Movies Archives - Page 32 of 53

24 August 202023 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘The Columnist’ is a revenge story we’ve all fantasized about

“It’s just the internet; it isn’t real.”

“Never read the comments.”

“It was only a joke.”

If you have ever spent any time on the internet, on social media, forums, or any site where people can leave comments, these phrases should sound familiar. The internet is the great democratizer, rendering everyone’s voice the same volume no matter what they say. The problem is that many people only have awful things to say.

This is the world we inhabit. It’s the same in the world of Femke Boot, a successful columnist for a Dutch website and magazine. She writes, and people comment. Femke doesn’t live in our world, which means that when she has had enough, she has really had enough.

23 August 202023 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘Perdida’ is a satisfying thriller

There’s a lot I wish I could tell you about Perdida, but it’s one of those thrillers full of twists and turns, and almost everything I want to tell you is probably a spoiler. What I can tell you is the following.

Eric, a man in crisis, meets Fabiana, a waitress serving him whiskeys all night. Eric is obviously going through something. He ends up blackout drunk and passes out on her couch. After awkwardly running out, he returns to apologise, and they begin a torrid affair.

Fabiana joins him at his luxurious, remote house and over several days, she comes to enjoy the new man in her life and the comforts of his home. However, it quickly becomes apparent that something isn’t quite right. Something is definitely off between the weird groans coming from the pipes and the police officers who show up looking for Eric’s wife, Carolina.

It probably sounds like I am spoiling the movie, but rest assured that this is only a brief outline of the film’s first half-hour.

22 August 202023 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘Crazy Samurai Musashi’ is a technical marvel, but exhausting

If there is one thing that a film nerd loves, it’s a good long take. A long take needs planning and rehearsal; the longer the long take, the more planning and rehearsal it will require.

Spielberg and Cuarón use them frequently. Martin Scorsese probably produced the most famous long-take scenes in Goodfellas, and Park Chan-wook produced one of Oldboy’s most famous action long takes. One of the more ambitious examples is the historical epic Russian Ark, which runs 96 minutes and is entirely one take.

The envelope is constantly being pushed in filmmaking, and Crazy Samurai Musashi aims to push it a little further. The film tells the story of a Samurai, Musashi, as he faces off against 588 opponents in a single 77-minute take.

And that’s pretty much the entire movie, for better or worse. Technically, it is one of the most impressive films I have seen all year, but the 77-minute scene is actually just exhausting, and not just for lead actor Tak Sakaguchi.

21 August 202023 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘Special Actors’ is a wacky good time

Imagine being an aspiring actor and suffering an anxiety affliction so severe that you collapse every time you are nervous or confronted. This is the plight of Kazuto (Kazuto Osawa) in Special Actors, the new film by Shinichiro Ueda.

Of course, that’s not the movie’s plot, and honestly, I am loathed to tell you much about the story. It involves a talent agency specialising in hiring actors out to real-life events, a family-owned inn, and a cult. That’s pretty much all I can tell you without taking an express train to spoiler country, but to say this movie gets a little wacky would be an understatement.

21 August 202018 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘Feels Good, Man’ asks if Pepe the Frog will ever be good again

Imagine for a moment that you have created something. Something good, something pure, something that draws influence from your own life and childhood. Now imagine that thing being taken from you and co-opted as a symbol of hate. That is precisely what happened to Matt Furie, creator of the now infamously well-known Pepe the Frog.

Director Arthur Jones’s documentary, Feels Good Man surveys the character’s history from creation to where he stands now and asks if Furie can ever reclaim his creation.

20 August 202018 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘The Reckoning’ is a disappointment

There might not be another movie with so timely a premise: a witch hunt during a plague. In these times of our society starting to address how we treat women and, you know, a plague, The Reckoning has a lot going for it right out of the gate.

Add to this writer and director Neil Marshall, a man with a history of putting out high-grade B-movies, and suddenly, you have a compelling sales pitch for a film.

I’m pointing all of this out because The Reckoning is a stunning example of a film with everything going for it but fails to capitalize on any of it.

20 August 202022 August 2021

Fantasia Review: ‘Clapboard Jungle’ takes a personal journey through the indie film business

There’s a romantic image of the indie film scene, of scrappy filmmakers bringing their artistic vision to the screen for the masses to enjoy and breaking all the rules to do so. That image isn’t inaccurate so much as it is only the fun parts. The whole picture includes long days, hard work, and lots of schmoozing and glad-handing.

Justin McConnell has been working within the indie film business in Canada for most of his life and has had some successes and setbacks. Over the course of five years, he documented his journey through the business, revealing just how hard it can be to get to your breakout moment.

6 August 20206 August 2020

An American Pickle Review: Seth Rogen turns in two great performances

It is a tale as old as time: A man moves to America, that man gets a job at a pickle factory, that man falls into a pickle vat as the building is being condemned, that man wakes up 100 years later and moves in with his great-grandson who is his only living relative. What clash of personalities would result? What clash of ideals and aspirations?

