Alarmingly misguided, horribly directed, astoundingly racist, and insanely incomprehensible, the McG/Luc Besson/Kevin Costner team-up 3 Days to Kill best's last week's previous low water mark set by Winter's Tale as the worst major studio release of 2013 so far, leading us further down one of the worst starts to any year in film history.
It would be easy to pithily dismiss a documentary like Tim’s Vermeer, the feature directorial debut of Teller from noted magician and pundit duo Penn and Teller, as something akin of a Mythbusters-styled lark, or even worse as a filming of a forgery. But as with the great work of art the film’s protagonist is trying to understand, there’s a far deeper meaning on scientific, emotional, and artistic levels coming into play.
Dark, twisted, and emotionally disturbed in ways almost too delightful and clever to spoil, the coal black comedy Cheap Thrills certainly lives up to its name and then some thanks to clever writing and solid performances.
The dull, repetitive, student film feelng, and drab looking AKP: Job 27 certainly wears its influences on its sleeve, but it’s the perfect example of someone who can show a fundamental understanding of the filming techniques of vastly better iconic filmmakers while missing the point entirely of how they can connect to an audience or tell a story.
Part Titanic styled doomed romance, part Gladiator styled revenge flick, and part late 90s volcano disaster film, Paul W.S. Anderson’s liberally not-ripped-from-the-history-books take on the destruction of the Italian city of Pompeii in 72 A.D. is clichéd to the hilt and unabashedly cornball, but you can’t say it isn’t hitting all of the high notes perfectly.
While time will only tell if Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, the World War II era period piece The Wind Rises, will be the animation auteur’s final feature, if it turns out to be true he’s certainly ending his career on a high note.
Blending interviews, archival news footage, animation, and staged recreations, Fly Colt Fly look at one of the biggest folk hero criminals in American history does a fine job explaining how one teenager who posed a concern to many could become an icon to others.
While essentially nothing more than a made for TV puff piece designed to make its main subject look as human as possible while participating in one of the world’s greatest bloodsports, Takedown: The DNA of GSP looks at Montreal Mixed Martial Arts maven Georges St-Pierre in an entertaining and informative light.
Jay reviews The White Suits, a tale of Russian crime lords identified by their eponymous clothing.
Marnie desperately wishes that the girls had the same bonds they did when they were in college. In an attempt to reconnect, she organizes an epic, adult weekend, packed with everyone's favourite thing: Rigid planning! To no one's surprise, the weekend goes horribly wrong when the girls start resenting being boxed into Marnie's idea of how their vacation and their relationships should work.
Episode five takes True Detective's idea of temporal play and turns it into yet another aspect of horror that the show’s been so adept at delivering, delving into existential time-space contemplations and having its characters relive the nightmares contained in their lives.
One woman, her dune buggy, and her a gorilla: GoGetters is an unabashedly fun comic out February 19th.
Since all three of this week's major releases all press screened at the same night and time during the week, here now are our reviews of the smart and funny remake of About Last Night and the astoundingly and laughably awful Winter's Tale. Also, an explanation as to why we don't have new reviews for Endless Love or Gloria, we double back on last week's never press screened Vampire Academy, we a look at Pussy Riot: A Punk Rock Prayer, which was the only new film at the Bloor this week, a special sneak at The Bloor tonight, family day offerings at The Bloor and the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and a look ahead to a Lightbox retrospective of some of Jean-Luc Godard's favourite Hollywood films starting on Thursday.
We take a look this weekend's teen oriented and teen selected TIFF Next Wave film festival, with reviews of six of this year's offerings.
Leap 4 Your Life The performing arts mockumentary is hardly a new or groundbreaking concept, but this entry into the genre courtesy of writer, producer, and actor Taylor Hill buzzes with energy, a lot of genuine laughs, and enough inspired silliness to make one briefly forget that its nothing audiences haven’t seen before. The low-rent […]
