Reviews

I often find myself listening to Jóhann Jóhannsson’s compositions as I go about my day, either those tied to the films he scored in the 2010s or his original works. He had a knack for…

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time is not a conventional documentary, though that was the original intention. Its inception started nearly forty years ago, in 1982. Robert B. Weide had just finished a well-received PBS documentary…

Adding Bruce Campbell to your cast will automatically attract any genre enthusiast. The man is a legend, possibly one of the most charismatic men on the planet. A man so charismatic, I’m seriously considering watching…

Driving can be a profound experience. It is difficult to articulate the feeling of what it’s like to ponder a great many things while you drive in solitude, or that quiet mutual moment of bonding…

At 83 years old, Ridley Scott is still cranking out consistently great and entertaining films. Just last month, he released The Last Duel which is the frontrunner for the most underseen and under-appreciated film of 2021. Now…

If you want to see how far a movie franchise can change in tone, watch the original Rocky and then its third sequel, Rocky IV. You can see the evolution (or devolution, if you prefer)…

There was a time when Jason Reitman was one of the most exciting, up-and-coming voices in the film industry. The son of Ivan Reitman began to see his rise to prominence in the film industry…

Over the past few years, Jim Cummings has become one of the most promising up-and-coming filmmakers, not only on the indie scene, but in the world of filmmaking. Cummings has proven himself to be an…

If you have never heard about Albert Speer, this documentary is a great introduction to his life. He grew up in a bourgeois family and studied architecture and eventually became a confidant of Hitler. He…

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble. It’s a story we all know. One of Shakespeare’s many classics, The Tragedy of Macbeth takes pride in being a new spin on the 1606…

In an era where we’re overwhelmed with features made during quarantine, it’s hard to find a film that strays from the rest and is actually worthwhile watching. While Language Lessons doesn’t necessarily go above and…

Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman once said, “no art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” To many of us,…

There’s a line that creators of topical art must keep in mind as it’s being crafted — so easy is it to become melodramatic, “preachy”, or unrealistic. The slightest misstep can take a viewer out…

With 2021’s Cannes Grand Prix win on its back, Compartment No. 6 brings to life a self-reflective, alcohol-filled drama. Establishing an unlikely friendship between a Finnish student and a Russian miner, Laura (Seidi Haarla) and…

Here it is. After so many delays, James Bond has finally returned to the big screen. This was going to be Daniel Craig’s swan song for the character, the man who once famously said he…

To discuss Pedro Almodóvar is to acknowledge not just the transgressive streak of his early filmography, but also the post-Julieta change of pace that the Spanish auteur has undergone with his latest few works. With…

Manitoban filmmaker Rhayne Vermette’s Ste. Anne is a fascinating directorial debut — a loosely constructed tapestry of hypnotic sounds and grainy cinematography, and an enigmatic 80-minute experience that operates in pure abstraction. Unfolding a series…

Capturing the spirit and history of the French working class over the past 70 years is a gargantuan task of historical retelling and curation — especially if it’s through an 80-minute documentary strung together solely…

Daniela (Daniela Zahlner) can’t sleep lately. After spending some time traveling in New York and returning to Berlin, she’s slowly come to the realization that her continued insomnia isn’t just from her jet lag anymore,…

Two and a Half Men is an abominable sitcom and I’m ashamed to admit that in my younger, and far more vulnerable years, I did watch an episode or two. If there was one good…

Wife of a Spy won the Silver Bear for Best Director at last year’s Venice Film Festival. I had heard of director and co-writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa (not related to the late great master of Japanese…

Can the literary art form still survive in this hyperactive, Twitter-operating, modern age? Bookworms venturing through desolated libraries and soon-to-be bankrupt bookstores may find themselves out of time, yearning for a time where a 400-page…

Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms caused quite a stir when it unexpectedly took out the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019. The film loosely based on Lapid’s own life about an Israeli man who flees…

Under the bright glistening haze of blue and pink lights, Ritwek Pareek’s vibrant debut feature opens on 40-something drunkard Thakur Lal. His internal monologue spouts vague philosophical musings before mounting his motorcycle and going for…

I’ll be honest, I only watched this film to see the underutilized Shea Whigham in a lead role. I’ve been a big fan of him ever since his supporting turn in the glorious HBO crime…

After a number of standout supporting roles over the last half a decade, Riz Ahmed‘s wiry unpredictability and genuine pathos he injects into his performances has seen him evolve into a leading man with an…

Cinema has given us many incarnations and interpretations of the vampire mythos since F.W Murnau’s Nosferatu almost a century ago. We’ve seen them portrayed as everything from baroque aristocrats, mindless parasitic monsters, mysterious outsiders in…

Céline Sciamma has once again made one of the best films of the year with her latest project and follow-up to the brilliant Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Petite Maman. The film follows Nelly (Joséphine Sanz),…

1992’s Candyman is considered a classic of the slasher genre — mythologically inventive, steeped in relevant racial themes, and far more ambitious than contemporary slasher films; which at the time were so verging on self-parody…

In a shocking twist, an anthology movie that has several shorts from some of our best international filmmakers is really good. The Year of the Everlasting Storm is yet another COVID-19-centered production, except it’s one…