A problem arises early on in Sex After Kids because of its instant quality of shooting. Digital may be the future but cinematographers often speak about how they have to use filters to dim down the quality of the shots otherwise they look too colourful, too crude, almost cartooni... Read More »
As Vic + Flo Saw a Bear opens, a little boy is playing the trumpet…poorly. He is told that, if he ever wants to make any money doing so, he will need to practice. In order to be worthwhile, he needs to improve. In order to improve, he will have to put in the time. Though it seems... Read More »
Empire of Dirt tackles issues that haunt many First Nations communities across Canada. A few issues that are taken head-on: substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and broken homes. You can find these issues in any region and culture but these issues are not uncommon on “the rez.” The f... Read More »
For a certain form of documentarian, the art of making a documentary is to some extent about learning to roll with the punches. Some documentary filmmakers create their works after the fact, using archival footage, reenactments, and interviews where the subjects can look back on ... Read More »
“It’s all gonna be brown soon,” muses a character of the greenery adorning the riverbank on which he and his travelling companion sit at a key point in Hills Green, unwittingly invoking the film’s central idea of inevitable decay. They are Shawn and Erin, long-time platonic frien... Read More »
Antisocial is a well-made little thriller that keeps its thriller tone throughout the entirety of the film until abandoning it for a more stock horror ending. The story is simple: five college students gather at a house for a New Year’s Eve party. Three of the five are constantl... Read More »
Greatness can be a gift as well as a curse. To be truly great, one must invest oneself fully in their work, must give up a large part of their soul for what they do. Selfishness is a negative trait, but in many ways it is an inherent aspect of greatness. The annals of cinema are ... Read More »
“You farmers have nothing to fall back on,” hammers the accountant when discussing retirement prospects with his client Gaby, lamb producer and owner of “La Ferme Gagnon and Sons”. It's a painful truth that underscores much of Le démantèlement (The Dismantling), the touching seco... Read More »
Television is overrun with so-called reality shows. Finding an interesting quirk in a person, or an industry, or a subculture and then documenting and producing a story built around that quirk is what it’s all about. It’s an easy way for the media to produce content, and to be fa... Read More »
The year is 1986. 15-year-old Lisa has been doomed to repeat the same day of her life as long as she can remember. Every day she eats the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She washes the same laundry and tells her mother she doesn’t know where the missing clothes went. Every nig... Read More »
There’s a certain stigma attached to Canadian films. Despite being home to such brilliant filmmakers as David Cronenberg, Norman Jewison, James Cameron, and Ivan and Jason Reitman, our film industry is still looked on as being an amateur operation. The general impression remains ... Read More »
One of the most difficult, and potentially exciting, things about directing a documentary about events as they unfold is the unpredictability. Making a movie about events that have already occurred allows the filmmaker to develop themes and to editorialize through focus in the wa... Read More »
