Therapy Dogs
After watching the insane adolescent behaviour featured in MSC: The Movie and Magnum Opus: The .MOVie and vying for something deeper than amateur stunts, Therapy Dogs does a decent job answering my wishes.
High School
Honor Society
From Awesomeness Films (You Get Me, Spontaneous, Netflix’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series) comes Honor Society, a teen movie that’s darker than expected. Considering how annoying the film’s smug trailer was, I appreciated this unexpected edgier approach. However, the execution is imperfect and isn’t nearly as measured as it should be.
The Half of It
Two years ago, I seemed to be on the wrong side of the tracks when discussing Netflix’s bubblegum teen movie To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. Everyone threw their arms around it, except for me who thought teenagers deserved a smarter movie. Excuse my déjà vu as I find myself in the same dilemma. The reviews are in for Netflix’s latest fluffy flick The Half of It and people find it endearing, except for…
Sierra Burgess Is a Loser
The Netflix Gods heard my distain for the streaming service’s teen flick hit To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and they’ve gifted me a charming high school comedy titled Sierra Burgess Is a Loser as an apologetic gesture. Call it coincidental timing, I call it wishful thinking.
5-25-77
News of an upcoming feature from filmmaker Patrick Read Johnson (who had previously directed mid-90’s comedies Baby’s Day Out and Angus) lit up the Internet in the mid-2000s with a fantastic trailer set to music by ELO and Jon Brion. The trailer, centred around an awkward teenager in the 1970s anticipating a unique blockbuster called Star Wars, dropped when I was in high school and working at a video store. However, the film went silent…
Palo Alto
By: Addison Wylie It’s dangerous for a film like Palo Alto to have a character openly confess that movies nowadays are pointless. You expect that character to look straight into the camera and sigh. I was left sighing while I watched Gia Coppola’s feature film debut. I was also skeptically furrowing my eyebrows and skewing expressions in my stupor. Palo Alto could easily be resold as a workout video for voice actors. Coppola has taken…
TIFF Next Wave 2014: I Learn America
By: Addison Wylie Acting as this year’s Fame High at TIFF Next Wave, I Learn America is also about a select group of students who attend high school and face frequent obstacles. In Fame High, those students were hampered when chasing a creative dream. In I Learn America, these young immigrants try and understand the American dream. New York City’s Lafayette is the home of International High School. The school opens its doors for nearly…
The Spectacular Now
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…