There are some films that you discover are so unexpected, so surprising that it leaves you with a strange sense of disappointment. Rufus had this effect on me, not because of the poor quality of the film, but due to the fact that I just don't think enough people will see what is ... Read More »
I think we all carry that little nagging voice in the back of our minds that tells us that we aren’t good enough, we’re only fooling ourselves, everyone is out to get us or some such variety of self-doubt to various degrees of potency. Familiar takes that nagging voice and manif... Read More »
First, let me say that watching Liz Marshall’s documentary The Ghosts in Our Machine (2013) is about 1,000 times more heart wrenching than one of those Sara McLachlan adopt-a-pet commercials, and it sets out to do what may well be nearly impossible: make people care about animals... Read More »
If, like I did, you start watching No Heart Feelings with little prior knowledge or information then it can take you a little while to get a handle on the story. It's billed as a comedy-romance but that seems to be slightly dismissive or lazy a label. Read More »
“We have three hours,” warns a character at one point in Laurence Anyways. “It’s a lifetime,” comes the reply. It feels almost as though it might be in this, the third film from Canadian prodigy Xavier Dolan, an epic in every sense of the word as it traces ten years in the life o... Read More »
Me, The Bees and Cancer (2012) tells the story of director John Board and his quest to cure his cancer with homeopathic medicine, namely bee stings. A little background on John, he’s a very successful Assistant Director working on many films, most notably with David Cronenberg o... Read More »
There are a few things you expect from a documentary. An in-depth analysis and history of the subject, interesting cinematography to illuminate the analysis further, and a few surprising highlights exposing things we didn’t know on the topic. There are many techniques documentari... Read More »
There’s ample opportunity, as much courtesy of the nature of the movie as of a line of dialogue, for Canadian twins and directorial duo Jen and Sylvia Soska to title their second feature Bloody Mary. But they do not, and the alternative choice is indicative of both a horror far r... Read More »
The Rep is a terrific documentary that follows a year in the life of three men who run the Toronto Underground Cinema, a repertory theater (classic movie house) in a basement of an office building. The film not only tracks the first year of this rep theater (2010-2011) but also... Read More »
About 30 minutes into Stories We Tell, the new experimental documentary from Sarah Polley, I began to suspect the film had played me, successfully, for a fool. Read More »
Picture Day (2013) is the feature writing and directing debut of Kate Miles Melville and it’s really pretty good. It tells the story of Claire (Tatiana Maslany) who is repeating her senior year of high school. She frequently skips class and arrives late. She meets Jim (Steven ... Read More »
The Defector: Escape from North Korea is a harrowing documentary about a broker named Dragon attempting to ferry people out of North Korea (though they have already escaped to China) through China to Laos and then to Thailand so they can request refugee or asylum in other countri... Read More »
