Walk All Over Me
A quirky film about an accidental dominatrix, some Quebéquois gangsters, and a fluffy little tale of robbery set in the mean streets of the Vancouver suburbs. Sobiesky plays a girl forced to leave her hockey playing boyfriend to crash in the swank pad of her former baby sitter. She soon discovers the nocturnal S&M-ployment of […]
Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawk bring their A-game to this wonderful caper/character piece by veteran Director Lumet. Cut together in a masterful back-and-forth of time, slipping in and out of chronological order in a way that never feels forced or precious, this is a wonderful example to younger filmmakers about how tastefully such fragmented […]
Shake Hands with the Devil
Romeo Dellaire experiences in Rwanda have proven to be fodder for a diverse, multimedia examination over the last several years. First came the autobiography, a confessional of his demons and the horrors that he witnessed. Secondly came the extraordinary documentary of the same name, where he returns to the scenes of the crimes he witnessed, […]
La Citadelle Assiégée
One of the pleasures of any serious film festival is that you’ll encounter films from all over the world. It becomes easier with time to note particularities about certain films from certain countries. France certainly isn’t some hidden treasure of cinematic charm, its contributions to the cinematic art are obviously as established as any country […]
Encounters at the End of the World
Yet another brilliant film from Werner Herzog, this one seeing him give a warts-and-all look at the continent of Antarctica. His dry narration is as inquisitive and sarcastic as ever, pointedly referencing more pedestrian looks at South pole, mere “penguin” movies designed to show a pristine environment as some form of pretty exoticism. The encounters […]
Chacun Son Cinema
The Cannes festival commissioned 33 films from some of the world’s most renowned and respected filmmakers to craft their take on the nature of cinema. This mish-mash of styles can be quite energizing when done well, with each small film playing off one another in a collision of ideas. Unfortunately, only a few films step […]
Heavy Metal in Baghdad
Quite simply, this shooting-from-the hip digital doc is one of the best looks at the current conflict in Iraq that’s been made. The story begins with the boys from Vice magazine wishing to document the Metal scene in Iraq, as a series of Western-leaning locals were trying to put on a Metal show after the […]
Sukiyaki Western Django
SWD is a deliriously bent, un-apologetically incoherent blast of a film. This is the disfigured lovechild of Leone’s Western shtick and hyper-gory Hong Kong action tropes, with dialogue performed by some diabolical Berlitz “Lern to Speek Inglish” language tape. For casual viewers, the obvious connection would be to the filmmaker who shows up first on […]
Honeydripper
John Sayles sets his latest film in a sticky, sunburnt Alabama of 1950. “Pine Top” Purvis (Danny Glover) runs a dilapidate juke joint called the Honeydripper, eeking by with performances by authentic Blues artists. As the neighboring bar uses its recorded songs to drive traffic through its doors and away from the HD, Purvis presents […]
Death Defying Acts
After last year’s back-to-back magical romps and the continuing slew of biopics, it must have been inevitable that someone greenlit a picture about Harry Houdini. While Gillian Armstrong wouldn’t necessarily be the director that you first thought of to do such an endeavor, it’s less surprising when the story proves to be one of complicated […]
I’m Not There
There are a couple of things that need to be in place in order for you to enjoy Hayne’s pic about the spirit and music of Bob Dylan. First of all, you have to like Dylan. I’m not sure those that can’t stomach what they feel to be a nasally voice and aggressive manner will […]
Sleuth
I must admit that I’m not a big play-loving guy. I don’t mind reading them, but I simply don’t do well suspending disbelief in a staged environment. That said, some of my favourite films, such as Dogville, utilize the stage conventions, breaking down on screen the physical and dramaturgical limits of the traditional stage page. […]
With Your Permission
With Your Permission is another viciously dark romantic comedy out of Denmark, this one centering on domestic abuse. Jan is a member of the catering staff on a Denmark-to-Sweden ferry, a ship full of the elderly and bored passengers who have chosen not to take the newly constructed, far more convenient bridge linking the two […]
Reclaim Your Brain
The premise is great – coked up TV exec, responsible for such Reality TV tripe as a Eugenics show (designed to create the next gen of Wunderkind), gets his comeuppance and turns his passion into making better shows for the masses. His grand plan, naturally, is to hijack the ratings boxes, sending populist crap into […]
King of California
Michael Douglas tries his hand at the Robin Williams-as-crazy man motif, this is your typical tale of a dad, his daughter, and the quest for lost gold in modern day suburban California. Arriving home after years of being institutionalized, Charlie must reconnect with his daughter who has been essentially orphaned by his absence. While Miranda […]
