By: Addison Wylie After being featured at Toronto After Dark, the indie Canadian thriller named Solo is making a more public appearance with a theatrical run at Toronto’s Carlton Cinema. Carlton Cinema is a very appropriate venue seeing as the theatre and the film both share a level of independence. Carlton Cinema is a quaint theatre that feels as if you step into another world of movie watching, and Solo’s lead is left in her own world…
By: Addison Wylie Solo starts out on an “A” game, but ends up finishing with a generous “C” grade. Isaac Cravit’s independent thriller is a straight-up campfire story – and, the filmmaker knows it. Gillian (played by former Degrassi: The Next Generation co-star Annie Clark) needs to prove herself to be a capable camp counsellor in order to obtain a summer job. The newbie needs to pull a “solo”, a two-night experience on a secluded…
By: Addison Wylie Every so often, a movie comes along and upsets me heavily with how it wastes prime opportunities. February has slung that film at me and it’s called Sex After Kids, a Canadian independent comedy helped out with a successful IndieGoGo campaign. The only thing that stops me from getting really angry at Sex After Kids is that there is not a mean bone in its body. Filmmaker Jeremy Lalonde has truly tried…
By: Addison Wylie Some movies can be summed up in one word. Katrin Bowen’s Random Acts of Romance can be summed up with a let down sigh. It’s tough to see a movie worth rooting for bite off more than it can chew. Or, in this case, expand its focus so far that the target the film is aiming for becomes more difficult to hit. Random Acts of Romance gets our attention with its overlapping…
By: Addison Wylie I didn’t like The Disappeared, but I can at least compliment its opening shots. Director Shandi Mitchell quickly establishes the nothingness that exists around a crew of lost men at sea. Mitchell generates an instantaneous sense of fear and hopelessness as the vagueness in their whereabouts and time of day effects the audience greatly. Then, someone speaks. And, more people speak. It’s not so much speaking as it is projecting and emphasizing…
Sitting in the theatre on the last night of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival is bittersweet. While one week is the perfect duration for a genre festival that pushes the wee hours of the night, it’s still tough to say “goodbye” to an event that almost always delivered on quality. The last day of the festival ended with the dark comedy Cheap Thrills and acclaimed thriller Big Bad Wolves – which also happens to…
By: Addison Wylie Alan Zweig won top honours at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September for his documentary filmmaking with When Jews Were Funny – but, I needed more convincing. When Jews Were Funny – a doc on how a Judaic approach to comedy made its way into our funny bones – had appropriate subjects to interview, a proper conversational vibe about it, but its scope was too narrow. Zweig didn’t have enough…
By: Addison Wylie The last thing I expect to feel during “riotous and outrageous sexual exploration” is snooze-inducing boredom. That was the case with My Awkward Sexual Adventure, an unadulterated Canadian sex comedy that sets up an array of absurd situations only to do nothing but fumble around. I hate pointing all the blame towards one individual, but with My Awkward Sexual Adventure, it’s tough not to do that when Jonas Chernick is the source…
By: Addison Wylie In the span of a month, Toronto has gotten two independent films that feature exotic locations starring a cast member of Degrassi: The Next Generation. While they’re both badly made, Adriarico My Love is not the worst out of the two. That dishonour still goes to Dev Khanna’s Fondi ’91. However, Nikola Curcin’s peculiar film is a shabby endeavour and just about the strangest film you’ll see this Summer – and, not…
For those who may be unaware, I also write on a more Canadian-savvy site called Film Army. At Film Army, contributors wish to bring filmmakers – ranging from students to up-and-comers to tenured artists – together and provide resources, news, and other relevant information in order to keep these dedicated readers in the loop regarding the film and television industry. Contributors have some sort of tv/film experience under our belts. Some have been working behind-the-scenes…