Tag: Film

By Stephanie Shewchuk

Mardis Gras is the Catholic celebration preceding Lent and links revellers from all across the world. What once began as a period of abandon foreshadowing 40 days of penance has swiftly transformed into a nondenominational cause for debauchery. Even though many other countries partake in the holiday, New Orleans is the most notorious for its… Continue reading Film Review: WhenMoviesMatter – Mardi Gras

By Ben Hoffman

It’s not hard to find somebody to mutter disdain towards the United Nations in the years since the World Trade Center attacks. It has been brought into question time and time again whether the organization is as irrelevant as its post World War I sister, the League of Nations, became before the Second World War.… Continue reading Film Review: WhenMoviesMatter – The Peacekeepers

By Alan Cho

Forget the paper-thin story, generic direction and a cast with the collective acting prowess of Tara Reid’s left boob–for 10 minutes Doom is glorious. Rumours and the trailer only hint at the sublimity of the exact moment you paid to see when the first person perspective becomes the most transcendent moment in cinema today. Not… Continue reading Film Review: Believe it or not, Doom is dumb

By Peter Hemminger

Rize, the new documentary by Vanity Fair photographer David LaChapelle, has all the elements you would expect from a depiction of life in South Central Los Angeles. The opening features footage from race riots in both the ’60s and the ’90s. The film’s vivid colours begin to show hyper-kinetic dancing backed by an overbearing hip-hop… Continue reading Film Review: Urban clown dancing gets a Rize

By Peter Hemminger

Canadian film has enough of a stigma attached to it already, and it would be a shame to discourage people from taking risks on smaller films. Condemning a movie someone spent 13 years–an eighth of a century–working on also feels horrible, but All of a Sudden deserves it. Last year’s Phil the Alien showed Canada… Continue reading Film Fest: All of a Sudden

By Peter Hemminger

A disclaimer: the print of Mango Yellow actually melted midway through the screening, hurting the Brazilian drama’s momentum. Still, it’s easy to see director Claudio Assis has a natural ability for pacing, as he effortlessly weaves together the lives of a group of Sau Paulo outcasts. Sex, death, jealousy, infidelity and a generally pessimistic outlook… Continue reading Film Fest: Mango Yellow

By Garth Paulson

If Paul Reiser isn’t enough to scare you away from this father-son reconciliation story everything else about it should do the trick. The story is predictable, the acting is grating and the humour consists of generational misunderstandings and farts. Despite all this, The Thing About my Folks delighted its target audience–middle-aged couples–which should tell you… Continue reading Film Fest: The Thing About my Folks

By Garth Paulson

In Grizzly Man director Werner Herzog documents the tragic attempt of filmmaker and cult-celebrity Timothy Treadwell to live with and protect a group of Alaskan Grizzly bears. Largely relying on Treadwell’s own footage the film paints a portrait of a man with an unbreakable conviction and love for animals but also crippling mental problems. The… Continue reading Film Fest: Grizzly Man

By Peter Hemminger

A strong collection of entertaining and occasionally poignant shorts featuring sex education à la H. P. Lovecraft, a re-telling of Che Guevara’s revolutionary experience in 30 seconds and a hilariously graphic and bizarre horror/thriller parody. The inclusion of two re-tellings of the Oedipus tale was a bit unnecessary, and technical issues forcing the collection to… Continue reading Film Fest: Comedia Shorts

By Peter Hemminger

Buster Keaton holds a reputation as the most inventive of the silent film comedians, and The General is often held up as his crowning achievement. Watching it in the Uptown’s main floor theatre with its glorious 1920s architecture is about as authentic a reproduction of the glory days of film as one can find. The… Continue reading Film Fest: The General