Greedy Lying Bastards Review

Undeniably fascinating, terrifying and entertaining, the climate change polemic Greedy Lying Bastards still finds itself being occasionally undercut by a level of smugness that would make Michael Moore blush.

Reincarnated Review

While telling the historical background of Snoop Lion (nee Dogg) quite well, Reincarnated ultimately doesn’t answer, or even ask, any of the central questions that come to mind watching it because it’s too focused on chalice puffing and nostalgia.

This Week in DVD: 3/12/13

This week brings out some heavy hitters at the video store including Life of Pi, The Master, Hitchcock, Smashed, Playing for Keeps, This Must be the Place, and A Late Quartet.

Cloudburst Review

Although admirable and stacked with two excellent leads, the cloyingly sentimental and thoroughly underlined dramedy Cloudburst would be more at home on the Hallmark Channel than it would be on the big screen. That is, if Hallmark wasn't so conservative and they would actually take a queer themed, octogenarian love story.

Shepard and Dark Review

A touching though sometimes lagging story about enduring friendship, Shepard and Dark highlights aspects of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark’s relationship that has now spanned half a century. The impetus for the documentary is the archiving of hundreds of letters that passed back and forth between them over the decades. As much about the individual men as their correspondence, one can’t help but feel this lingering film would have been much more compelling as a documentary short as opposed to feature length.

Oz the Great and Powerful Review

Oz the Great and Powerful isn’t a particularly great movie overall, but it’s never terribly unwatchable or even all that uninteresting or lacking in entertainment value. It’s the curious case of a film that just has a lot of missteps along the way that add up to an unsatisfactory whole. It's a whishy-washy, sanitized blockbuster that fails to be truly magical.

Neighbouring Sounds Review

Imbued with the spirit of Robert Altman in terms of how sprawling slice-of-life epics should be handled and with a healthy dash of Luis Buñuel’s playfulness, Neighbouring Sounds is truly a wonder to behold. It’s what truly great and vital cinema should be: something more than just entertaining and thought provoking that simply washes over the audience without talking down to them or giving them easy answers.

Trouble in the Peace Review

This month's Hot Docs Doc Soup entry The Trouble in the Peace certainly paints a pretty and swift moving picture of gas pipeline corruption in the Peace River section of B.C. and Alberta, but while it doesn't lack heart, it's definitely lacking in substance. Also, strangely enough, it comes with a tie-in video game that might deliver the message better than the film can.

This Week in DVD: 3/5/13

This week on home video we check out The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Wreck-It Ralph, The Intouchables, Red Dawn, The Marine 3: Homefront, The Bay, and Girls Against Boys.

Of Two Minds Review

While many documentaries about issues as sensitive as mental illness can be clouded in excessive fact-listing or sentimentality, Douglas Blush and Lisa Klein’s examination of bipolar disorder Of Two Minds deftly avoids the obvious traps, never attempting to rally or manipulate the audience

21 and Over Review

The lazy, lacklustre comedy 21 and Over shows that we haven't come very far at all since the days of Animal House, but it still isn't the worst of its frat boy kind.

Charlie Zone Review

It's not perfect, but the hard nosed Haligonian thriller Charlie Zone is the perfect antidote for anyone who thinks Canadian cinema has grown too soft and safe.