TIFF21 REVIEW: Night Raiders [2021]

We are still here. German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller coined the poetic confession “First they came …” in 1946. The post-WWII piece spoke about how groups like the Nazis would always find new targets to oppress once their recent victims were erased. First it was the socialists. Then trade unionists and Jews. The sigh of relief breathed by those not yet included under those labels is therefore only ever brief. Unless you don the swastika to partake in the purges, they’ll eventually find a label to justify wiping you from…

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REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire [2013]

“Remember who the real enemy is” The aspect author Suzanne Collins included in Catching Fire that was more or less absent in The Hunger Games can be summed up with the above quote. While Panem’s dystopia provided a common antagonist for the surviving twelve districts of a revolution their Capital won seventy-four years previous, the series’ first installment relied almost exclusively upon whether its heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) would survive her adversaries in the titular games. Yes, the political unrest was at the constructed mythology’s back, but the ultimate…

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REVIEW: My Life Without Me [2003]

“There’s no such thing as normal people” It may be clichéd to use the phrase, “if you look ‘blank’ up in the dictionary, you will see a photo of ‘blank’”, but sometimes it is appropriate. Sarah Polley, for instance, epitomizes the words underrated and underused. I know she has evolved her state in the film industry by becoming an auteur behind the camera of late, but it truly is a joy to go back and watch her early work in front of it. Finally catching The Sweet Hereafter a short…

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REVIEW: So I Married an Axe Murderer [1993]

“HEAD, Move!” Sometimes nostalgia makes a film even better when watching again after a long hiatus. Heck, I didn’t even really view it as I was doing work while it played in the background. The memories I had of So I Married an Axe Murderer allowed me to fill in the blanks and create a seamless experience for when I did look at the tv screen. The script itself is very funny and Mike Myers shows all the potential he had a decade and a half ago. Not to say…

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