Reviews

Reviews

The Martini Shot

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…

Reviews

Trailer Park Boys Presents: Standing on the Shoulders of Kitties – The Bubbles and the Shitrockers Story

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…

Reviews

Flow

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…

Reviews

The G

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…

Reviews

Your Monster

Your Monster is billed as a horror-fantasy, with notes of a rom-com, featuring a Broadway hopeful (Melissa Barrera) discovering a hunky beast (Tommy Dewey) in her closet. Sounds wild, right? What if I told you writer/director Caroline Lindy plays everything “straight”? What if I told you that the film is so quiet, you can hear the emptiness between lines of dialogue? Granted, this is a deliberate choice to play up the film’s quirkier qualities, but…

Reviews

Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue

Second Chance Productions’ Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue is an animated road movie for the kiddies that doesn’t pooch the audience on a good time. Prim-and-proper pup Gracie (voiced by Claire Alan) and feisty feline Pedro (voiced by Cory Doran) embark on their family’s big move to Salt Lake City, but the trip doesn’t go smoothly.  The animals topple off-track in their shared carrier before boarding their plane and end up missing their flight.  Realizing…

Reviews

Goodrich

By: Addison Wylie Preceding an amicable exchange between ex-lovers, Andy Goodrich (Michael Keaton) is asked by his former wife Ann (Andie MacDowell) how he’s doing. “I’m okay,” Andy answers. “You’re always okay,” Ann teases. She isn’t wrong. Throughout Goodrich, the audience observes Andy doing okay. He occasionally has an awkward conversation that sometimes references his past as a flawed father but, otherwise, he’s a well-respected and levelheaded dude.

Reviews

The Apprentice

Donald Trump has denounced The Apprentice.  Not to be confused with his hit reality show of the past, The Apprentice is a docudrama chronicling the relationship between Trump and lawyer Roy Cohn.  But, it seems as though the former president has misinterpreted Ali Abbasi’s movie as a biopic on his life as a businessman-turn-infamous mogul.  There are biographical elements to The Apprentice , but the focus isn’t specific enough to be a Trump biopic.  If Trump had stepped back, he would’ve seen that…

Reviews

Woman of the Hour

Academy Award nominee Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) makes her directorial debut with Woman of the Hour, a period crime drama centred around a game show where one of the contestants is an unidentified serial killer. Kendrick stars as Sheryl, a down-and-out actor who hasn’t secured her bearings since moving to Los Angeles to fulfil her dreams of an acting career. When offered a role as a “bachelorette avidly searching for true love”, and after…

Reviews

Lee

The assumption to presume there’s a personal connection between director Ellen Kuras and photographer Lee Miller, the subject of Kuras’ feature-length narrative debut Lee, isn’t that rash.  An obvious interest for camerawork is shared between Kuras and Miller, and the passion for the craft may have also rubbed off on star Kate Winslet (who Kuras has worked with previously on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and A Little Chaos, and is credited as an executive producer on Lee). …