Margot at the Wedding
A dry, dark comedy, with Margot Baumbach eschews the colour and flamboyance he picked up from his days with Wes Anderson. The sense of lightness that even the dour story of Squid and the Whale still hinted is pretty much absent in this underlit, raw film. Despite this imposed seriousness, the film remains quite enjoyable. […]
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Kapur has done a tremendous thing with The Golden Age – he created a sequel that’s a worthy successor to his much beloved earlier work about the virgin queen, one that may even be the better of the two films. Of course, the continuation is helped tremendously by the two main returning performers, namely the […]
Erik Nietzche The Early Years
Lars von Trier was a precocious film student? Who knew? This loosely autobiographical tale, written and narrated by Lars himself, is certainly the most lighthearted of the films he’s been associated with. That’s not to say, of course, that this film is free from a certain sardonic edge that we’ve all come to know and […]
Across the Universe
A psychedelic, bubble-gum scented love poem to the Beatles’ oeuvres by visionary director Taymor. Giant marionettes cavort in fields, while businessmen clatter in unison using their briefcases as percussion instruments. Strawberries become fine art, and a loose tale of love, loss, and redemption is told with a great deal of fun and frolicking. In short, […]
In The Valley of Elah
Another film about the current Iraq conflict, this one based on a true story of a father, ex Military MP, who sets out to investigate the circumstances surround his son’s status as AWOL. Through this crime thriller motif we are introduced to many compelling themes regarding the military code of ethics and brotherhood, the changing […]
Redacted
Redacted is DePalma’s oblique take on the Iraq war, fictionalizing the events surrounding the rape of a 15 year old girl by a group of American Marines. The film takes a fairly unique stylistic direction, using shaky handicam “diary” footage mixed with news reports, a French documentary, security cam and YouTube clips to provide multiple […]
Eastern Promises
Coming after last year’s sublime A History of Violence, Cronenberg’s second pairing with Viggo Mortensen comes complete with very high expectations. It starts very well, and we’re immediately drawn into this world of dead pregnant teens, the Russian mob, the hermeneutics of tattoos and the archetypal disappointment of a father with his son. There’s a […]
Glory to the Filmmaker
You’ll ask yourself throughout much of the running time of Glory to the Filmmaker, “What in the hell is this thing about?” We get to experience dancing aliens, asteroid impacts, duck puppets and submarines, all products from the shattered brain of “Beat” Takeshi. Roughly, this is a post-modernist take on the filmmaker’s own impotence, his […]
Ex Drummer
Ex Drummer is a mess of a film, a tawdry, bizarre tale that has enough visual style to set it apart, barely, from being a complete waste of several hours of your life. A band of misfits get together and find a drummer to put together a musical group. Infants die, fat women have their […]
My Winnipeg
Glorious, sublime, the film Maddin was literally born to direct. Sure, he’s toyed with the form before, presenting films that look like they’re from some lost vault of early 20th century cinema, but with My Winnipeg he finally has a subject to tie all of the loose threads together, his hometown. Part documentary, part autobiography, […]
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
First thing you need to know going in, this is not some fast paced shoot-em-up. The euphemism “deliberately paced” may be used, as this film is epic while remaining entirely intimate. Eschewing the usual grand scope, this is a character piece through and through, examining in great detail the many facets of the “real” Jesse […]
They Wait
Broadly, this is a tale of ghosts, ghouls and bone collectors, set in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The film begins with three men hunting for bear somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, when suddenly the spooky black smoke out of Lost claims its first victim. Cut to Singapore (or was it Shanghai? No matter, it’s clearly just an […]
Juno
Juno presents many a cliché – a tale of unplanned teen pregnancy and the choices it brings forth, the awkwardness of fitting in and falling in love, the dynamics of young and older relationships – all a bit of a mess in less sure hands. It may not be perfect, but it’s a hell of […]
No Country For Old Men
The best kind of festival film, the one that many hours and many films later you’re still thinking about, finding new things to love about it. This is a film that pulls no punches – it’s brutal, violent and at times perverse. It is almost sadistic in how it removes all sense of catharsis from […]
Diaries – 2007
Day 1 A fairly conservative day, with big Hollywood flicks to kick off the fun. They’ve rejigged the way that press and industry screenings work, making it far more challenging to attend films with a paying audience. Other than a few first day bumps and some very long lineups, everything went reasonably smoothly. Alas, Midnight […]