The Departure
There is nothing charming, insightful, or engaging about The Departure, writer/director Merland Hoxha’s first foray into feature-ish length cinema (the total runtime is just a little over an hour).
Drama
Judy & Punch
Punch and Judy are a couple of characters in a traditional British puppet show who are not exactly known for their subtlety. Punch is placed in charge of taking care of their kids. He hits the kid, his wife gets mad, he hits his wife, a cop shows up, he hits the cop, and so on and so forth. As such, it is a bit unusual that someone decided that this story, or rather the…
The Accompanist
Director, writer, and star Frederick Keeve demonstrates a strong imagination but a weak sense of dramatic ability in his feature The Accompanist, a story about a gay piano accompanist who becomes infatuated with a male ballerina amidst a series of tragedies that befall both men.
Dreamland
Pontypool is one of my favourite movies, even though I really dislike its post-credit sequence. It’s a random bit that looks like a deleted scene from Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City series, featuring obscure characters that we haven’t seen before exchanging hard-boiled dialogue – it’s moody nonsense. It makes as much sense as the entirety of Dreamland, a pseudo-fantasy-noir that has the gall to ride the coattails of Pontypool; squandering the reunion of its filmmakers and…
The High Note
The High Note is an enjoyable romantic dramedy with charming performances and some great tunes.
A White, White Day
Fresh off the festival circuit, Hlynur Pálmason’s A White, White Day rapturously yet bleakly explores familiar themes of grief and loss. Pálmason’s second feature offers a clinical, appropriately distanced character study, while maintaining a coherent sense of the character’s interiority.
Military Wives
Military Wives has been tailor-made to be a crowd-pleaser. The ingredients are there: the leading characters have an entertaining dynamic that plays on their opposite personalities, they lead a team of underdogs, nostalgic pop tunes are worshipped amongst the film’s kind-hearted humour, a strong patriotic backbone holds up a story that’s been loosely based on real events. As much as it bugs me that the filmmakers believe they’ve cracked the code to pleasing general audiences…
The Roads Not Taken
Sometimes, a filmmaker will come up with a unique, unprecedented concept and turn it into a one-of-a-kind feature. More often than not, however, the concept confounds the creative; leading to a muddled mess that disappoints the viewer even more than the average bad effort. Case in point: The Roads Not Taken. It’s the latest film from once-celebrated English filmmaker Sally Potter, a woman who once managed to turn the perplexing Orlando into a film, which…
Castle in the Ground
As the world struggles under this catastrophic pandemic, it seems prudent to remind us of another epidemic currently ravaging North America: the opioid epidemic. Consequently, Joey Klein’s timely Castle in the Ground depicts a band of young people struggling with addiction amid the trauma of their personal lives. While dramatically powerful and compellingly acted, the film has surprisingly little to say about the structural issues surrounding addiction and mental illness.
The Assistant
The Assistant is a faithful portrayal of workplace harassment. Drawing from her experience as a documentarian (Ukraine Is Not a Brothel), writer/director Kitty Green brings layers of realism which she channels well through her actors. I think Green’s vision is admirable, but I completely understand if audiences feel disregarded watching the movie.