By: Addison Wylie Fed-up filmmaker Crystal, her procedural producer Dawn, and her colourful actresses travel to different theatres to screen their new film in Ryan M. Andrews’ Save Yourself. Any festival goer will familiarize with the film’s first act taking place in a packed theatre as drama unfolds behind-the-scenes. Those same patrons will also start eagerly guessing where Save Yourself is headed once the characters hit the road.
By: Shannon Page Canadian filmmaking veteran Larry Kent’s She Who Must Burn, which was directed by Kent and co-written with Shane Twerdun, follows a nurse for planned-parenthood (Sarah Smyth) who refuses to leave her clinic even after it is shut down by the state. Her persistence puts her at odds with the town’s fanatic, evangelical residents who believe that her commitment to a woman’s right to choose is a sin.
By: Mark Barber Andrew Cymek’s Night Cries is the product of a variety of recycled ideas and premises from other movies. Taking cues from The Matrix, Twelve Monkeys, Mad Max and dozens of other sci-fi/action films, Cymek’s film is too self-serious and rarely entertaining. Cymek (who also wrote, produced, and edited the film) plays Joseph, a man who searches for his wife in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by weird creatures and a gang of people…
By: Addison Wylie When the Unspecters – a team of bush-league paranormal investigators – are told to up their ante in order to score a television show pilot, they apprehensively set their sights on Farhope Tower. The high-rise has a history of undistinguished suicides, and its been uninhabited for years. The Unspecters are used to spelunking for spirits in caves and dark crevices, but they muster forward into their next challenge. April Mullen’s Farhope Tower is…
By: Shahbaz Khayambashi The Blood in the Snow Film Festival has returned to offer us a respite from the cold. Unfortunately, this year’s short film picks are disheartening – viewers may be better off wandering the streets and suffering from frostbite. I appreciate this festival for its attention to Canadian cinema, I really do, but this year’s batch of short films feature the sort of films that make Canadians badmouth their own cinema. The majority of these films…
By: Shannon Page Andrew Moxham’s White Raven follows four friends (Andrew Dunbar, Steve Bradley, Aaron Brooks, and Shane Twerdun) as they head out for a weekend of male-bonding in the remote wilderness. When one of the friends (Bradley) slowly begins to lose touch with reality, the others find themselves fighting for their lives. There is a lot going on beneath White Raven’s by-the-books survivalist horror surface. At its core, the film makes a serious attempt to…
By: Addison Wylie Pause Charles Wilkinson’s latest documentary Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World at any given moment, and you’ll more than likely land on a stunning image. The cinematography displaying the tucked away world of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia is almost too perfect, but that’s just how naturally beautiful it is. At first, it appears Wilkinson doesn’t have preferred motives in his filmmaking other than to shine a light on a lesser-known Indigenous community where…
By: Addison Wylie Secret Santa has been made to entertain, and entertain it does. Mikey McMurran’s horror throwback pays homage to an era where slasher films ruled exploitation cinema. There was an unlimited supply of blood, actors camped it up, and synthesizer stings sliced through any scene with a hooded figure. If you’re looking for visual and audio cues in a surface-deep tribute, you’ll be satisfied by the Cambridge native’s low budget lark. Secret Santa…
By: Mark Barber Billy Ray’s Secret in Their Eyes, an American remake of Juan José Campanella’s 2009 film of the same name, is eerily reminiscent, both thematically and atmospherically, of Denis Villeneuve’s thriller Prisoners, but without going “full-blown Hollywood” in the last act. In other words, Secret in Their Eyes succeeds where Prisoners didn’t, and in ways that highlight the moral ambiguity of its political context. Much like how Prisoners worked as a moderately effective…
By: Addison Wylie Drone looks at the controversy attached to the airborne warfare from all angles; including the conception of the device (including some neat trivial facts about how drones were first intended for fishermen searching for tuna), the budding utilization introduced by the Bush administration, and the ongoing decisive back-and-forth over whether it’s an effective tactic or just creating war crimes. Considering the subject matter and the high risk surrounding drones, it’s to no surprise…