Movies Archives - Page 18 of 53

24 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Glasshouse’ is palpable with desire but reckons with memory

There has been a pandemic, as there has been a lot lately, and there probably will be for some time to come in the world that Glasshouse takes place in. Unlike the one in the real world, this one strips people of their memory, of the very essence of who they are. This plague, “the shred” as they call it, leaves a mother and her family in a hermetically sealed glass house to live out their days gardening, and also killing “forgetters” who stumble out of the woods into their lawn, until one of of the daughters brings in a wounded stranger.

24 August 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Black Conflux’ is a confident first feature from director Nicole Dorsey

Small town living can be, in a word, stifling. Yet, as much as it can be peaceful, they can also feel like grue traps, holding you in place. Black Conflux follows two people in small-town Newfoundland whose lives are wholly disconnected, but never the less on a collision course. The inevitability of this collision lends the entire film a sense of menace, dread, and purpose. Being set against the peaceful and serene backdrop only heightens it.

23 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Yakuza Princess’ is an intriguing setup with lacklustre execution

The largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan is actually located in Brazil. São Paolo, to be exact. Of the roughly twelve million people who live there, more than a million and a half of them are Japanese or of Japanese descent; the legacy of a bilateral agreement between the two nations to promote migration in the late 1910s. This is, in a word, fascinating.

Yakuza Princess is set in this diaspora, the story of an orphaned girl with no knowledge of her past who was secreted away after her family was massacred. Now, of course, she is going to find out, and vengeance will be hers. Eventually.

22 August 202117 January 2022

Awesome Friday Movie Podcast: ‘Free Guy’ & ‘The Night House’

Greetings programs and welcome to another episode of the Awesome Friday Movie Podcast!

22 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘The Night House’ is effectively creepy, foreboding, and scary

Grief is powerful and can mess with your mind and body in ways you wouldn’t expect. This makes it a perfect feeling to fill with horror, an emotion that also messes with your mind and body in ways you don’t expect. As a genre of filmmaking, horror has benefited from this union in many creative ways over the history of film, and it does so again in The Night House.

22 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Martyr’s Lane’ is about a haunting, in more ways than one

Ghost stories are among the oldest we have, and they come in many forms. While often scary, they are also inherently sad, depicting a spirit tied to this realm and unable to move on to a peaceful afterlife, usually due to some trauma.

Martyr’s Lane is one of these films. Told from a child’s point of view and full of both dread and melancholy.

21 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Ida Red’ makes reference to many, much better movies (but it’s fine)

Crime films are a fun genre, and within that genre live some of the best character pieces ever made. Writer and director John Swab clearly knows this, as his film is made up of references to lots of other films in the genre, and while two good performances save this movie, there’s not much here you won’t have seen before.

20 August 202127 October 2021

Fantasia ’21 Interview: Sera-Lys McArthur on her films ‘Kwêskosîw’ & ‘Don’t Say Its Name’

2021 is turning out to be a big year for Sera-Lys McArthur. The alum of series such as Arctic Air and Burden of Truth is starring in two films at Fantasia Fest this year, a short (which she also produced) called Kwêskosîw (She Whistles) and the feature film Don’t Say Its Name, a horror film which had its world premiere this week at the festival.

I sat down with Sera-Lys on zoom this week to discuss both films and the state of indigenous filmmaking in Canada. I hope you enjoy it.

20 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Don’t Say Its Name’ lacks scares, but has two compelling lead performances

It begins with a hit and run. A young woman walking home alone at night, on the phone with her mother, is run down by a pickup truck. It growls like a wild animal as it races toward her, and it ends her life viciously. This is the opening scene to Don’t Say Its Name, the new film by director Rueben Martell, and the beginning of a story of blood and vengeance on a first nations reserve.

19 August 202119 September 2021

Fantasia ’21 Interview: Thirza Cuthand on their film Kwêskosîw (She Whistles)

Earlier this week I was able to watch and review a number of short films, including Kwêskosîw (She Whistles), a story with a supernatural twist from Indigenous filmmaker Thirza Cuthand. I was able to speak with Thirza about the film as well, and here is the conversation I had with them. I hope you enjoy it!

18 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes’ is a delightful twist on the time loop genre

Time loops are one of the most well-worn tropes in cinema today. From Groundhog Day to Palm Springs, the key to making it work is a unique twist. This is exactly what Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes has going for it, a story in which a cafe owner inadvertently ends up with a viewport to the future.

17 August 20218 January 2022

Review: ‘Free Guy’ is a love letter to gaming and just the dose of summer fun we’ve been waiting for

If there’s a film genre with an uneven history, it’s the video game movie. Sure, there are some good movies based on video games, but not many. Free Guy, the first big release from 20th Century Studios in a post-Disney acquisition world, posits that maybe the best way to make a video game movie is not to adapt a game directly at all.

Adapting instead of the gameplay and tropes of massively multiplayer online shooters like Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto Online, the film ends up being a love letter to gaming itself rather than any game specifically.

17 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ is a totally bonkers film, in a good way

As we’ve previously established, Nicolas Cage is one of our most idiosyncratic performers and one of our last true movie stars. Sion Sono is a Japanese filmmaker known for his subversive and idiosyncratic sensibilities. So what do you get when these two meet? A bonkers film, that’s what.

16 August 202119 September 2021

Fantasia ’21 Short Film Reviews!

We all go to film festivals for the exciting new features, but they’re also a showcase for short films. This year’s Fantasia Festival is no different, so here are five short films I’ve watched as part of the festival.

15 August 20218 January 2022

Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘The Righteous’ brings together faith, guilt, and excellent performances

Grief and guilt are often intertwined but not necessarily in the ways we expect. In The Righteous, the first feature from Canadian actor and now writer and director Mark O’Brien, guilt is met with a crisis of faith, and the results are dire.

Awesome Friday!

Category: Movies