Movies Archives - Page 13 of 53

9 November 20212 November 2021

Home Video: Buy, Rent, or Stream Cowboy Bebop ahead of its live-action remake

As one of the most well-regarded anime series of all time, the live-action remake coming to Netflix is highly anticipated. The trailers show promise, but the original has a certain style and charm that will be difficult to replicate, but I am choosing to remain hopeful.

Either way, whether it’s time for a re-watch or if you’ve never seen it, now is a perfect time to revisit the anime series as well as the animated film they made a few years later.

9 November 20218 January 2022

Raindance ’21 Review: ‘I’m Wanita’ highlights how hard it is to achieve dreams, but that doesn’t make it worth giving up

Breaking into the music business is difficult work. Weeks, months, and years of gigging and living poor are often the story, and they are again with Australia’s self-proclaimed queen of Honky Tonk, Wanita. The determined but divisive character has spent her entire life trying to break big in country music in Australia. But, despite possessing a voice specifically tuned to the classic style, she’s had trouble getting out of her own way.

8 November 20218 January 2022

Raindance ’21 Review: ‘Where’s Rose’ is creepy, socially relevant horror

Horror is one of the essential genes we have, even though it’s treated as an afterthought by awards bodies and film snobs. It is one of the genres of film that sees the most creativity and one that, when deployed right, can shine light onto areas of our world in more interesting and relatable ways.

Where’s Rose is one of these.

7 November 202117 January 2022

Awesome Friday Movie Podcast: ‘Finch’ & ‘Red Notice’

Greetings programs! This week on the Awesome Friday Movie Podcast, we take on the new Tom Hanks boy-and-his-dog-and-his-robot-post-apocalyptic-road-trip movie Finch and the most expensive movie Netflix has ever made, the Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson, and Gadot adventure heist movie Red Notice. Join us!

7 November 20218 January 2022

Raindance ’21 Review: ‘All Sorts’ is a delightfully absurd workplace comedy

The workplace is a lovely place to set a story. It is a place with multiple people, with various characters and, depending on the job, there are plenty of things to do or ignore. All Sorts, a quirky new romantic comedy set in a data management company, falls into the latter category.

6 November 20218 January 2022

Raindance ’21 Review: ‘The Drowning of Arthur Braxton’ has noble intent but misses the mark

Stop me if you have heard this one before: a young man is bullied at school. His home life is broken thanks to absent parents (one physically, one emotionally). Miserable, he runs away from home and finds a magical thing that helps him regain his self-confidence and fix his life.

This is The Drowning of Arthur Braxton. His mother is gone, his dad is an alcoholic, and while hiding in an abandoned Edwardian bathhouse, he finds a young naked woman who turns out to be a water nymph who is destined to fall in love with him. If you think that there will be some twist that makes this more original than the other “boy finds magic fixes life” stories you’ve read, I’m here to warn you that there isn’t.

5 November 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘The Harder They Fall’ is a bloody good time

A preacher says grace with his family. He has a kind voice and is revered by his wife and young son. Their pleasant dinner is interrupted by a knock at the door from the preacher’s past. The stranger on the other side, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sporting two gold pistols, joins them at the dinner table. The preacher begs, but the stranger shoots him and his wife several moments and then uses a razor to carve a cross into the young boy’s forehead.

This is the opening to The Harder They Fall; it sets the stage for a film that will all at once be a revenge picture, a colourful and bloody action picture, a history lesson, and a damn good time at the movies.

5 November 20218 January 2022

Raindance ’21 Review: ‘A Bird Flew In’ is a beautifully shot and well-acted drama

The cinema of the pandemic remains an ongoing thing, which is appropriate given that the pandemic itself does as well. This time out, another character piece shot in gorgeous black and white follows the cast and crew of a film after they have been sent home in the early days of lockdown.

3 November 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Red Notice’ coasts on the strength of its cast

Rawson Marshall Thurber has had an interesting career as a director. His films aren’t terribly inventive; they often wear their influences on their sleeve and often get by on the fact that he works with charismatic casts.

His latest, Red Notice, a globe-trotting heist action movie starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, is no different.

3 November 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Finch’ has Tom Hanks in fine form on a post-apocalyptic road trip with a naive robot and a dog

There are a few basic premises for films that are simply pure, and two of them are the road trip movie and the boy and his dog movie. You can find countless examples of each, and I am sure they have been mashed up before as well. That’s the case again in Finch, a road trip story starring Tom Hanks and an adorable dog, but that also happens to be set after the end of the world and co-starring your latest favourite movie robot of the year.

2 November 202127 October 2021

Home Video: The Films of Chloé Zhao and Where To Buy, Rent, or Stream Them

Chloé Zhao is on a role. Her first three features were all critical darlings, and the third received numerous awards and accolades. Now, she has been tapped by Marvel to direct their latest blockbuster, The Eternals. The word isn’t out yet if her style will translate, but in the meantime, her first three features are all definitely worth your time.

1 November 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Portraits From A Fire’ comes of age through filmmaking

There are many fundamental truths in this world, and one of them is that creative people will create. Tyler (William Magnus Lulua), a boy growing up on northern BC’s Tsilhqotʼin reserve, makes films. He borrows household items from the community to use as props and screens them in a makeshift open-air cinema. When his latest film is only attended by a handful of people, many of whom then leave to go to bingo night, Tyler decides he needs to make something more personal.

31 October 202117 January 2022

Awesome Friday Movie Podcast: ‘Army of Thieves’ & ‘Dune’

Greetings programs! This week on the Awesome Friday Movie Podcast, we talk about the new Netflix heist film (and sequel to Army of the Dead), Army of Thieves and the latest blockbuster adaptation of a classic science fiction story from Canadian auteur Denis Villeneuve, Dune.

30 October 20218 January 2022

Raindance ’21 Review: ‘Listen’ is heavy-handed, but heart-wrenching

In the United Kingdom exists a system of child welfare. That is to say, like all first world countries, there is a governmental body whose sole task is to look out for the wellbeing of children. The UK government has a strict system, and one outcome of children being removed from a family is forced adoption. Forced adoption is exactly what it sounds like: if the state deems the parents unfit, they will adopt the children out to a family they believe are.

This practice has generated fierce criticism, especially from those who believe that the system errs far too often on the side of adopting the children rather than reuniting the family. Spoiler alert: Listen is made by people who share this belief.

28 October 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Dune’ is a vast, beautiful film that loses sight of its emotional core

Expectation, thy name is Dune. Years in the making and then delayed for an entire year thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Dune has the weight of expectations hanging over it. Director Denis Villeneuve is an accomplished visionary with a clear eye for details and world-building alike, but how can the story of Dune –a famously dense work– be adapted into a movie?

Awesome Friday!

Category: Movies