Everybody cut, everybody cut Feetloose
Remakes, adaptations and based-on films are nothing new to our generation. They may feel a bit like a violation – specifically when they take a classic we know and love and try to make it “new” or “fresh” or whatever other adjective that makes movie producers swoon. But the fact of the matter is there are only a few stories out there and sometimes it is better if a movie just admits upfront that it’s the same instead of trying to make something new and cheating audiences out of feigned originality.
Film Review: The Three Musketeers
Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers is founded on a remarkably terrible script, and yet that hardly seems to matter here. The world of Dumas is a set of toys for Anderson, where the rules and lines of the original work mean little, and the potential of bringing along his own creations and filmmaking tendencies means a great deal more.
Film Review: The Thing
This remake takes away any individuality that the film might have had by turning it into an average scary movie. Shock value is overused and replaces the feeling of stone cold terror with numerous shrieks and cries. This Thing does not match up to its predecessor, or even manage to truly distinguish itself from the original.
Vancouver International Film Festival: Week 2
Our second week of coverage from the Vancouver International Film Festival: reviews of Giorgos Lanthimos’s follow-up to Dogtooth, impressive debuts from Lisa Langseth and Emmanuel Laborie, the black and white, silent The Artist, and This Is Not a Film, the best and most important movie of the festival.
VIFF: more than just movies
Our first week of coverage from the Vancouver International Film Festival: reviews of documentary How to Die in Oregon, debut features from Clay Jeter and Michael Roskam, and the latest from Hirokazu Kore-eda and Chantal Akerman
Film Review: The Ides of March
Clooney presents a smart drama that will evoke in audiences a sense of questioning of the heated, widespread support of a candidate that has been so evident in recent presidential campaigns.
VIFF brings best of world cinema to BC
Award winners like Bullhead, Elena, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, A Separation, and A Simple Life and the latest offerings from Kore-eda Hirokazu (Still Walking), Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth), Takashi Miike (13 Assassins), Sarah Polley (Away From Her), and Béla Tarr (Werckmeister Harmonies) will all be at VIFF, but the great thing about any film festival, and is certainly true of Vancouver, is that you can miss out on all of the above named, and still find a great movie to see. So much of movie-going today is based on advertising and knowing what you’re getting going in, but film festivals represent a yearly offering of great movies where you can genuinely be surprised every day, for two weeks.
Film Review: 50/50
50/50 uses the inciting attack of cancer as a genesis of plot, revealing what is beneath the calm and agitated exteriors of Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Kyle (Seth Rogen). And what is underneath? Unfortunately nothing but a series of contrivances and shallow behavior that is less a tragicomic exploration of what happens to people in moments of accelerated mortality than an excuse for sexual antics with the seriousness of a cancer patient as its protagonist to fall back on, with the assumption that it validates the sophomoric ineptitude that pervades the movie.
Film Review: What’s Your Number?
Although Ally is meant to be the awkward, blundering-yet-endearing Bridget Jonesian heroine of this story, there is undeniably something lacking with her character: she is not that funny. Farris’ comedic timing and facial expressions fail to translate on screen, resulting with the impression that she is trying to be funny rather than just being funny. Although this may be due to a combination with the screenwriters’ lacklustre writing and Farris’ ineptitude; either way, Ally’s character fails to charm us with her so-called pathetic life.
Film Review: Moneyball
Moneyball is a hackwork of pace-halting editing, flatfooted dialogue, and a purported romanticism with the game of baseball that fails to come through in the finished work.
Film Review: Drive
While Drive’s name and inescapable motif suggest a certain genre, what sets this movie apart is its ability to capture human moments.
Film Review: Contagion
Contagion as a present day, grounded disaster movie is a concept that is unoriginal, but not overused, and could have been the basis for a decent enough piece of entertainment. But the movie never quite escapes the Andromeda Strain mold and fails to completely deliver on the ideas it puts forth.
Film Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
In a summer with sequel-after-remake-after-reboot, here is a prequel/reboot/remake that stands on its own as an entertaining movie. There are standard chills and thrills here, but there is also substantial material here, coming from the writing, photography, and acting departments.
