By: Trevor Jeffery Neil (Jesse Carere) is a regular high school kid: he enjoys hanging out with his friends, he’s awkward around girls, he’s good at magic tricks, he’s an unknowing blood sacrifice for his Satanic church, he likes video games. When he finds out that he is in fact a blood sacrifice for his Satanic church, he and his friend Matt (Daryl Sabara) quest to corrupt his purity through losing his virginity. While overall…
By: Trevor Jeffery The Gift isn’t an exception to the notion that suspense-thrillers lose substantial value on subsequent viewings, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be one hell of a ride the first time through. Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) seek a fresh start in California, not far from where Simon grew up. An old high school acquaintance, Gordon (still going by his high school nickname, Gordo) (Joel Edgerton) approaches Simon and Robin…
By: Trevor Jeffery The Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival screens at the Innis College Cinema on Saturday, August 8, and I’ll be co-judging the event along with other selected online journalists. However, I was lucky enough to be given a sneak peek at some of the submissions.
By: Trevor Jeffery Horror works best in extremes: if you can’t make a film that is legitimately bone-chilling, then you better make it so over-the-top that the value comes from its absurdity rather than its potential to fear. Unfortunately, non-camp horror is a hard beast to tame: you need a plot and a cast that can effectively scare people. Bite is a campy horror film at heart that tried to go full-out scare mode, and…
By: Trevor Jeffery There are so many documentaries covering atrocities. It’s easy, or necessary, to forget that sometimes; there is so much horror that to consider it all – all the time – isn’t healthy. The Look of Silence isn’t so much about the importance of its subject, or about squeezing emotions from an increasingly apathetic audience. It’s about humanity and acts of evil, and how people will twist their perspective to retain the last…
By: Trevor Jeffery The Yes Men Are Revolting is something like reality prank drama meets comedic character documentary, with social justice slathered through out. Back for their third documentary, cultural activist conmen Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (stage names for Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, respectively) stick it to the man by pretending to be the man and raising awareness through fake press conferences and publicity stunts. The Yes Men hit climate change hard, and…
Addison Wylie We’re halfway through the year, and I’m confident movies are “back on track”. 2014 had some admirable features, but it seemed like everyone collectively decided to focus on technical achievements. As far as award darlings are concerned, our minds have yet to be blown by this year’s selections. However, 2015 has given movie goers wonderful experiences. Killers made me feel queasy, but in a good way. Its story about two serial murderers was…
By: Trevor Jeffery If you walk in to Eden with little understanding of electronic dance music (EDM), there won’t be much of an issue because you’ll be left feeling about the same as when the movie started. In 1992’s version of Paris, teenager Paul Vallée (Félix de Givry) sits in the woods as he hallucinates on some sort of rave drug. Over the next 20 years, Paul will: start a EDM duo who brings in…
By: Trevor Jeffery In Some Kind of Love, the filmmaker makes a sloppy observation that his family is emotionally distant from each other, and he presumes that this is interesting and unique enough for an audience. Filmmaker Thomas Burstyn travels to London to document his aunt Yolanda Sonnabend, a 77-year-old hoarding, shut-in painter. When he arrives, he finds his uncle (renowned AIDS researcher Dr. Joseph Sonnabend) living with her and caring for her. Burstyn turns the…
By: Trevor Jeffery Over the past few decades, the biopic has been more or less perfected and recreated over and over, to the point of boring predictability. While ultimately Love & Mercy is no exception, the film deviates from the structure enough to make the journey feel like a new, albeit shaky, perspective on the formula. Following Beach Boy Brian Wilson, the film jumps between the 20-something-prodigy Wilson in the 1960s (played by Paul Dano)…