Since his biopic Milk, director Gus Van Sant hasn’t been involved with many buzzy projects. That luck may change with Dead Man’s Wire, a comic crime caper that marks a brilliant return for Sant. A bizarre, public kidnapping carried out by disgruntled developer Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgard of the modern It series) is the talk of the nation, as Kiritsis holds mortgage broker Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery of Netflix’s Stranger Things) at gunpoint. Richard, filling in for his…
Audiences looking for a different take on survival thrillers and disaster movies may be pleasantly surprised by Zak Hilditch’s We Bury the Dead. Likewise for horror hounds who have been thirsty for crushingly bleak imports from Australia. This is a stark, sick and slick flick. Daisy Ridley has gone from space (the Star Wars franchise) to the sea (Young Woman and the Sea) and, now, to sullen ground zero after a botched military weapon test levels…
In a would-be layup to his terrific Blue Moon, Richard Linklater returns with a love letter to filmmaking in Nouvelle Vague. This meat-and-potatoes biopic covers the making-of Jean Luc-Godard’s Breathless, which would become a staple of French cinema’s Nouvelle Vague (the New Wave) movement. As a film critic for Cashiers du Cinema, Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) stews in pent-up jealousy as he observes his peers and their filmmaking aspirations. Though content with criticizing but itching for a challenge, Godard finally gains…
Tasha Hubbard’s Meadowlarks is a dramatic narrative of the director’s award-winning documentary Birth of a Family. Hubbard portrays the same story of reunited First Nations siblings who were separated by the Sixties Scoop, as they spend a week in Banff to gain an intimate bond that was destroyed when they were relocated to different families. With the exception, however, of one heart-stricken brother who prefers to live life in the present instead of refacing on a…
The Toronto After Dark Film Festival has a firm commitment to giving short films a significant platform, and this year was no different. The shorts are peppered in throughout the festival – from short film programs to condensed genre flicks opening for much-anticipated features. The following are short films that were featured in the Canada After Dark showcase that are worth your time if you see them reappear on the festival circuit or an online…
It’s March 31, 1943, and Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) is chatting up the patrons at Sardi’s, a restaurant that will be hosting the production of Oklahoma! after their opening night. The buzz around this new musical is rumoured to be a hit for Hart’s collaborative composer Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott), who paired with Oscar Hammerstein II for this folksy endeavour. Hart, whether he knows it or not, tries to tune out and drown away his…
You’re a Millennial living through the aughts of Gen Z. You’re in high school, hastily finishing last week’s homework, and anticipating the wild shenanigans you’ll catch in the evening on MTV’s Jackass spin-off Viva La Bam, the network’s hit reality show starring skateboarder Bam Margera and his fellow band of Pennsylvanian misfits. In between harebrained spectacles and stunts, most likely involving destruction or pranks or both, rock and metal tunes would play over top of…
Movie musical maestro Bill Condon (director of Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast [2017], and screenwriter for Chicago and The Greatest Showman) provides a good stage-to-screen adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman. But, it’s also a reminder that sometimes a filmed version of a bottled staged show can’t overcome its blatant challenges. Most of 1993’s Tony award-winner takes place within a shared jail. Luis (soap star Tonatiuh) has been incarcerated for indecency and continues to experience other prejudices for…
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror may be the the definitive time warp on the history and legacy of the cult hit, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the stage musical that preceded it, The Rocky Horror Show. Produced by World of Wonder (RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts) and from the perspective of director Linus O’Brien (the son of Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien), the documentary works in a linear fashion; starting with…
Mercedes Bryce Morgan directs the provocative Bone Lake. While the press notes assure me that Mercedes Bryce Morgan is a single person, this messy and conflicted film feels as though it was a tug of war between three creatives named Mercedes, Bryce, and Morgan. Bone Lake is bookended by its best (and bloodiest) bits. The film kicks off with a stark naked couple, fearfully running away from crossbow arrows before being outrageously impaled. This opener is immature,…