TIFF13 REVIEW: Canopy [2014]

“The sunshine of summer time belongs to us all” It’s September 9th, 1942 and the Japanese have already invaded Singapore three years before the first atomic bomb will shake them with devastating force and ultimately close out one of the ugliest chapters in Earth’s history. Through an alliance that has held strong even today—this film is a co-production between the two countries—Australia was one of the nations that came to the Southeast Asian island’s assistance in a futile attempt to wrest back control. A British colony at the time of…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: Asphalt Watches [2014]

“Hey! Don’t forget your Boston Piiiiiiiiiizzzzzzaaassssss.” I’m not one to condone illicit drug use, but you might want to take something if it’s available before sitting down to watch Asphalt Watches since its animated road trip plays out as though its creators were doing the same while producing it. Based on writers/directors Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver‘s eight-day hitchhiking journey across Canada, everything you see really did happen. Rather than simply recount their adventure, however, they’ve decided to give each other cartoon avatars with which to engage the nightmarish menagerie…

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REVIEW: Getaway [2013]

“Smash into everything you can” The Oscar for Best Actor goes to Jon Voight‘s jowls. Supporting? That would be the high-definition salt and pepper stubble poking through the screen as he gulps martinis with olive chasers. But if you really want award-winning, give something to editor Ryan Dufrene because I have to believe he spliced together the most ever cuts in a feature length film despite Getaway only lasting 94 minutes. He would be the man responsible for that, right? I mean if director Courtney Solomon storyboarded this thing like…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: 2013 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

Programme 1 A far cry from the documentary short Joda—a visual letter to Jafar Panahi—that was included in the TIFF Short Cuts Canada Programme last year, graphic designer turned filmmaker Theodore Ushev’s Gloria Victoria is all about the visceral and aural capabilities of film without something as unnecessary as words. Full of sumptuous textured layers formed by sketch drawings, Russian Constructivist elements, what I believe were faces from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, and more, the rising crescendo of Shostakovich’s “Invasion” from Symphony No. 7 helps spur on an emotive war in…

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REVIEW: American Milkshake [2013]

“I wish I was one of them” As someone who graduated with the Class of 2000, the idea of high school comedy American Milkshake taking place in the 90s definitely piqued my interest. I often joke I’m a child of the 80s despite knowing the descriptor doesn’t fit someone who was only eight at decade’s end, so seeing a film try to do to my teen years what The Breakfast Club did to the previous generation’s seemed exciting. After watching writers/directors David Andalman and Mariko Munro’s creation, however, I’m beginning…

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REVIEW: Rewind This! [2013]

“Titanic—two-tape Titanic. Again. Always.” When the slew of collectors, producers, sellers, bootleggers, and fans interviewed for Josh Johnson’s documentary Rewind This! are asked to comment on the legacy of VHS tapes and what the format brought to the movie industry, the consensus seems to be all about accessibility. Not only did the home video revolution allow people to watch content that had previously disappeared after leaving theatres, it also gave aspiring filmmakers a new avenue with which to join the annals of cinematic history. The population could now buy and…

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REVIEW: Dean Slater: Resident Advisor [2013]

“Not all my people fit into a bento box” There was little chance I’d ever truly enjoy the Sander Brothers’ debut feature Dean Slater: Resident Advisor, so the real challenge became seeing if it could at least entertain me. Chock full of fart jokes and displays of public urination, one needs to be of a certain taste to appreciate the type of comedy director Colin Sander and his co-writers Christian and Scott have brought to the table. As such, the film will probably play well with freshmen co-eds about to…

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REVIEW: The World’s End [2013]

“Lets Boo-Boo” The Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy—a label jokingly coined during the press tour for its second entry—has come to a close with a mint chocolate chip wrapper flapping in the wind. Following horror comedy Shaun of the Dead and bromance actioner Hot Fuzz, The World’s End‘s sci-fi apocalypse makes good use of its title with some fire and brimstone and robots spraying blue blood. The old “Spaced” team took a hiatus when writer/director Edgar Wright delved into comic adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and writer/star Simon Pegg and…

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REVIEW: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones [2013]

“What does that symbol mean?” Another Young Adult fantasy fiction trilogy to throw into the Hollywood machine, Cassandra Clare‘s The Mortal Instruments gives Sony a property looking for broad appeal via its similarities to the darker Harry Potters, the overwrought love triangle in Twilight, and a PG-13 filtered “True Blood” collection of every supernatural species you can imagine (besides zombies of course, duh, stupid). It’s a world of Shadow Hunters—angel descendants who battle demons to protect the Mundanes (Muggles) unaware of the fight like you and me. Using ancient runes…

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REVIEW: Afternoon Delight [2013]

“I’m gonna go put Bonnet out” For a woman like Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) who after a few too many drinks will candidly admit to a wild college life in her twenties, a sexual awakening wasn’t supposed to be something she had yet to experience. She’d done it all already; that’s what that decade of her life was for. Now is the time to be a wife, a mother, and an adult with responsibilities who understands the consequences of her actions. But what if that isn’t working? What if living the…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: A Field in England [2013]

“Open up and let the devil in” A coward becomes a man. I guess this is the crux of Ben Wheatley’s newest thriller, A Field in England. We find Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) hiding in the bushes while mortars explode around him during battle, weeping and praying to God to keep him hidden now that his mission to find an elusive old comrade seems all but futile and way too dangerous. He runs, meets a few other deserters in a mid-17th century English Civil War pitting the Parliamentarians against the Royalist…

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