REVIEW: God Help the Girl [2014]

“Find the face behind the voice” Utilizing the creed “go big or go home”, Belle & Sebastian lead singer/songwriter Stuart Murdoch definitely didn’t seek to simply dabble in cinema when it came to his debut feature God Help the Girl. Beginning as a suite of songs written in the band’s downtime, he worked tirelessly to turn it into a fully formed musical dealing with the type of subject matter most probably would avoid when working with the genre. Focusing on a young woman named Eve (Emily Browning) who’s caught in…

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INTERVIEW: Richard Ayoade, cowriter/director of The Double

I didn’t know who Richard Ayoade was until 2010 and boy was it the perfect time to find out. My introduction was courtesy of the brilliant British television show “The IT Crowd” and his fantastically drawn Maurice Moss. I had tried watching the show a couple years previously only to forget about it after the pilot. This time, however, I mainlined the first three series and eagerly awaited the fourth only to see co-star Chris O’Dowd journey to mainstream acclaim with Bridesmaids less than a year later. When would Ayoade’s…

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TIFF13 REVIEW: The Double [2014]

“It’s terrible to be alone too much” Comically dry like director Richard Ayoade‘s debut Submarine, his sophomore effort takes more than a few steps towards an even more arid realm of complete existentialist surrealism. Adapted by he and Avi Korine, The Double brings Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s novella to the big screen with a surefire confidence in its visual form and an eccentric comedy that should go a long way towards securing “The IT Crowd” starrer as a permanent, unique voice in contemporary cinema. There is a definite stylistic kinship to his…

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Posterized Propaganda January 2012: The Top 10 Movie Posters of 2011

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. With January 2012 poster selection leaving a lot to be desired—dump month movies don’t appear to get the same marketing budget as critical darlings—we’ve decided to better spend our monthly…

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REVIEW: Submarine [2011]

“Cancer trumps potential infidelity” Only having seen one episode of “The IT Crowd” doesn’t make me a professional on the subject, but I do recall thinking it quirky, funny, and a bit awkward. It’s no surprise then that the directorial debut of one of its actors would be all those things—possibly even farther down the spectrum towards their extremes. Based on a novel by Joe Dunthorne, Richard Ayoade brings 1986 Swansea, Wales to life with a coming of age tale much more intelligent than the standard teen sex comedy. It’s…

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