All-Ages Comic Book Round-Up!
Jay Batzner and his 8 year old daughter "Big D" review some great all-ages titles out recently!
Homefront Review
While perfectly capable of being enjoyable on a brainless action movie level, Jason Statham’s latest badass extravaganza Homefront also comes with a surprising amount of depth and nuance for those willing to look beyond the bone crunching fights and backwoods cat and mouse games.
Nebraska Review
Alexander Payne's Nebraska is a film with a down home vibe that feels ripped straight from the pages of dog-eared Reader’s Digest that’s been read countless times by various patrons in a waiting room while their oil gets changed. And I mean that as a compliment. It’s downright charming, and devoid of condescension towards the dreamers, uneducated schemers, and old timers that move its protagonist's journey along.
This Week at The Bloor: 11/22/13
This week at The Bloor, the chilling and balanced look at true believer missionaries in Africa God Loves Uganda is worthy, but stay as far, far away from GMO OMG.
Vic + Flo Saw a Bear Review
Although the ending feels suspiciously forced, Quebecois auteur Denis Cote's Vic + Flo Saw a Bear boasts rich characters, great humor, well done suspense, excellent performances, and a hyper-realistic sense of emotion and setting
Delivery Man Review
It's almost the exact same movie as Starbuck was two years ago, meaning it's largely okay and overstuffed, but this remake of Ken Scott's Quebecois hit gets a lot of mileage from Vince Vaughn's best performance in years.
Empire of Dirt Review
Peter Stebbings’ Empire of Dirt is something special. It’s the rare example of a Canadian film that’s able to balance universally relatable human problems while maintaining a cultural identity that makes it patently unique.
The Dork Shelf Guide to Planet in Focus 2013
The 14th annual environmentally minded Planet in Focus film festival kicks off today and runs through Sunday, and here's a look at some of the film's playing as a part of this year's line-up!
Planet in Focus 2013: Emptying the Skies Review
Emptying the Skies Based on a New Yorker essay by Jonathan Franzen, Emptying the Skies is a documentary about the poaching of migratory songbirds in the Middle East. The central figures of the film are a group of activists working to save these species of birds from potential extinction. The film fits in with other […]
Planet in Focus 2013: Gringo Trails Review
Gringo Trails The narrative of Gringo Trails may wander like the backpackers it features for interview subjects, but the structure works to the film’s benefit, providing a cross-section of approaches to sustainable tourism that spans multiple continents. Opening with the tale of Yossi, a backpacker who, in the mid-1980s, was miraculously found by locals after […]
Planet in Focus 2013: No Land, No Food, No Life Review
No Land, No Food, No Life Some documentaries guide, some illustrate, some shock, and others just tell you what’s going, and disappointingly No Land, No Food, No Life fits into that last category. Shot in Mali, Cambodia and Kampala, Uganda, the film depicts large corporations (both foreign and local) swooping in and seizing land from […]
Planet in Focus 2013: A River Changes Course Review
A River Changes Course The minimalist documentary A River Changes Course quietly tackles globalization, deforestation, and over-fishing. Director Kalyanee Mam discreetly films three separate families struggling to assimilate past and present in Cambodia today. They barely survive in villages located in a remote (but dead) jungle in Northern Cambodia, on the Tonie Sap River and […]
Planet in Focus 2013: Salmon Confidential Review
Salmon Confidential Salmon Confidential portrays the government cover-up of what is killing BC’s wild salmon like a dramatic thriller set against an ecological backdrop, but it’s not as exciting as that logline might suggest. When biologist Alexandra Morton discovers salmon in BC are testing positive for dangerous European viruses, it sets off a chain of […]
Planet in Focus 2013: Last Call Review
Last Call (Closing Night Film) While it has become a hot button issue to talk about how human progress and potential might be doing more harm than good, it took 40 years for the world to finally listen to a group of devoted MIT researchers who tried telling this to everyone back in the 1970s. […]
Planet in Focus 2013: Arctic Defenders Review
Arctic Defenders (Opening Night Film) Borne from director John Walker’s lifelong love and his youthful infatuation with “Eskimo” culture and artwork, this disarmingly poignant look at First Nations families relocated decades earlier with hopes of establishing Canadian sovereignty in the literal Great White North balances the personal and the political with great and subtle dexterity. […]
