One of the best movies I’ve seen this year is a French-Canadian sci-fi movie called Project M (Projet-M) – shot for about the cost of a small house and originally set up as a web series. Four astronauts on a 1,000-day mission aboard a space station find themselves at a loss when, 900 days in, […]
Tag: Movie Reviews
CIFF Review: God Help the Girl Is Beyond Twee – And That’s Good!
The CIFF screening of God Help the Girl was the Canadian Premiere – it won the Special Jury Prize, world cinema at Sundance earlier this year. It’s the story a girl recovering from an eating disorder who runs away from a psychiatric hospital and forms a pop band with two new friends. It’s the first […]
A Walk Among The Tombstones – Dark, Creepy, Pulpy Noir!
Ex-cop Matt Scudder operates as an unlicensed PI – he does people favors and they give him gifts. When a pair of killers start kidnapping and killing the loved ones of New York drug dealers, Scudder is asked to find them and take one of the victims’ husbands to them so that he might take […]
The Maze Runner – Everything Is Going To Change!
A young man named Thomas wakes up to find himself in an elevator rising to a wild green space and a host of other young men who, like him cannot remember anything about their pasts save for their names. The space is surrounded by titanic walls which open into a maze but no one has […]
This Is Where I Leave You – August Osage County The Good Version!
This Is Where I Leave You finds four siblings reuniting with their mother for their father’s funeral. The mother insists they sit shiva for him – which means seven days of dysfunction. It’s a plot we’ve seen quite a bit in the last year, but thanks to a terrific cast and surprisingly nuanced direction from […]
The Drop: James Gandolfini’s Fine Finale; Tom Hardy’s Best Yet!
If you see a gun in the first act of a movie, it must go off in the third. I’m paraphrasing there, The Drop does in fact show you a gun in the first act – more than one, actually – and, from there, the movie moves implacably to its inevitable, yet not quite expected […]
Early Review: Lawrence & Holloman: Always Look On The Bright Side of Life!
Canadian indie flick Lawrence & Holloman is a black comedy about a suicidal accounting clerk and the cheerful salesman who makes it his mission to cheer him up. The blackness of its comedy clicks because of fine performances from Daniel Arnold (who also co-wrote) and Ben Cotton and a really twisted script.
The November Man Gives Familiar Tropes An Edgy Spin!
With Pierce Brosnan returning to espionage in this moderately budgeted thriller, you can expect great performances from the cast; mayhem controlled and uncontrolled; a damsel in distress who is more than she seems to be, and, of course, monumental betrayal – not necessarily in that order.
If I Stay – Sometimes It Really Is Life Or Death!
If I Stay is yet another movie based on a Young Adult novel I haven’t read. I’ve heard it’s a more faithful adaptation than most. What it is, is story about a teen cello prodigy who is faced with the biggest decision anyone could ever have to make – whether to live or die.
The Trip To Italy – A Tasty Sequel!
Sometimes a sequel can be just as much fun as the original. The Trip To Italy is a case in point. The premise of The Trip was two guys on a road trip to write a book about sampling the best food in the UK. It was just Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon playing somewhat […]
What If The F Word Was Friend?
What If is the latest movie to tackle the question of whether a man and a woman can just be friends. Its subjects are Wallace (still, a year later, not able to get over a horrific breakup) and Chantry (an animator with a great boyfriend). Titled The F World everywhere except in the U.S. and […]