It's not Quentin Tarantino's most accomplished film, but Django Unchained benefits from a slew of excellent performances and a playful looseness that his films often forego in favour of more elaborate plot structuring.
While admirably personal to a small degree and brimming with appropriate 1960s period detail, Sopranos creator David Chase's first feature film Not Fade Away cloyingly drones on about how hard the late sixties were, how great the Stones are, and is designed to appeal to no one other than Chase's closest friends.
There are moments and certainly performances within Rust and Bone that flat out demand attention and praise. Yet somehow, those little pieces never add up to anything more than very well made melodramatic twaddle.
Those looking for a funnier way to get ready for the racial themes at work in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained who don't want to watch a bunch of Corbucci Westerns, should take a look at one of the most underrated sports comedies of all time: The Great White Hype, which comes courtesy of Unchained producer Reginald Hudlin and Samuel L. Jackson essentially playing Leonardo DiCaprio's role from QT's latest flick.
Enter for a chance to win a pair of passes to see an advance screening of one of the most anticipated films of the year, Zero Dark Thirty in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Halifax on Thursday, January 10th at 7:00pm courtesy of Dork Shelf and Alliance Films.
Dick Wolf's television institution goes up north with Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, a new installment that fits comfortably into the franchise's signature mold.
Some excellent performances, great music, and fast pacing make Les Misérables worth seeing, despite director Tom Hooper directing with an unsteady hand.
In one of the most bizarre studio and ego driven productions to be released from a major studio this year, Jack Reacher manages to be too surreal to appeal to action fans and it’s too lunkheaded to appeal to proper cineastes. It’s simultaneously a better version of Alex Cross and a worse reimagining of MacGruber. It’s equally as awesome and awful as that sounds.
Combining top notch and genuinely emotional disaster filmmaking with sadly standard melodrama, The Impossible feels awkward, but there's still a lot to love about it.
Enter for a chance to win a pair of passes to see an advance screening of Gus Van Sant's Promised Land on Thursday, January 3rd in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, and Winnipeg from Dork Shelf and Alliance Films.
Christian Petzold's Barbara features a lead character with a redemptive arc that feels realer than any similar arc on screen because it eschews grandstanding epiphanies.
In honour of the release of Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto begins a run of the original 1966 Sergio Corbucci directed and Franco Nero starring film that gave the world one of the most iconic figures in the Western genre. Here's a look back at a bleak and bloody masterwork that inspired countless knock off and homages, including Tarantino's
Despite not being able to fully balance the autobiographical elements of This is 40 within his top heavy screenplay, Judd Apatow still delivers a loose, but satisfying slice of life comedy.
It might just be a greatest hits compilation for Cirque du Soleil and a demo reel for James Cameron's beloved 3D cameras, but this big screen outing for the Montreal based acrobatic workers looks better in 3D than The Hobbit did, and despite an almost complete lack of story, it's still quite a bit of fun.
Influenced more by film directors like Hitchcock, Lynch, and Todd Haynes, photographer Gregory Crewdson makes large scale stills from scratch often for budgets equal to that of independent film productions. Documentarian Ben Shapiro traces the artist's work and influences in this well made profile piece.
Dick Wolf's television institution goes up north with Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, a new installment that fits comfortably into the franchise's signature mold.