Antarctica
By: Jolie Featherstone Imbued with dry wit and heaps of quirk, Keith Bearden’s high school-outsider dramedy Antarctica leans into absurdist humour to highlight the pressures and barriers teenage girls are facing today.
2020
Survival Skills
The police have always been fertile territory for mockery; from the bumbling cop who always misses the crime to the surly “good cop” who gets shot two days before retirement. In the last decade, however, that mockery has become problematized in and of itself, whether by people who think that the police should be above reproach or people who think that making light of the police normalizes their brutality. As such, police satire needs to walk a…
Rocks
Sarah Gavron’s Rocks is a realist coming-of-age drama that follows a young girl of colour, “Rocks” (Bukky Bakray), as she struggles caring for her younger brother after their mother leaves without warning. Aggressively directed and acted, Rocks offers a poignant intersectional look at race, poverty, and gender in the context of the United Kingdom, where the racial tensions–let alone economic tensions–triggered by Brexit are flourishing.
Zappa
Other than his physical appearance, my knowledge on the life and career of Frank Zappa was nil; which is why I was anticipating the documentary Zappa. Because if a filmmaker is going to educate me on the legacy of a prolific musician, it’s documentarian Alex Winter. Recently known for his return as Bill S. Preston Esq. in Bill & Ted Face The Music, music aficionado Winter is also one of the best documentarians currently working…
I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight
I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight has an ungainly title but, luckily, the film’s memorable efforts are more than distracting.
The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two
Netflix follows up The Princess Switch: Switched Again with another disappointing seasonal sequel to one of their holiday hits, The Christmas Chronicles.
The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story
I’m laying my cards out on the table: I have an unconditional love for Nickelodeon. The network defined my childhood, helped diversify my media and sense of humour, and it was an outlet for truly unique entertainment. As much as I tried to enter Scott Barber and Adam Sweeney’s documentary The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story without an enamouring bias, it was impossible.
Sound of Metal
Screenwriter Darius Marder teams up yet again with filmmaker Derek Cianfrance. Only this time, the roles are reversed with executive producer Cianfrance taking a story credit and Marder (still penning the screenplay) stepping into the director’s chair. The finished film, Sound of Metal, is as much of a masterpiece as their last collaboration, The Place Beyond the Pines.