By: Addison Wylie The Brass Teapot wants to be a rags-to-riches fairytale with an offbeat, darker tone. Director Ramaa Mosley along with Tim Macy’s screenplay, however, don’t want to fully commit to a twisted vicinity for fear they’ll lose their quirky image and potential likability. Even though the film doesn’t take huge risks, it still manages to find a way to be consistently appealing. Alice and John (played by Juno Temple and Michael Angarano) are…
By: Addison Wylie I didn’t like The Disappeared, but I can at least compliment its opening shots. Director Shandi Mitchell quickly establishes the nothingness that exists around a crew of lost men at sea. Mitchell generates an instantaneous sense of fear and hopelessness as the vagueness in their whereabouts and time of day effects the audience greatly. Then, someone speaks. And, more people speak. It’s not so much speaking as it is projecting and emphasizing…
By: Addison Wylie A catastrophic zombie outbreak occurs and its up to a former member of the UN to protect his family, re-team with past coworkers and zealous fighters, and travel to different destinations in order to figure out the origin of this deadly attack and figure out a way to an end to the madness. Somewhere in there he takes a nap. Brad Pitt plays the good doing husband in World War Z and…
By: Addison Wylie Alan Zweig won top honours at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September for his documentary filmmaking with When Jews Were Funny – but, I needed more convincing. When Jews Were Funny – a doc on how a Judaic approach to comedy made its way into our funny bones – had appropriate subjects to interview, a proper conversational vibe about it, but its scope was too narrow. Zweig didn’t have enough…
By: Addison Wylie Is Parkland respectful towards its source material and depiction of the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Yes. Is it accurate to its time period? Sure is. Are the performances worthwhile? You betcha. However, even though Peter Landesman’s film has plenty of good things going for it, I felt detached from the movie most of time. I couldn’t fully invest my feelings into it, which is troublesome seeing as the film is an…
By: Addison Wylie The Frozen Ground tells a harrowing true story in a plain Jane conventional way. The emotional weight and stress in the hunt for a notorious Alaskan serial killer rings, but its narrative formatting is determined to make it unmemorable, placing Scott Walker’s film awash in a homicidal sea with other generic crime thrillers. The Frozen Ground feels dialled back regarding its aggressiveness towards the audience and its lead performance from Nicolas Cage…
By: Addison Wylie What do I say about The Dirties? A film that shook me up and has hung around with me days after I’ve seen it. Matt Johnson’s courageous and ambitious feature film debut is a tough film to recommend to a wide audience because of its timely, controversial material handled with a sense of humour. You definitely have to be in a specific mood for its darker approach to school shootings and the…
By: Addison Wylie Suitably enough, Now You See Me knows how to handle an audience that’s skeptical to its tricks. But the production has to admit, when you pitch “bank robbing magicians”, it’s hard for audiences not to hide an eye roll. Director Louis Leterrier, however, pulls off a movie that knows how to disarm movie goers of cynicism and delight us with boxes full of double crosses and twists. Unlock one of the hidden…
By: Addison Wylie Europa Report made my head throb from boredom and ache from excessive visual irritations. But before all that negativity, Sebastián Cordero’s found footage sci-fi opened my mind with its art direction and effects. Europa Report’s most impressive strength is its ability to make the audience feel as if we’re in that same spaceship as the featured crew members heading to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Cordero has used subtleties to blend numerous…
By: Addison Wylie The World’s End, the last outing in Edgar Wright’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, yet again pairs the filmmaker up with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to tell a tale of everyday men in monstrous peril. This time, Pegg and Frost play former friends who had a falling out between their teenage years and adulthood. Gary King (played by Pegg) hasn’t given up living the high life of booze and babes. Meanwhile,…