17, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Gesilayefa Azorbo Last Days in Vietnam, directed by Rory Kennedy, is a gripping look back at the massive, often unsanctioned evacuations of South Vietnamese citizens and Americans in Vietnam that were undertaken in the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War.  This is a story told through meticulously researched archival footage and interviews with key players in the US and Vietnamese military and state departments – including Henry Kissinger himself – as well as…

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Reviews

Housebound

January 15, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Housebound gives off the scent of a film written by multiple parties who want different things, even though the screenplay was solely written by director Gerard Johnstone. The film quickly develops an amusing dynamic between its two female leads.  Kylie (Played by Morgana O’Reilly) is a criminal forced to live under house arrest with her mother Miriam (played by Rima Te Wiata).  Mom would like to get along, but Kylie would rather…

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Reviews

Corner Gas: The Movie

January 13, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Corner Gas: The Movie is a prime candidate for a review that requires me to cop out.  The bottom line: if you liked Corner Gas during its humbling five year run on television and have since enjoyed reruns in syndication, then you’ll enjoy its big screen debut.  But, let’s see if I can elaborate. The original cast of Canada’s beloved Corner Gas have reunited for an encore, which includes Saskatchewan funny man…

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Reviews

I Put a Hit on You

January 11, 2015Addison Wylie2 Comments

By: Addison Wylie I Put a Hit on You is a movie with a hangover.  It doesn’t want to bother getting out of bed.  When it eventually does, it shuffles its feet from one end of 78 minutes to the other.  It’s found love on the festival circuit, and that makes me confused. Harper (played by Sara Canning) likes to be in control.  When a proposal to her boyfriend Ray (played by Aaron Ashmore) goes…

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