Film Reviews
Nearly everything about the film The Shallows seems to indicate that you wouldn’t be at a loss for missing it in theaters. The premise of an attractive woman in turmoil, coupled with an unbelievably vicious shark – each of these stories on their own has been done time and time again. Yet, somehow, The Shallows manages to just surpass the murky depths that most of those films sink to.
The opening sequence of Ousmane Sembene’s Faat Kiné shows us the complexity of urban motion in a place where modernity and traditionalism are still somewhat at odds. We see groups of women in traditional Senegalese dress walking through the city of Dakar. Then, the camera pulls further and further away from them until we can see can see a whole city block.
What happens when two performance artists grow up, get married and have kids? Their kids become part of their art, of course. This is the story of Caleb and Camille and their two children whom they affectionately dubbed “Child A” (Annie) and “Child B” (Baxter).
Independence Day came out when I was 14. I was a huge X-Files fan (I did a school project on Area 51) and so thought it was pretty much the greatest film ever. It was also at this time that I began to fall in love with movies, and Independence Day was part of that trend of 90’s summer blockbusters that opened my eyes to what contemporary cinema meant to a lot of people.
Ewan McGregor stars across Stellan Skarsgård, with Naomie Harris and Damian Lewis, in this film adaptation of the John le Carré (who is also on board as executive producer) novel of the same name, with a screenplay penned by Hossein Amini, helmed by British director Susanna White. With neo-noir ingredients, this thriller falls somewhere between slow-burn and slow-going. At times, we’re left to wonder why there isn’t more action, or twists (I felt similarly during Jack Ryan:
There is offense to be taken with the frame and exterior of physical bodies. Beauty, it has been said, is in the eye of the beholder. Yet, one can’t help but feel that, since the rise of feminism and the development of the male-gaze interpretation, almost all appreciation for the aesthetics of a given film has been entirely lost.
In the opening minutes of Pervert Park, we are introduced to a man recounting a story of loneliness and isolation, detailing how he had trouble building and maintaining relationships and finding his place in the world. It’s one of the most relatable narratives available, and the interview quickly builds a feeling of empathy. That is until he utters the words “then I found this little girl” and we understand how easy it is to create a monster.
Love Between the Covers is a doc telling the story of the savvy female community that has built a powerhouse industry sharing love stories.
To accompany Pixar’s latest underwater road movie, Finding Dory, we have a similarly ocean-themed short. Pixar’s Piper started as the brainchild of director Alan Barillaro, and tells the story of a young, diminutive sandpiper learning to gather its own food for the first time. Barillaro worked as a supervising animator on several past Pixar features.
What happens when a doctor, a goat, and an impotent man converge in small town Kansas in 1917? Something you probably wouldn’t believe if it wasn’t told to you in a documentary or by some other authoritative source, because the story is wild, weird, and very nuts. What happened was that doctor John Romulus Brinkley developed a goat-to-human testicular transplant that cured the impotent man, launching him to fame and fortune while the rest of America sunk deep into the Great Depression.
The Secret Life Of Pets is an enjoyable experience that will have you laughing & engaging with its colourful characters and vibrant locations.
In order to grasp the ferocity of the film formerly known as February, we need to start at the beginning. Set primarily in an all-girls Catholic boarding school (are you terrified already?), The Blackcoat’s Daughter tells the tale of three women bound together by a series of ominous occurrences.
There are no shortage of docs that explore underworlds and subcultures most of us have hardly considered, if we knew they existed at all. These sorts of films, which have been a hallmark of the modern documentary since Salesman and feature subjects as varied as those of Paris is Burning and Murderball, serve both to reveal what is unique about adherents of a particular subculture as well as communicate how they have the same hopes and dreams as everyone else. The new documentary Tickled is no exception, but it flips the idea on its ear.
Often shrugged off as a base form of entertainment, the action genre has carved out its place in the cinematic phalanx. Spy capers, heist films or just a good old-fashioned shoot ‘em up have all become, in some why or another, a part of our lives in the form of witty one-liners such as ‘I’ll be back,” Detective John McClane saving Christmas (twice) and The Rock being— The Rock. Memorable moments which have become ingrained in our memories.
You will see the term postmodern to describe the comedy of The Lonely Island, the comedy team responsible for this film and the birth of the Saturday Night Live Digital Short, as you read opinions on their newest film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. It is a vague term that means comedy that deconstructs the art and is self-aware.