A Fire in the Cold Season
Strong performances and a moving score elevate A Fire in the Cold Season, a thriller that offers few genuine thrills.
Canadian
Nadia, Butterfly
Pascal Plante’s Nadia, Butterfly eerily takes place at the now-cancelled 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and follows a French Canadian Olympian swimmer as she participates in her final event as a professional athlete. Lovingly directed yet glacially paced, Nadia, Butterfly boasts some excellent performances and cinematography, but struggles to overcome its vague characterizations and meandering screenplay.
Parallel Minds
Benjamin Ross Hayden’s futuristic sci-fi Parallel Minds begins with the invention of Red Eye 2, an improved ocular device that allows you to relive precious memories and record new ones. As the launch approaches, Red Eye researcher Margo (Tommie-Amber Pirie) works closely with the product’s head developer. In a shocking turn, the developer turns up dead; prompting a withered detective, Thomas (Greg Bryk), to look for answers behind the alleged murder. Margo assists him because,…
Never Be Done: The Richard Glen Lett Story
Never Be Done: The Richard Glen Lett Story is a fantastic example of true documentary filmmaking.
Wylie Writes’ One-On-One with Kire Paputts
Director Kire Paputts follows up his modest feature debut The Rainbow Kid with The Last Porno Show, an envelope-pushing character drama chronicling the personal arc of an aspiring actor taking over his estranged father’s faded adults-only move theatre. It’s a really good movie that doesn’t shy away from anything and bares it all. It stuck to me like shoes to the floor of a sold-out screening room.
A Perfect Plan
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…
Wylie Writes’ One-On-One with Geordie Sabbagh
Writer/director Geordie Sabbagh, as a storyteller, has a real grasp on the importance of conversations and, as a filmmaker, he’s figured out how to convey these discussions with flavour.
Canadian Strain
Canadian Strain takes place during a recent and specific tipping point in our country – the legalization of cannabis. Through the eyes of Torontonian drug dealer Anne Banting (Workin’ Moms’ Jess Salgueiro), movie goers observe how newly implemented policies (with various asterisks) can transform a society; even if that change happens over the course of a brief time span.
Lie Exposed
By: Trevor Chartrand An adaptation of the stage play Pornography (written by Jeff Kober), Lie Exposed explores a series of relationships on the edge of ending, following each couple’s attendance at a controversial art installation. The art in question features tintype photographs of vaginas, which for most of the couples sparks a conversation about their own sex lives as well as the objectification of the female form. Thematically, the film explores the definition of art…