Author Graeme Maitland

I've been working in film exhibition for a very long time. I studied film at university and I watch far too many movies. At least 2 movies a day. I like to think about movies and I like to write about movies. I'm looking forward to doing more of both. I also like kittens.

Made in Canada sep2
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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 that we don’t make great films. Having watched Greg White’s Separation, it’s crystal clear why this impression exists.

Separation is stylized as a taught psychological thriller that focuses on the relationship between a husband and wife. The title refers to the impending end of their marriage, but also works as a double entendre describing the loss the two have experienced.

Separation

Reviews Blue-Caprice
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October of 2002 a string of random shootings occurred in and around the Washington DC area. These shootings were carried out from the back seat of a moving car. To be more specific, it was a blue Chevrolet Caprice. These horrifying events are the subject of Alexandre Moore’s new film, Blue Caprice. It’s an in-depth character study that attempts to find some degree of understanding, not sympathy, for why these murders took place, and it’s fascinating.

Reviews insidiouschap2-1
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This past summer the box office belonged to James Wan. His haunted house film The Conjuring managed to scare enough people out of their admission price to stay in the number one spot for a few weeks running. His follow up film, Insidious: Chapter 2 should do just as well, but not for the same reasons. This sequel to 2011’s Insidious picks up the story immediately. We join Renai and Josh Lambert (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson) as they try to put their family back together following the harrowing, ghostly experiences they went through trying to save their son from the black, limbo that is the “Further” (yes, that’s what they called it). The reason this film should be successful is not just because it has virtually no competition in this pre-Oscar film season, but because it just might be the funniest comedy of the year. Seriously, it’s a gut buster.

Reviews riddick
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The third installment of David Twohy and Vin Diesel’s sci-fi epic wisely takes a complete 180 from the previous film, The Chronicles of Riddick. This film tones down the scale of the story telling to focus solely on Riddick. And that’s really the best thing they could have done after the overly complex, confusing and honestly boring plot they tried to throw at us in the second film. It’s a shame they didn’t do it terribly effectively.

Rewind Review chron-1
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The opening shots of The Chronicles of Riddick show a massive iron sculpture of a menacing face overlooking an evil army storming a planet. The idea was to show the scale of this sequel. The story is no longer contained to a small, backwater, desert planet. Instead, this film will show the scope and grandeur of the universe Riddick inhabits. The biggest problem with this introduction is that all it really demonstrates is how wretched the computer effects are going to be for the next two hours.

Rewind Review pitch-black-1
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Independent and low budget science fiction films tend to suffer from a few ingrained flaws. The special effects aren’t convincing, the acting is stiff and the stories can be clunky and overburdened by the dogmatic vocabularies associated with the fantasy realms of science fiction. It’s a brave filmmaker who tries to do grand scale science fiction on a small budget. In 2000 David Twohy assembled a small crew, took a script by Jim and Ken Wheat, and got some pretty great actors, and headed out into the Australian desert to shoot Pitch Black.

Reviews 199280971_640
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There’s a reason some of the world’s most famous artists want to collaborate with Gerhardt Steidl. For over forty years Steidl has been creating and publishing some of the highest quality books the world has every seen. His publications are beautiful, innovative, and meticulously crafted by hand to be the perfect showcase for an artists work. His commitment to quality and to the process of creating a book is unmatched in the industry and Jörg Adolph, Gereon Wetzel’s How To Make A Book With Steidl showcases his perfectionism and dedication wonderfully.

Reviews evocateur-morton-downey-jr-movie-poster
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Television is dying. On every channel we are bombarded with obnoxious reality shows about treasure hunters, house-wives, bakers, would be pop stars, and pretty much any other mundane occupation you can think of. Where did this all come from? What happened to our TV culture? According to Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, it can all be traced back to a raucous New Jersey talk show from the 80’s. The Morton Downey Jr. Show was a platform for Morton to address current events through a series of so-called interviews wherein he would argue his points vehemently and often violently with his guests. The Morton Downey Jr. show is credited as being the pre-curser to shows such as The Jerry Springer Show and Judge Joe Brown and filmmakers Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger want to make sure that Morton gets the recognition he deserves.

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