By: Trevor Chartrand Director Nathan Grossman takes an observational, fly-on-the wall approach with I Am Greta, a documentary that follows climate-change obsessed Swedish teen Greta Thunberg on her quest to raise awareness for the climate justice cause. However, much like the politicians who aren’t listening to Greta, the hands-off, reserved filmmaking style fails to become involved enough in the issues to inspire a call to action of any kind.
By: Jolie Featherstone To Your Last Death is a high-tension trip in the line of recent genre-blending thrillers where a young woman cuts a swath through an army of those who would do her harm in a journey of survival and vindication. Think Ready or Not meets the Preacher graphic novel series, To Your Last Death throws a pacifistic activist into an ultimate death match where she must resort to a kill-or-be-killed mindset to survive.
By: Jolie Featherstone We Are Many offers an inspiring – dare I say celebratory – look at the organization and outcomes of the largest protest in human history. Indeed, an estimated 30 million people (many of whom had never attended a protest before) in over 800 cities across the entire globe collectively protested the US’ war in Iraq on February 15, 2003.
By: Jessica Goddard Despite its inexplicable first-rate cast, Blackbird is an eye-rollingly disappointing take on the terminal illness drama from director Roger Michell (Notting Hill, My Cousin Rachel). Screenwriter Christian Torpe paints with a bland palette of stock characters to slap together a narrative infested with clichés and unnatural one-liners, leading nowhere of interest.
By: Jolie Featherstone Unjoo Moon’s I Am Woman is a loving biopic of Helen Reddy, the artist who created the iconic song ‘I Am Woman’, the anthem of the women’s movement in the 1970s.
By: Trevor Chartrand While entertaining and informative, Happy Happy Joy Joy: The Ren & Stimpy Story is a documentary with two very different and almost contradictory goals. On the one hand, the film takes a mostly light-hearted look at the making-of a beloved animated series. But on the other hand, however, the doc is also a dark character study featuring the disturbing behaviours of Ren and Stimpy’s show creator, John Kricfalusi.
By: Jessica Goddard It’s an intriguing premise: a crude ex-convict will stop at nothing to build a motivational speaking empire. Tijuana Jackson is unrefined, unreliable, and painfully pompous; but for better or for worse, he is motivated.
By: Trevor Chartrand With a title like this, it’s too easy for reviewers like myself to open with something like, “A Perfect Plan is not a perfect movie”, so allow me to go one step further. It would be more accurate to say this film falls monstrously short of perfect. In fact, it’s about as far from perfection as you could possibly get. A mediocre thriller at best, the film is littered with problems in…
By: Jolie Featherstone Based on a true story, as told in the best-selling non-fiction book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, Rod Lurie’s The Outpost is a striking tribute to the U.S. soldiers of Troop 3-61 Cavalry, who went on to become the most decorated unit in the war in Afghanistan.
