This Week at The Bloor: 1/31/14
This week at The Bloor Cinema, films and stories about children featuring Nina Davenport's First Comes Love and film scholar Mark Cousins' more literally titled A Story of Children and Film
Visitors Review
While the latest collaboration between master experimental filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass showcases some of the bast work of Glass' career, it's sadly the sloppiest, most meandering, and obvious film Reggio has produced.
The Great Beauty Review
The Great Beauty might be nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar this year, but it's rampant arrogance and toxic tone negate any of its "beauty," making it one of the worst films to ever be nominated for an Academy Award in any category.
That Awkward Moment Review
Although the bromantic comedy That Awkward Moment takes its name from a popular internet catchphrase, one can’t fault the filmmakers for choosing an inappropriate title. It’s certainly awkward, and it does have its moments.
Labor Day Review
A major misstep for the usually reliable Jason Reitman, the flat out bizarre romantic drama Labor Day can never settle on a tone or feel remotely believable for a single second. It wastes a perfectly capable cast by giving them roles that could never been seen as functional human beings, and it’s so latently sexist and just all around uneasy that it fails at whatever it’s trying to attempt.
A Girl on Girls: Episode 3.4 Recap
This week's episode of Girls starts off with Hannah tripping and spilling the entire contents of her purse, because she’s now either Carrie Bradshaw in that one Paris episode of Sex and the City or every rom-com protagonist ever. She’s klutzy! She’s lovable! She’s Hannah Horvath! But seriously, it was great to have a unified theme for this episode just to see how each character related to the topic of death.
True Detective Episode 1.3 Recap
This week’s installment of True Detective certainly saves its two biggest developments for the end (including one heck of a cliffhanger) and does a great job of casting doubt upon Marty and Rust’s abilities to do their jobs effectively.
Community Episode 5.5 Recap
An episode in which we see how Community can take something as cartoonish as a 22-minute game of hot lava and craft it into a strong and emotional story about how shitty saying goodbye to a friend can be.
I, Frankenstein Review
I, Frankenstein is far better than it really has any right to be on a surface level. It’s gleefully attuned to how silly its premise is and not aiming to do anything else than be supremely entertaining.
After the Dark Review
I think the great scholar (and cinematic philosopher in his own right) Roger Ebert said it best when he said:
“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”
The Selfish Giant Review
Fictionalized small town poverty has rarely ever felt as visceral and multifaceted as it does in Clio Barnard’s Northern England set coming of age drama The Selfish Giant.
Ice Soldiers Review
The dull, lifeless Canadian action thriller Ice Soldiers concerns a trio of recently thawed out indestructible super soldiers being reanimated, but since the film around them never comes to life it just seems like the only thing that was thawed out from long ago was the freezer burned screenplay.
This Week at The Bloor: 1/24/14
Another solid week at The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema brings a look at an offbeat Icelandic museum in The Final Member, the rise of one of basketball's most recent superstars in Linsanity, a screening of one of the best rock concert films of all time (Stop Making Sense), and a very special tribute and fundraiser for recently passed documentary icon Peter Wintonick.
Mourning Has Broken Review
In the low key, touching, and darkly funny microbudget indie Mourning Has Broken – produced by Jason and Brett Butler for only $1,000 – a nameless man (played by Robert Nolan) goes about his daily routine angry at the world around him, but it's the film's unpredictable nature that keeps things moving nicely.
The Past Review
Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian melodrama The Past is pretty much everything that made his previous film, the Oscar nominated and genuinely excellent A Separation, a success except amplified, blown up and drawn out, which means it’s ultimately less successful.
