Reviews of movies, television, games, and whatever else strikes our fancy.
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.
Continue reading “Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Prisoners of the Ghostland’ is a totally bonkers film, in a good way”
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.
Continue reading “Fantasia ’21 Short Film Reviews!”
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.
Continue reading “Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘The Righteous’ brings together faith, guilt, and excellent performances”
Action movies were different in the 90s. They were more bombastic, more melodramatic, and the plots were often paper-thin –even when they seemed complicated. Of course, we’ve come a long way since then, but let’s get one thing clear: 90s action movies kick butt.
Raging Fire, the latest Donnie Yen film out of Hong Kong, is a throwback to this type of filmmaking, and I mean that in the best way possible. This movie kicks butt.
Continue reading “Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Raging Fire’ is a throwback to 90s action in the best way possible”
Folk Horror has a storied history in cinema, creating some of the most unsettling imagery and tapping into some of our most visceral latent fears. Whether you’re watching a classic like The Wicker Man or The Blood on Satan’s Claw or something more modern like Midsommar to The Witch, the stories harken back to times gone by and often posit that perhaps they aren’t as “gone by” as we think –or hope– they are.
Such an important history has to have an important telling, and that’s exactly what director Kier-La Janisse has created with Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched’ is a fascinating look at the history of folk horror”
This year, it’s a common theme that the films I truly love have been ones I expected to like but –for whatever reason– did not expect to love. Films with high concepts that I did not expect to leave me with tears in my eyes or with a renewed urge to look inward and assess my life and being. Nine Days is the third such film this year. A beautiful achievement from director Edson Oda (in his debut feature, no less), Nine Days treads a unique path to an emotional catharsis that will leave you with a renewed sense of hope.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Nine Days’ is a beautiful achievement”
Here’s a true story for you. When I was young, I collected comics. Not that uncommon, to be sure, especially among kids in the late 80s and early 90s who had heard stories about the adults who paid off their homes by hanging on to comics and baseball cards and other collectables. So I didn’t just collect comics; I collected comics.
I loved many characters and series, but the one I enjoyed most –the one that I was buying when no one else I know was– was a series by Marvel called “What if…?”, in which a toga-clad all-seeing cosmic being related stories of the Marvel universe I knew and loved but with a single change. Imagine the butterfly effect at work: a butterfly flaps its wings in China, you get rain in Stanley Park; Peggy Carter doesn’t go up to the observation room as Steve Rogers is headed toward the experiment that would make him Captain America, and instead, we end up with Captain Carter. I loved it. I still do. And now they’ve made an animated series out of it.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Marvel’s What If…?’ explores what might have been in the MCU, and it’s great”
I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s start at the beginning. King Knight is the latest film by Richard Bates Jr. It follows Thorn (Matthew Gray Gubler), the leader of a coven of witches, and he goes on a journey to his high school reunion. Thorn has a secret, though, and that secret is that he was popular in high school and not bullied or put upon like the rest of his cohort.
It sounds on paper, but the resulting film is boring and unfunny, which sucks.
Continue reading “Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘King Knight’ is a bore”
An interesting thing that happens –or perhaps more accurately doesn’t happen– in Beckett is that when it comes time to be an action star, the title character simply isn’t one. Neither superhuman nor particularly competent, Beckett, played by John David Washington in a role that asks him to carry an entire movie, is just a guy on the run and doesn’t have any dark past, specialized training, or even a penchant for 80s action movies. That, in and of itself, is a little refreshing.
The film itself, though –a stylistic throwback to the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s– only works despite itself. Gorgeously shot, decently acted, but overlong and simple to a fault, this is one on which your mileage will definitely vary.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Beckett’ is a paranoid thriller that works despite itself”
Agnes beings in a convent, with a young nun standing up at a dinner table and proclaiming all of her sisters whores, among other things. Naturally, the assumption is that she is possessed, and the church dispatches a disillusioned older priest with a young, idealistic (almost) priest to keep an eye on him. If this sounds like the setup for a million other possessed nun stories, that’s because it is, right down to how fast it becomes clear that the priests are in over their heads. This isn’t a million other possessed nun stories, though.
Continue reading “Fantasia ’21 Review: ‘Agnes’ isn’t the horror movie it claims to be, but is compelling nonetheless”
James Gunn has a distinctive voice. It’s always been there, from his days at Troma through writing the Scooby-Doo films and the Dawn of the Dead remake, and from his early directorial efforts like Slither and Super all the way to the Guardians of the Galaxy and now, the Suicide Squad. That voice is juvenile, a little dark, and also –and this is most important– fun.
I say this because The Suicide Squad, the movie he signed on to make while briefly exiled from Marvel Studios, is a juvenile movie. And it’s a little dark. And it’s pretty fun. But while its R-rated excesses are probably the logical extension of his voice as a storyteller, it is also cobbled together from his greatest hits from other projects. Your mileage may vary on whether it feels repetitive or merely familiar, but it’s also enough fun that that probably doesn’t matter.
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Suicide Squad’ is wacky, juvenile, committed, fun, and familiar”
The basic premise of Vivo is both simple and heartfelt: A kinkajou goes on a quest to deliver a love letter from his father figure to his father figures long lost love. That’s it, that’s the whole pitch, and if you pack the cast with talented actors and singers and hire a nearly-EGOT-winning songwriter to turn the whole thing into a musical, that’s a recipe for something special. Most of the time, anyway.
That’s not to say that Vivo is bad; exactly, it’s just fine. It opens with a toe-tapping duet that will stick in your head for ages and closes with a reprise of the same, but there’s a long stretch in the middle where the film takes no exactly no chances and suffers for it.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Vivo’ starts strong, ends less strong, and lags in the middle”
Think about a sports drama. You know the one: where the main team is somehow disadvantaged in life, but they have a coach who believes in them even when they don’t believe in themselves. Where through the sport and the self-confidence that comes with playing well and winning, the kids turn their lives around and inspire the community around them. 12 Mighty Orphans is not the first time this story has been told, and it won’t be the last, but it’s a pretty good version of that story.
Continue reading “Review: ’12 Mighty Orphans’ is a perfectly suitable underdog sports drama”
There’s no one moment that will let you know that The Green Knight is going to be something special. It is apparent from the beginning that you are about to watch something excellent, both the production design and casting tell you that, but it’s not until nearly in the second half that you may realize you’re watching something truly great.
A knightly quest, and a chivalric romance, The Green Knight is a film that has so many questions and diversions that it could have been a mess, but instead is one of the most purposeful and human films of the year, and one of the best, too.
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Green Knight’ grapples with temptation and virtue, cowardice and courage, and ends up one of the best films of the year”
I think a lot about M. Night Shyamalan. I don’t like all of his movies, but all of his movies are unmistakably his movies, and I love him for that. So what makes an M. Night Shyamalan movie? Janky dialogue delivered weirdly and a very straightforward understanding of human emotion and behaviour, but also a keen eye for visuals and a newly unparalleled ability to use the camera to tell a story. He is, in a word, a dichotomy. His latest film Old is no different.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Old’ highlights M. Night Shyamalan’s weaknesses, but also his strengths”
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