REVIEW: Room on the Broom [2013]

“And WHOOSH …” Just like with The Gruffalo back in 2011, Max Lang has found his second adaption (this time co-directed by Jan Lachauer) of UK children’s author Julia Donaldson‘s work garnering an Oscar nomination as well. It’s 2002’s book Room on the Broom, a cute tale about making new friends and selflessly banding together to save each other from the clutches of a fat, evil dragon. Axel Scheffler‘s cartoony illustrations have been given dimension with computer animation rendered to look like Claymation while Simon Pegg lends his voice to…

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REVIEW: Feral [2013]

Writer/director Daniel Sousa‘s animated short Feral is a tragic tale of a young boy raised in the wild and his attempt to assimilate into human civilization. Drawn with a rough, charcoal texture that shimmers and swirls with each new frame of motion, its contrast of blacks and whites show us the child’s isolation from both worlds at either side. He’s a stark white against the greys of the forest birch trees and building block façade houses, a prize easily seen by the pitch black wolves and people curious as to…

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REVIEW: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit [2014]

“No. This is geopolitics, not couples therapy.” Even though The Sum of All Fears made a boatload of cash with Ben Affleck at its center, you can’t help but know his Gigli demise played a big role in the Jack Ryan saga not continuing. Why let Tom Clancy‘s cinematic legacy go down with the ship? So a few years passed, Chris Pine started rising through the ranks as an A-list action star, and Adam Cozad‘s script Moscow seemed ripe for a makeover to reboot Ryan and see where his ex-Marine,…

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REVIEW: Mr. Hublot [2013]

“Hey, Hublot. I think you forgot to turn the key once more.” For OCD-ridden Mr. Hublot, life is a steady series of mundane tasks to ensure everything is in working order around the house and exactly where his mind needs them to be. He wakes up, flicks his light switches off and on, adjusts the frames hanging on his wall, and rearranges his biscuit and salt shaker to the optimal positions before settling in for his cup of coffee. He notices when things are amiss yet has the ability to…

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REVIEW: Tsukumo [Possessions] [2013]

“Here and there, use and dispose” The title of Shuhei Morita‘s Oscar nominated short Tsukumo [Possessions] on first blush conjures thoughts of two separate meanings. One is the idea of spirits possessing objects or people to do their bidding and the second is a grouping of things someone owns. If not for an opening textual prologue, it would be easy to believe what goes on strictly concerns the former when in fact there is more to it. Because as the screen explains, Japanese lore says tools and instruments attain souls…

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REVIEW: The Beauty Strip [2014]

“I think individuality is a very complex thing” There’s no better description for Marshmallow Press Productions than “cinema for the obscure viewer”—at least where their newest on-demand offering The Beauty Strip is concerned. Is its sixty-minutes a series of erotica music videos for electronica bands like Zigo Rayonpineal, Occurrences in Rain, Names, and Bob Orum? Maybe an art piece by writer/director/cinematographer Ginnetta Correli depicting staged documentations of women in multiple states of undress? Both? More? Alternatingly pulse pounding with Skrillex-esque dubstep and calmly serene with smooth atmospheric noise, we visit…

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REVIEW: Vic + Flo ont vu un ours [Vic + Flo Saw a Bear] [2013]

“I cried so much while waiting for you” Writer/director Denis Côté‘s latest, Alfred Bauer Prize-winning (Berlin International Film Festival) Vic + Flo ont vu un ours [Vic + Flo Saw a Bear] is a mysteriously captivating creature. Looking from afar, you realize you know almost nothing about the circumstances thrusting his characters together. Yes, titular leads Victoria (Pierrette Robitaille) and Florence (Romane Bohringer) are ex-con lovers holing up in the former’s invalid uncle’s defunct sugar shack on probation and away from society, but we don’t necessarily know why. We infer…

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REVIEW: Dead Ringers [1988]

“Don’t make me dream that again” The last line of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers is on the nose and yet still disturbingly surreal. Jeremy Irons (playing twin gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle) phones his lover Claire (Geneviève Bujold) only to hear the telling reply, “Who is this?” While we too find ourselves uncertain which is on the line, his inability to answer shows the disturbing truth that it may be both or neither. Ellie and Bev have been inseparable from birth, challenging each other and working together to gift the…

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REVIEW: August: Osage County [2013]

“I’ll be sickly sweet” I’m drawn to dysfunction—especially when it’s of the familial persuasion. It’s probably because I didn’t really get exposed to much as a kid growing up with a family most would give anything to have. When you see the looks others who know dysfunction’s definition like the back of their hands telling you that what you believed was an example from your past is laughably quaint to say the least, experiencing a bit of that fiery vitriol at the movies can be invigorating. And when you have…

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REVIEW: Inside Llewyn Davis [2013]

“Llewyn is the cat” Can I chalk my ambivalence to the Coen Brothers‘ newest film Inside Llewyn Davis up to knowing nothing about the Greenwich Village folk music scene of 1961? It is after all loosely inspired by the life of Dave Van Ronk, containing aspects of his autobiography The Mayor of MacDougal Street for authenticity. But how much should knowing the setting of a story impact the enjoyment of what’s unfolding in its space? Shouldn’t the success of what the Coens have accomplished live or die by my interest…

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REVIEW: Short Term 12 [2013]

“Oh. That’s the piece of avocado in your beard.” Other films cropping up into your memory while watching something new can either be a sign that originality in cinema is officially dead or the realization you’re about to experience greatness. The latter happened to me during Short Term 12 and I’m talking like ten minutes in after affable veteran Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) finishes telling newbie Nate (Rami Malek) about his second day as a line staff employee at the group home for at-risk teenagers behind them before having to…

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