Tag: canada
Friday One Sheet: UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Brutalism is back, baby! Behold the mighty Winnipeg mortar arches, and thin veneer of snow that together form one of many visual motifs in Matthew Rankin's superbly dry dramedy Universal Language. A large part of the film's delights come from...
Friday One Sheet: SHARP CORNER Teaser
This will be a short one today, with this minimalist teaser for Jason Buxton's dark character study, Sharp Corner. A family man (Ben Foster) becomes obsessed with saving the lives of the car accident victims on the sharp corner in front...
Toronto 2024 Review: SHARP CORNER, An Emasculated Ben Foster Goes to Dark Places
There is a railroad trestle over Gregson Street in Durham, North Carolina, that is a bit lower than it should be. In spite of flashing lights and a few signs, several times a month a cube van or tractor...
Karlovy Vary 2024 Review: Political Satire RUMOURS Takes Surreal Turn
Guy Maddin teams up with Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson on a trippy political comedy in a dystopian predicament led by Cate Blanchett.
(Good) Friday One Sheet: HUMANE
Curious timing on the Christian calendar for today’s column. We are not at the resurrection yet on Good Friday, only the sacrifice, and the death-heavy poster for Humane shows that. Perfect ordered body bags, in an neutral grey setting, suggest...
Friday One Sheet: MOTHER SAIGON (Má Sài Gòn)
Quebec/Vietnamese filmmaker Khoa Lê's documents a portrait of the LGBTQ+ in modern Vietnam in Má Sài Gòn (Mother Saigon). The hazy orange and pink key art offers its own kind of public intimacy, and sends out a strong core visual on...
Toronto 2023 Review: FINGERNAILS, Love (And Cinema) Fails By Playing It Safe
It is a solid time-wasting (and futile) exercise looking at couples and making a judgement call if they are ‘right for one another.’ Or to guess if they will ‘last.’ In my family, it is kind of a sport. Well...
POLARIS Review: The Birth of Mythology Through the Eyes of a Resilient Savior
There is magic at play in Kirsten Carthew's Polaris. It is set the year 2144. Earth has been ravaged and sent back to another ice age, one where the fish bleed green blood. Pockets of survivors eke out...
Locarno 2023 Review: MADEMOISELLE KENOPSIA, Exploring Melancholy of Abandoned Spaces
Canadian auteur Denis Côté and actress Larissa Corriveau craft an evocative experience of solitude and space that invites a deeper exploration of both in the director's latest work.
SATAN WANTS YOU Interview: Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams Talk Moral Panics
Moral panics have been with us as a species since time immemorial. From the persecution of European pagans at the end of the Roman empire in the Fourth Century, to the Salem witch trials in New England in the 17th...
Fantasia 2023: Raising the Curtain on North America's Largest Genre Festival
The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 20 to August 9 this year in Montreal. It's epic length is lovingly referred to by long time attendees as a 'summer camp for genre nerds.' Given that it runs for weeks...
Calgary Underground 2023: BLACKBERRY Review
In the wild west days of nascent “smart phone” technology, the phrase convergence was tossed around a lot, where your computer, your phone and your personal digital assistant, would merge into one device. A small company, whose building was located...
BLACKBERRY Trailer: Jay Baruchel And Glenn Howerton Star in Matt Johnson's Latest
‘BlackBerry’ tells the story of Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the two men that charted the course of the spectacular rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone. Matt Johnson's BlackBerry is coming exclusively to theaters on May...
Review: SLASH/BACK, Four Teenage Girls vs. Aliens
Tasiana Shirley, Alexis Vincent-Wolfe, Nalajoss Ellsworth and Chelsea Prusky star in a film directed by Nyla Innuksuk that explains why teenage girls rule the world.
Review: BANDIT, Robbing Banks For Fun and Profit
Josh Duhamel, Elisha Cuthbert, Nestor Carbonell and Mel Gibson star in the amiable tale of a record-breaking bank robber, directed by Allan Ungar.
Locarno 2022 Review: BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND Embraces Tired Tropes, Then Reenergizes Them
From Canada comes director Trevor Anderson's coming-of-age comedy, starring Vaughan Murrae.
Fantasia 2022 Preview: POLARIS Kicks Off Giddy Genre Movie Celebration
Even before I began contributing to this site in 2005, I heard about Fantasia International Film Festival. Founded in Montreal, Canada, in 1996, the sprawling festival is the grandfather of all genre-film festivals in North American, and has unleashed untold...
Now on Home Video: NEON LIGHTS, When a Family Retreat Turns Deadly
"Are you having dark thoughts, Clay?" The trailer for Canadian thriller Neon Lights certainly looks promising. The story itself involves a family reunion in a large, spacious home with many rooms, some with quite distinctive lighting. My colleague Andrew Mack...
Review: FIRE OF LOVE, A Jaw-Dropping Love Story
Directed by Sara Dosa, the film accentuates the story of two lovers who shared the same passion, and lived and died together. See it on the big screen.
Friday One Sheet: POLARIS
This rough and tumble design for Kirsten Carthew's eco-action 'raised by bears' picture exudes all kinds of gritty energy. The muted high-grain image centers on lead Viva Lee in helmeted glory, screaming at the world. It drops the credit block...