An American Pickle stars Seth Rogen as both Hershel Greenbaum and his great-grandson Ben. Hershel, who left his shtetl in 1919, wakes up in 2020 to find the legacy he wanted for his family is not exactly as he pictured it. He, a hard-working man with cultural and personal beliefs 100 years out of date and Ben, a timid freelance app developer, don’t exactly have a ton in common.

What follows is a sweet, if inconsequential, story of family and identity.

6 August 202030 August 2020

Matt’s Most Anticipated Movies of 2020, Late Mid-Year Recap

Oh hey there. It’s been a weird year and I haven’t been writing again. 2020 has been a challenge, to say the least, and it’s seemed like there have been bigger things going on, and also the ol’ day job has been a little on the intense side.

But things are finally calming down a little so I am back to writing a little. A good place to start is with the films I was looking forward to this year because, well, most of them aren’t coming out this year anymore. Theatres here in Vancouver are re-opening in a limited way, but even if new movies were coming to them (which they aren’t) I don’t think I would feel comfortable going to see them yet. Or for the rest of the year.

So let’s take a look at what I was looking forward to, and see where that leaves us for the rest of the year.

22 March 202022 March 2020

Review: The Invisible Man is a Timely Reinvention of a Classic

There are many ways to tell a story that has already been told. You can simply re-tell it, or add some embellishments, or you can entirely remake it into something new. The Invisible Man falls squarely into this third category. It takes the bones of a classic monster movie and re-contextualizes it for now.

22 February 202026 November 2021

Catch Up Reviews: Gentlemen, Bad Boys, Bombshells, and more

It has been a busy couple of weeks around the Awesome Friday HQ, and I haven’t had a ton of time for writing, but I have caught up on a bunch of movies, so here are some brief thoughts on Bombshell, Harriet, The Gentlemen, Bad Boys for Life, and Miss Americana.

16 February 202021 March 2020

Review: Birds of Prey is a good time!

DC’s Extended Universe of films got off to a rocky start. An early focus on being grim and gritty and “realistic” a la the comics of Frank Miller along with a lot of time spent setting up a universe seemed to get in the way of making, you know, good movies. That is to say, they went too dark and they spent so much time worrying about the next movie they forgot to focus on the one they were making.

Luckily it seems that someone eventually figured this out and started letting filmmakers make the movies they want to make rather than having them conform to a predetermined aesthetic and continuity. Sometimes this has resulted in a miss (like Joker) but in recent years they have actually generated a string of fun movies (like Aquaman and Shazam!).

So how does Birds of Prey fare? As both a sequel to one of the least liked DC films and also focussing on one of the most fun characters in the DC universe it has a tough setup but I’m pleased to say it’s definitely a hit.

10 February 20206 August 2020

Franchise Rewatch: James Bond – Part 2: ‘Thunderball through Diamonds Are Forever’, or the End of the Beginning

Welcome to part two of this year’s franchise rewatch. I’ve watched three good films so far, and this time around I’m going to talk about four more.

I’m on pace to get this done before the April premiere of No Time To Die right now so let’s get right to talking about Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and Diamonds Are Forever.

6 February 202030 August 2020

Matt’s Ten Most Anticipated Films of 2020

Every year is a good year for movies but every year there are always those few you are really looking forward to. Here is my list of those movies.

Will these end up being my favourite movies of the year? Who knows! Probably not! The only movies that we know anything about as far away as December are the big-budget blockbusters with marketing pockets so deep we can start hearing about them now. There are hundreds of movies per year that don’t have that.

This list should probably be re-titled “most anticipated big-budget films”, really.

In any event, here is the list. See if you can guess the first entry.

21 January 20206 August 2020

Franchise Rewatch: James Bond – Part 1: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger or The Definition of Bond

In each of the last few years, I have re-watched a franchise. If you follow my Letterboxd you might have noticed this. One year it was Star Trek, another it was Star Wars, and another it was Mission: Impossible. This year it’s going to be James Bond.

With 24 films in the franchise proper and a 25th due in April of this year, this is no small undertaking, especially if I am going to blog about them as I go. Why haven’t I blogged these in the past? Because I had an idea of what I wanted this blog to be and I have resolved to change that here in this new decade.

So what follows will be whatever I feel it needs to be after watching each James Bond film. I am going to watch them in order, and I am most likely going to stick to the main EON produced films in the franchise. Some of them will get some deep thought, others maybe not so much. I don’t have a real plan besides watch, write about each, and then finish up with some kind of conclusion.

So if that sounds like the kind of thing you’re into then let’s get started on this journey with the first three entries in the franchise: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger

Awesome Friday!

Category: Movies