Latest

Mongrel Media

Reviews
Screenshot_20260316_091943_Gallery

The President’s Cake

March 14, 2026Addison Wylie0 Comments

The President’s Cake, Iraq’s snubbed submission for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, is a slice of life competing with disturbing conditions. Two narratives, both of equal weight, run parallel to each other: a docudrama about Iraq’s living conditions while under the regime of Saddam Hussein, and a young student, Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef), trying to find and collect ingredients to bake a cake commemorating their great leader’s birthday with intimidating consequences….

Read More
Reviews
Dead Man's Wire. Photo Credit Stefania Rosini/Row K Entertainment

Dead Man’s Wire

January 23, 2026Addison Wylie0 Comments

Since his biopic Milk, director Gus Van Sant hasn’t been involved with many buzzy projects. That luck may change with Dead Man’s Wire, a comic crime caper that marks a brilliant return for Sant. A bizarre, public kidnapping carried out by disgruntled developer Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgard of the modern It series) is the talk of the nation, as Kiritsis holds mortgage broker Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery of Netflix’s Stranger Things) at gunpoint. Richard, filling in for his…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20251110_083733_Chrome

Blue Moon

November 8, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

It’s March 31, 1943, and Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) is chatting up the patrons at Sardi’s, a restaurant that will be hosting the production of Oklahoma! after their opening night. The buzz around this new musical is rumoured to be a hit for Hart’s collaborative composer Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott), who paired with Oscar Hammerstein II for this folksy endeavour. Hart, whether he knows it or not, tries to tune out and drown away his…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20251022_085725_Gallery

Kiss of the Spider Woman

October 22, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

Movie musical maestro Bill Condon (director of Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast [2017], and screenwriter for Chicago and The Greatest Showman) provides a good stage-to-screen adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman. But, it’s also a reminder that sometimes a filmed version of a bottled staged show can’t overcome its blatant challenges. Most of 1993’s Tony award-winner takes place within a shared jail. Luis (soap star Tonatiuh) has been incarcerated for indecency and continues to experience other prejudices for…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20250803_225353_Gallery

Oh, Hi!

August 1, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

Oh, Hi! would make a surefire date flick for seasoned couples who have since shed their desperation for romance. Having that self-assurance would make Sophie Brooks’ off-kilter rom-com much more satisfying. If you’re a couple that is more green, hey, there’s nothing wrong with a film provoking some interesting post-screening chats about comfort and communication over some coffee and pie. Issac (Logan Lerman of The Perks of Being a Wallflower) and Iris (Theater Camp’s Molly Gordon,…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20250708_131721_Gallery

40 Acres

July 8, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

40 Acres represents the best qualities of Canadian cinema. R.T. Thorne’s outstanding survival thriller is enormously entertaining with taut and rhythmic tension, but the movie also pitches hauntingly beautiful scenery (a near-future dystopia using Northern Ontario as a backdrop) and a metaphorical vision about land being usurped from minorities. The blockbuster hit A Quiet Place was a sensory experience for audiences to perceive the stark hopelessness of an apocalypse through silences. In comparison, 40 Acres offers movie goers…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20250501_003918_Chrome

On Swift Horses

April 30, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

Star power carries On Swift Horses, which isn’t necessarily a negative criticism in this case. Jacob Elordi, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Will Poulter, Diego Calva, and Sasha Calle have incredible chemistry with each other, and with the audience. Their charming, and often seductive, appeal has the powerful potential to attract a younger crowd towards period dramas without cheapening the quality of the film or lowering the expectations of the viewer. While light on plot and long in…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20250413_221231_Chrome

The Friend

April 13, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

St. Vincent co-stars Bill Murray and Naomi Watts are briefly reunited in The Friend, a pandering would-be weeper from Bee Season filmmakers Scott McGeehee and David Siegel who are adapting Sigrid Nunez’s novel of the same name. While New York writer Iris (Watts) wrestles with her conflicted emotions over her mentor Walter (Murray) after he takes his own life, the writer takes on the additional challenge of caring for Walter’s elderly Great Dane, Apollo. Driving home how everyone…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20250406_203405_Gallery

The Penguin Lessons

April 6, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

The Penguin Lessons is a period dramedy that sings a familiar song but director Peter Cattaneo knows how to play this music really well. With The Full Monty and Military Wives under his belt, it only makes sense for Cattaneo to keep churning out audience-friendly biopics that are inspired by, or based on, true stories. Steve Coogan (of Greed and Alan Partridge fame) portrays Tom Michell, an educator who travels to Argentina to teach English to teenage boys and…

Read More
Reviews
Screenshot_20250325_143959_Gallery

Can I Get a Witness?

March 25, 2025Addison Wylie0 Comments

Going from one perception of dystopia (O’Dessa) to another, Can I Get a Witness? proposes a much “sunnier” version. At least, on the surface. Canadian filmmaker Ann Marie Fleming pitches a reality where the Earth’s sustainability is balanced and resolved. The only trade-offs being that nobody can use technology or travel or live past 50. If you’re reaching that age, an end-of-life ceremony (of the sacrifice’s preference) is prepared where you’ll self-euthanize yourself. In your presence, as…

Read More