Tag: 2016

Vancouver 2016 Review: THE ROAD TO MANDALAY Paints A Dark Portrait Of Migration

We've all heard, or read, an innumerable amount of horror stories about immigrants from third-world countries coming to North America and Europe. The Road to Mandalay shows us that even the seemingly small hop from Myanmar to Thailand can feel...

Vancouver 2016 Review: THE LOCK PICKER Features Very Promising Talent

Randall Okita's debut feature, The Lockpicker, screened as part of the Vancouver International Film Festival's new Future // Present series, which showcases emerging directorial talent in Canadian film. The film is a claustrophobic -- mainly shot in tightly held closeups...

Vancouver 2016 Review: MALIGLUTIT, A Spiritual Remake of John Ford's Western Classic THE SEARCHERS

Maliglutit, the latest film by Zacharias Kunuk (The Fast Runner), is essentially a spiritual remake of John Ford's seminal Western classic, The Searchers. This time, the action is set entirely in Nunavut, Canada's most sparsely populated territory and home to...

Vancouver 2016 Review: THE UNKNOWN GIRL, All Quiet Revelations, Resignation and Modest Hope

While its central conceit is decidedly sensational in nature, The Unknown Girl (La fille inconnue) unfolds at a mundanely methodical trot that has come to be expected of the Dardenne brothers. Their latest film revolves around a confident and talented...

Stephen McHattie and The Dark Stranger Give Leah 'Stranger Danger'

Terror films, a film production and distribution house, has slated several films to release, this Halloween season. One of their stand-outs is titled The Dark Stranger. Starring Katie Findlay (After the Dark, 2013) and Stephen McHattie (Pontypool, 2008), a...

PASSENGERS Trailer: Sony's Sci-Fi Bet Looks Promising

Passengers, Sony's new science fiction epic and their big Christmas bet, has had something of a long legacy. Starting life as a Blacklist script by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), the film was originally set to star Keanu Reeves and Reese Witherspoon before...

The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies - London Unveils Fall 2016 Lineup

Where I live in Texas, it's incredibly hot and uncomfortable, so the very idea of attending classes devoted to studying film and pop culture in cool, cool London this fall sounds like a fantasy. Yet it's a reality. Read onward...

First RAW Clips Give Us Something to Chew On

One of the standout films at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival was Julia Ducaurnau's French campus, coming of age cannibal flick, Raw.  The assured and unflinching debut had viewers scrambling for the exits  to go off and write good things about...

New York Asian 2016 Review: CREEPY, A Master Heads in a New Direction

Creepy has been touted as Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "return" to horror, but it feels, in its own right, like a new departure for the director. Where vintage Kurosawa fare was vague, mysterious, and mournful, Creepy is bracing, black-humored, and overt. A...

Melbourne 2016: Centrepiece Australian Black Comedy DOWN UNDER Announced at MIFF

The Melbourne International Film Festival has just announced an exciting addition to its lineup, continuing the genre fun, the Centrepiece gala film will be Down Under; a controversial pick that tackles the Cronulla riots; a racist conflict that broke out...

Melbourne 2016: World Premiere THE DEATH AND LIFE OF OTTO BLOOM To Open MIFF

The Melbourne International Film Festival is weeks away, but the excitement is already growing for this year's event. Hopefully to set the tone, MIFF have announced key sponsor Grey Goose Vodka as well as some information on the fun genre-blender...

Melbourne 2016: WHAT'S IN THE DARKNESS And More Next Gen Gems Announced For MIFF

The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is nearly upon us, no wonder it is starting to feel cold already. The festival takes place in winter and while we are a few weeks away yet, the films for Next Gen's programming...

Tribeca 2016 Review: THE LONER Journeys Through A Neon Dreamscape

The Loner sounds intriguing on paper: a former child soldier from Iran drifts through L.A.'s seedy underbelly and becomes entangled in a web of crime, violence, and drugs. Heavily influenced by films like Drive and David Lynch's oeuvre -- one...

Tribeca 2016 Review: ICAROS: A VISION Creates A Palpable Sense Of Place

Icaros: A Vision is about a white, American woman who -- confronted with a terminal illness -- embarks on a trip for a seemingly indefinite stay at a Shamanistic resort in the jungles of Peru. With a synopsis like this,...

Tribeca 2016 Review: KICKS, Announcing An Exciting New Talent

Kicks, a film about a hapless teenager who finds himself launched into the Bay Area's violent underbelly after being jumped for his new sneakers, bristles with immediacy, excitement and urgency. It's a remarkably assured, confident movie for a debut feature...

Miike To Direct Live-Action Adaptation Of Sci-Fi Gore Manga TERRA FORMARS

Notorious for successfully juggling multiple projects at the same time, the insanely prolific Japanese director Miike Takashi is about to venture back into the science fiction genre with Terra Formars, a live-action adaptation of a popular Japanese manga. Written by...

It's Official: TWIN PEAKS Returns In 2016

It's happening again ...It was just days ago that speculation over a return of cult classic television series Twin Peaks ran rampant after co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost simultaneously tweeted a (not so) cryptic message quoting a line from...