By: Addison Wylie Tammy is the latest instalment in a series of movies featuring Melissa McCarthy acting inappropriately. It garnered her an Academy Award nomination in Bridesmaids, it repelled good taste in Identity Thief, and brought in lots of giggles in The Heat. Now, her rude persuasiveness finds its way in the backwoods. Tammy, which embraces its hickabilly fog, has McCarthy playing the title role and hitting the road with her blunt, booze gulping grandma…
By: Addison Wylie The Spectacular Now is the movie about high school I wish I had growing up. It’s easily identifiable and relatable to anyone who felt growing pains or knew someone having a wobbly time through secondary education. James Ponsoldt’s coming-of-age dramedy features two exceptional performances from up-and-comers Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, who play unexpected friends who eventually become smitten with each other. Though, Teller’s motormouth Sutter Keely won’t directly admit it since…
By: Addison Wylie Films like Short Term 12 are sometimes the toughest movies to write about. They make elaborate blockbusters like Inception look like a peanut. It’s just so easy to say Short Term 12 is great, recommend it profusely, and move on. Destin Daniel Cretton’s film is about a foster care supervisor who is having difficulties expressing herself. She keeps emotions sealed tight and lets her empathy feel for her. Instead of declaring Cretton’s…
By: Addison Wylie If The Guilt Trip does anything right from beginning to end, it’s the casting. Not only do Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand play off one another well, but they make a very convincing mother-son team. It’s easy to believe Rogen as an embarrassed hard worker who tries to separate himself from his overbearing mother, and Streisand takes hold of that smothering role with great effect. She’s irritating at times, but that just…
By: Addison Wylie If you can bear with Don Jon’s vulgar vocabulary, you may find yourself swept up in Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut. It’s a modern day romance with just the right dash of sweet and salty. Gordon-Levitt plays the title character, a guido with a heart who loves to spend time with his boys, work out, and scope out chicks. At the end of the day, he likes to come home and watch a…
By: Addison Wylie Taking a break from his independent fare, filmmaker David Gordon Green got familiar with the Apatow brat pack – launching him to direct the uneven but oddly memorable Pineapple Express. His directorial hand was embraced and pushed him down a path helming louder movies like Your Highness and The Sitter, two off-putting crudities that aren’t worthy of Green’s time and talent. With Prince Avalanche, it feels as if Green is making the…
By: Addison Wylie Nat Faxon (who you may have seen playing bit parts in Broken Lizard films and playing the title male on the unfortunately short lived TV show Ben & Kate) and Jim Rash (who you may have caught on the cult television hit Community) have Academy Awards under their belts. Their screenwriting, along with Alexander Payne penmanship, earned all three of them a prestigious Oscar for their adaptive screenwriting in The Descendants. Now,…
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…
By: Addison Wylie Noah Baumbach’s most uplifting film to date (which is a major step up when comparing his latest to his last effort – the overly cynical and absolutely annoying Greenberg) has an almost immediately disarming look and feel to it. Taking on the aesthetics of a first or second year student thesis project, the black-and-white dramedy feels normal once we can identify what Baumbach’s movie resembles – leading us to focus on what…
By: Addison Wylie I would love to see what writer/director Judd Apatow could do with a film that punches out after 90 minutes – including credits. This Is 40 starts out strong and funny, but is then torpedoed by needless subplots that are tediously stretched out causing the runtime to slowly expand. Apatow has shown with his previous directorial work that he loves to let his material breathe. Not in a pretentious way, but in…