By: Jolie Featherstone Jen Markowitz’s documentary Summer Qamp follows several teens as they attend Camp fYrefly – a camp in rural Alberta where queer, non-binary, and trans teens get to be themselves, surrounded by peers and counsellors who can relate to their experience. From the moment the campers arrive, the camp implements a framework of care. Whether it’s coming out as trans or climbing a rock wall, the campers are supported.
In a rare move, instead of recommending The Pod Generation by itself, I’m asking you to pair the sci-fi indie with another one from the same ilk, After Yang.
By: Jolie Featherstone Joanna Arnow directs, writes, edits, and stars in the smartly droll The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed, a directorial feature debut that takes an unflinching, but not bleak, look at Millennial ennui.
Moving in and out of theatres faster than a killer sloth, fun and freaky flick Don’t Look Away offers audiences an ominous and haunting villain – a motiveless, murderous mannequin.
Let’s compare R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to past adapted media based on the work of the titular author: if Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy was for adults, and the 90s era Goosebumps television show was for teenagers, and the recent Goosebumps films (featuring Jack Black) are for kids, then Zombie Town is for really young children. I’m wondering what the next level down would be – short stories for fetuses about expectant mothers who eat too…
Golda kicks off a season of “Oscar bait”, movies that try very hard to make an impression towards the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As much as Guy Nattiv’s film may have been conceived from a good place, with the movie’s heavy use of make-up and prosthetics to transform Oscar-winner Helen Mirren into Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, it’s hard for viewers to dismiss this possible pandering.
Passages has a great introduction. Film director Tomas (Franz Rogowski) orders actors around and painstakingly focuses on someone’s inability to walk down a flight of stairs. As Tomas shows the actor how to walk down the stairs, it becomes very obvious that Tomas wants to be idolized. He does this by being intimidating to get what he wants.
Back on the Strip is a guilty pleasure in the sense that I feel like I need to apologize to somebody for laughing as much as I did. This unleashed movie isn’t very perceptive or thoughtful, but it knows how to deliver a payoff and a punchline. I suppose in these circumstances you have to be fair and give credit where credit is due, but it feels like I’m rewarding bad behaviour.
