Full coverage of the Vancouver International Film Festival, from every year that we have covered it.
Greetings programs! Welcome to our first episode of 2023. Now that Simon is back from holiday (and caught up!) it’s time for us to talk about our favourite movies of 2022! Get yourself comfy for this longer episode; it turns out it’s hard to keep discussions of excellent films brief!
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Continue reading “Podcast: Matt & Simon’s Top Films of 2022!”
Greetings, programs, and welcome to a very special episode of the show. This week (and next!) Simon is on holiday, so Matthew is joined once again by our friend Rachel Ho of Exclaim.ca, ThatShelf.com, POV Magazine, and The Globe and Mail!
We’re diving into an indie darling and a big, oscar-bait action spectacle this week. First, Benson & Moorhead’s Something in the Dirt, which is finally in release after premiering all the way back at Sundance at the beginning of 2022. Then we move on to Emancipation, Will Smith’s first big release since “the slap”. One of these is quite good, and the other not so much. Listen to find out which!
Continue reading “Podcast: Something in the Dirt & Emancipation (w/ Guest Host Rachel Ho)”
Greetings Programs! This week on the podcast, Matt and Simon take a look at a pair of wayward bothers in the new AppleTV+ release Raymond & Ray and the Cannes Film Festival Best Director winning Decision to Leave from the great Park Chan-wook. Will there be hot takes? Only one way to find out! Find links to listen (and JustWatch powered streaming links for each movie) below.
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Continue reading “Podcast: Raymond & Ray & Decision to Leave”
Greetings programs! We’re back after just a few days with a special bonus wrap-up episode for the 2022 Vancouver International Film Festival. This episode is also a joint episode with our friends Contra Zoom, Dakota from that show and Matthew are breaking down their five favourites from the festival together, and the episode will be going out on both of our feeds!
Surprisingly our top five lists only share one film in common, and you’ll have to listen to find out which! Below you’ll find JustWatch-powered streaming links for each movie and where to listen to both our show and Contra Zoom.
Join us!
Continue reading “Bonus Podcast: VIFF 2022 Top Fives w/ Dakota from Contra Zoom Pod!”
Greetings programs! This week on the podcast, we’re looking at two films that played as part of the 2022 Vancouver International Film Festival. First up is Canadian director Stéphane Lafleur’s new high-concept comedy Viking. Then we take a closer look at Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winning satire of wealth and privilege Triangle of Sadness.
You’ll find a complete list of where you can listen to the show below and an embedded player if you prefer to listen right here on the site.
Join us!
Continue reading “Podcast: VIFF 2022: Viking & Triangle of Sadness”
Greetings programs! We’re back after a two-week break with two new movies, one hot off the presses from the largest media conglomerate in history and the other finally seeing wide release after a successful festival run last year. First up is Robert Zemeckis’ live-action remake of Disney’s Pinocchio, followed by the Senegalese action horror movie Saloum. One of these movies we really didn’t like, listen to find out which and then watch the other!
You’ll find JustWatch-powered streaming links below, as well as our ratings, how you can listen, how you can support us, and all of our other content. Join us!
Continue reading “Podcast: Pinocchio & Saloum”
For many, the Oscars are the last stop of awards season. Up here in Canada though, the highest awards that the Canadian Academy gives out are being awarded this coming Sunday, April 10th. Canada produces a ton of great movies each year, and 2021 was no different.
Presented here is a list of all the nominees for Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Actor and Actress, Best Director, The John Dunning Best First Feature Award, and Best Picture, along with where you can buy, rent, or stream them.
Continue reading “Home Video: The 2022 Canadian Screen Award Nominees and where to buy, rent, or stream them”
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.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Portraits From A Fire’ comes of age through filmmaking”
No good comes from denying the self. If it seems like a thing easier said than done, that’s because it is. Living in a trailer park with his abusive father and staring down a road or petty crime and everything that follows, Wildhood is the story of a young man who is in so much self-denial that he is dying his hair blond in an effort to distance himself from his indigenous heritage, and that’s before he even begins to examine his sexuality.
Continue reading “FNC ’21 Review: ‘Wildhood’ is a tender coming of age tale”
Young love set against a backdrop of crime is a tale as old as time. In The White Fortress, the story is set in modern-day Sarajevo and follows a young man called Faruk (Pavle Čemerikić) as he navigates the current realities of growing up poor in the politically divided city.
Continue reading “FNC ’21 Review: ‘The White Fortress’ sets young love among a divided city”
Lauren Grant is a prolific producer of Canadian film and television, having worked on the series Killjoys as well as the films Riot Girls, Sugar Daddy and The Retreat just in the last two years. This year she also makes her debut as a director with her original short film Things We Feel But Do Not Say, which premiered as part of the shorts program at VIFF 2021. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Lauren on zoom to talk about the film.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Interview: Lauren Grant on her directorial debut short film ‘Things We Feel But Do Not Say’”
Another edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival is come and gone, and it’s time to talk about the movies we loved. This year I once got to sit down with Thomas from ForReel Movie News & Reviews and Taylor from Drink in the Movies and since the border is open, and we’re all vaccinated, we got to do it in person! So join us as we each talk about our top three films from the fest.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Wrap Up: Matthew joins Thomas from ForReel and Taylor from Drink in the Movies to talk festival favourites”
A young woman returns to her small, rural community and begins to effect change. It’s a setup as old as the movies themselves and one we love to return to because so much can be mined from this kind of setup. In Bootlegger, a young woman returns to the reserve she called home as a child and begins a campaign to open up the sale of alcohol, free the community from some amount of the oppression they face.
It’s a gorgeously shot and very Canadian story.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Bootlegger’ is a gorgeously shot story of findings one’s place”
While there is a myriad of ways to describe Petite Maman, the effect that it has on the viewer is one of a warm hug. It’s a ray of sunshine through the leaves of a forest on a rainy day. This is my way of saying that it is wonderful and you should watch it, regardless of what I am going to say in the following few paragraphs. Director Céline Sciamma has created another emotionally resonant film and a worthy follow up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Petite Maman’ is a warm hug on a rainy day and one of the best films of the year”
The Troubles, as they are so politely referred to, have had an indelible impact on Northern Ireland and the people who live there. Yes, that is the understatement of the decade, but while we think about the 30-year conflict in very broad terms, generally, outside of that country, we often don’t think about the real human impact. Kenneth Branagh is one of those people, and with Belfast, he seeks to tell the story of his families well as part of the story of Northern Ireland at large.
Continue reading “VIFF ’21 Review: ‘Belfast’ is a crowd pleasing but personal film from Kenneth Branagh”
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