It’s the end of HMV as we know it (and I don’t feel fine)
Last week it was announced that HMV Canada, the only national specialty entertainment retailer in the country, had been sold to a British restructuring firm. According to a June 27 press release, Hilco UK plans to invest $25 million in the “continued evolution of its business.”
Film Review: Super 8
Super 8, JJ Abrams’ latest directorial work, evokes Spielberg in its marketing, credits, and in the corner of as many frames as can be imagined; and yet, a movie with Spielberg as its model ought to have more imagination. Some will throw around the term “homage,” but Abrams has lifted plot elements from E.T., images from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and brought along the monster designer from Cloverfield and Star Trek to make this movie, with no unique identity of his own. Abrams claims to have a clear purpose here: an ode to his childhood, a tribute to his favorite filmmaker, all with the production values of the modern era. However, when looking at the movie, the most prominent takeaway is Abram’s inability to find a clear purpose for his film.
Film Review: Bridesmaids
From director Paul Feig, who has been involved in male-centered classics the likes of Knocked Up and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, comes a raunchy comedy women can enjoy.
Film Review: X-Men: First Class
In case you wanted to know exactly how Magneto came to be the evil mastermind he is in X-Men, X2, and X-Men 3, then X-men First Class, which kicked off summer blockbuster season on June 3, is the film for you! It’s also the film for you if you love gazing into James McAvoy-as-young-Professor-X’s stunning blue eyes, or watching bad guy sidekick January Jones’ assets strain against a white bikini top, or if you really really want to see Kevin Bacon as supervillain Sebastian Shaw.
Film Review: Fast Five
Fast cars, beautiful women, rippling muscles, and flying bullets add up to the perfect winter semester wind down. Fast Five is the latest addition to The Fast and the Furious series, bringing all the best of cast members from the other movies into one great action flick. Starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, and Jordana Brewster, Fast Five also brings in another badass movie star, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Although judgment day has come and gone, Fast Five fans will no doubt often feel looked down upon. Regardless, this is one of the most fun movies I’ve seen all year.
Film Review: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
Morgan Spurlock has done it again, and this time his documentary film The Greatest Movie Ever Sold managed to stay away from the sanctimonious preaching characterized by his first effort Supersize Me.
Film Review: Sucker Punch
Girls in skimpy outfits kicking ass; advertisements for Sucker Punch made it look like a Charlie’s Angels remake from 300-director Zack Snyder. The look is classic Snyder, with graphic novel-esque eye candy on the screen at all times; the dialog is expectedly cheesy at points, not surprising, but there is something quite different about this film than any other action film I’ve ever seen. Though on the surface Sucker Punch might look like it’s about killing a dragon, or escaping a mental institute, it’s really about tackling the very objectification of women that brought many into the audience in the first place.
Film Review: Dirt
Canadian residents are lucky. Freedom of speech, free healthcare, a multicultural society, and an adventure into nature is pos-sible, no matter what province you live in. Whether or not we live in the city or a more rural area, it’s possible to get back in touch with our roots and smell the different aro-mas trees and other plants have to offer.
Film Review: Rango
Rango is very good and quite charming, but as he notes in the beginning of the movie: “The hero cannot exist in a vacuum! What our story needs is an ironic, unexpected event, that will propel the hero into conflict.” On this promise, the film delivers big time as it leads to an extremely impressive opening stunt, which is simply breath-taking in the way it flips and flops the viewer’s perspective, starting from the smallest of scenes in a terrarium to flying through the air and then sliding along asphalt in the Nevada desert. The visual effects are impressive, giving an easy realism to this animated feature.
Film Review: Unknown
While sitting through a viewing of Liam Neeson’s most recent foray in to the thriller-chase genre Unknown, I was struck with a sense of déjà vu. Much like Neeson’s character in Unknown I was lost, grasping at straws in an attempt to corner a feeling of having been on this adventure before, only something was different. Instead of Neeson being my guide it was the infinitely sultrier Angelina Jolie in the lead role, complete with all the explosions and grandeur that accompanies most of what Jolie does.
