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2015

Festival Coverage

Canadian Film Festival ’15: The Cocksure Lads Movie

March 19, 2015Addison Wylie4 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Musicians Mike Ford and Murray Foster have a shared enthusiasm for toe-tapping britpop.  This appreciation motivated the compadres to develop The Cocksure Lads, an imitation homage to the lively tunes. Foster has taken the ruse further with The Cocksure Lads Movie.  While the comedy is lightheartedly harmless, I have a disagreement with how this nutty band has taken the leap to the big screen. The Cocksure Lads, a tame group of goodie-goodies,…

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Reviews

The DUFF

March 17, 2015Addison Wylie2 Comments

By: Addison Wylie By playing the role of Bianca ‘The DUFF’ Piper, actress Mae Whitman finds herself in the midst of being typecast.  She plays this precocious misfit so well, that I can already envision casting agents salivating.  The predicament Whitman and those eager agents find themselves in is that The DUFF isn’t a great movie nor particularly memorable.  Its resonating buzz will be made up of satisfactory shoulder shrugs and head bobs from those…

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Reviews

Stop the Pounding Heart

March 15, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Roberto Minervini’s docudrama Stop the Pounding Heart has an intentionally intrusive presentation set in rural Americana.  The audience peers in on extremely realistic conversations from a cast of unknowns to a prying degree.  Stop the Pounding Heart is one of those films where you demand to read the screenplay afterwards because you’re dying to find out what was scripted and what was conjured naturally in front of the camera. With Minervini being…

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Reviews

HITS

March 12, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie David Cross is one of the best comedians working in the business today.  His blunt, unmerciful opinion carries through his routine as he nails each punchline with the right amount of sarcastic wit.  But as clever as he is, Cross’ brand of curt comedy needs to form in a new direction if he plans on carrying on making movies. HITS marks the comic’s directorial debut, and he also penned the screenplay that…

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Reviews

Loitering with Intent

March 12, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Mark Barber Loitering with Intent has all the right ingredients for a compelling short film.  Unfortunately, it has been unnecessarily bloated into an 80-minute feature. Raphael (Ivan Martin) and Dominic (Michael Godere) are two struggling actor-writers who are commissioned to write the screenplay for a low-budget Chandleresque noir film.  The screenplay subplot is quickly dropped once the two are settled in their writing retreat: the cottage they occupy suddenly becomes a festering nightmare of…

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Reviews

1971

March 6, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Johanna Hamilton’s documentary has intrigue and suspicion.  It makes you question the legitimacy behind our privacy. 1971 is about the shocking true story of intrepid activists obtaining and distributing confidential FBI documents.  The files were finely searched through, and then sent to major news publications.  This act of defiance led to an unraveling case that had America looking at the FBI under an uncomfortably naked light.  A particular program titled Cointelpro had…

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Reviews

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus

March 5, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Addison Wylie Spike Lee took to Kickstarter to fund his latest joint Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.  It was a bold move that opened up the floodgates for skeptics to start criticizing the filmmaker.  Zach Braff endured the same with his campaign to make Wish I Was Here. Lee brings more of an argumentative crowd compared to Braff’s followers and naysayers.  Some see Spike Lee as a self-serving loudmouth, but loyal fans believe he has…

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Reviews

Kingsman: The Secret Service

March 3, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Addison Wylie Some will say I’m stubborn, but I can’t bring myself to watch any Bond movies starring Daniel Craig.  I’m open to change and I like to be pleasantly surprised, but these new Bond movies simply don’t pique my interest.  Craig is a fine actor, and the films bring extraordinary talent behind the camera.  But, to me, Bond films should be flashy and grand.  They should be implausible and crazy.  I appreciate the…

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Reviews

The Lazarus Effect

March 1, 2015Addison Wylie1 Comment

By: Mark Barber David Gelb’s The Lazarus Effect offers an intriguing concept, but gets bogged down by convention. Despite its compelling concept, the premise is familiar: a group of researchers led by Frank (Mark Duplass) and his fiancée Zoe (Olivia Wilde) create the “Lazarus” serum, a formula that brings the recently deceased back to life.  This God-like power to cheat death causes things to go awry very quickly.  Zoe is killed in a laboratory accident…

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Reviews

Fifty Shades of Grey

February 21, 2015Addison Wylie0 Comments

By: Mark Barber Like its source material, the film adaptation of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey has taken quite a bit of flak for its tantalizing portrayal of abusive relationships.  The film reeks of misogyny, but that’s only half the problem.  While Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film resists some of the moral haziness of the book’s gender politics, it does so half-heartedly. Given the book’s start as Twilight fan-fiction, it’s not surprising how the film’s narrative…

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