In The Last Showgirl, in between shows, two titans tower over stage performer Shelly (Pamela Anderson) that look a lot like her – statues of glamourous, golden age showgirls that represent the Las Vegas staple, Le Razzle Dazzle, that Shelly has built a career around. These idols may identify personally to Shelly, but she soon realizes they mean very little to most people; including younger dancers she shares the stage with (Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song) and the wayward…
Young Werther is a witless comedy, which is awkward considering the production deems itself as a slick flick. While I can’t comment on whether Jose Lourenço’s feature-length filmmaking debut is faithful to its source material (the 1774 novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Johann Wolfgang Goethe), I can relay to my readers what Young Werther reminded me of. Werther (Douglas Booth of Netflix’s The Dirt), someone who considers himself to be a noble cosmopolitan and…
By: Addison Wylie The Room Next Door is headlined by Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) and Julianne Moore (Being Alice), performing under the direction of Spanish filmmaker/screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her). While this drama feels like an easy task for these Oscar winners, that’s essentially the magic of the film and what makes The Room Next Door effortlessly great. For the Parallel Mothers filmmaker, Almodóvar makes his English-language debut with The Room Next Door; though the audience wouldn’t have noticed. Aside…
The expectations for contemporary holiday movies is to push feel-good stories that either include a slew of cliched character archetypes (“the busy business woman”, “the hunky but humble woodsman”) or include as many identifiable symbols to represent the season. We see the latter in movies that are casual about Christmas – make a normal, low stakes schmaltz-fest and include a wreath in the background for some shots. Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point is refreshingly different….
By: Addison Wylie After being lauded for his work as a documentarian on The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, I suppose Joshua Oppenheimer was itching to cash in some clout; deciding to do so with an apocalyptic musical titled The End. Sporting impressive art direction and a well-regarded cast including Tilda Swinton (I’m Not Here), Michael Shannon (The Night Before) and George MacKay (1917), Oppenheimer fuses components of a survival thriller, a dynasty drama, and…
Matthew Modine (of Netflix’s Stranger Things and 2011’s Wrong Turn) plays Steve in The Martini Shot, a terminally ill film director who is looking to make one last movie before his “time is up”. Even his doctor (John Cleese, the funniest he’s been since Rat Race) thinks the idea of Steve’s cinematic Irish swan song may be too ambitious given the filmmaker’s condition. But with such a loyal assistant (Fiona Glascott) and an open-minded film…
For 25 years, Mike Smith has co-starred in the Trailer Park Boys cult franchise as a surly yet compassionate, shed-dwelling kitten enthusiast known as Bubbles. While he may be referred to as a “second-or-third banana” in the get-rich schemes hatched by his pals Julian (JP Tremblay) and Ricky (Robb Wells), Bubbles’ side stories about his pets and his love for music has scratched the interest of fans; serving as a reason for fans to keep returning…
Going from one survival thriller inspired by video games (Pins & Needles) to another of its ilk, Flow is a much more literal and condensed example to identify with younger audiences. The results are slight and sometimes not very attractive, eventually weighed down by its own style and visual storytelling, but Flow is clean and entertaining family fare. A curious kitty roams a forest, and finds refuge in an abandoned house where her presumed former…
Known as “The G” to family, anger hangs off of Ann Hunter (Dale Dickey of Leave No Trace and Hell or High Water). As the primary caregiver for her ailing husband despite feeling as though everyone perceives her as a liability, Ann doesn’t have time to sugarcoat anything through her utter exhaustion. When she and her husband are abruptly relocated from their suburban home to a care facility by their legal guardian, Ann is upset…
Cat-and-mouse thriller Pins & Needles can’t escape its flaws. Unfortunately for editor-turn-filmmaker James Villeneuve, there’s plenty of them in his feature-length debut (which had its world premiere last month at the Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival).