When I was a kid Young Sherlock Holmes was one of my favourite movies (it still is). The young detective cut his teeth not on finding the family jewels, but on cults and devil worshippers. I have a feeling the screenwriters of the new Sherlock Holmes may have been as well. Which is not a […]
You may have heard of James Cameron’s new film, a little movie called Avatar. Cameron and others have hyped the film to no end, claiming that it will change cinema as we know it (and for $250 million, it had better!). Avatar features all the hallmarks we’ve come to expect from James Cameron: great action […]
To slightly skew Marshall MacLuhan’s famous saying “the medium is the message”, I think it’s also fair to say that art should be designed for the medium for which it was intended. For example, a film like Where the Wild Things Are is meant to be seen on a big screen, where it is arguable […]
I met Breathless director Yang Ik-June over dim sum in Montreal when his film played at the Fantasia Film Festival. He seemed such a nice, quiet, unassuming young man. Who knew that behind the modest exterior lay a writer-director-actor who pulls no punches, literally and figuratively, with his first feature length film. I heard praise […]
To see Shelagh’s first batch of reviews from the 2009 Sitges Film Festival, including Splice, Amer, Cargo and TiMER be sure to click here. Probably the best night I had at Sitges was not at a film, but at a party (like all good festivals, the parties are great). This one was set up by […]
Don’t let ME to tell you kids what to like, with your Robert Pattinsons, your iTwitp3pods, and your rock ‘n’ roll noise music, but years before New Super Mario Bros. Wii there was a game called Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo. Now that you’re up to date on decades of fiddling with a Super […]
Zack Kotzer of the arts and culture zine Steel Bananas returns to review Tim Schafer’s heavy metal action/RTS Brütal Legend. Over the years fans have tended to let down Tim Schafer more often than not. He delivered onto us fantastic and creative worlds, overflowing with wit and dark humour. Each an underappreciated gem. Now here […]
Last February when on holiday in Spain, I was fortunate enough to meet Mike Hostench, co-director of Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, the largest fantastic film festival of Europe and one of the largest and most important in the world. His enthusiasm convinced me to attend the festival last month. Believe me, […]
Zack Kotzer of the arts and culture zine Steel Bananas joins us for a guest review of the Wii sidescroller Muramasa: The Demon Blade. It’s hibernation over the summer worried Wii owners, but creative third party titles have once again awaken and shall reward the brave open minded enough to try them. I was ntroduced […]
Any new project by veteran filmmaker Sally Potter deserves attention. Any new film project which markets itself to mobile phones and the internet almost exclusively also demands attention. Put these two things together and you have Potter’s newest and most (at least technically) daring work to date. Rage is her new film set in the […]
All over the world there are screenwriters toiling away at their keyboards, each desperately racing to finish the next big Michael Cera comedy vehicle. The writers of Zombieland were definitely the former, but sadly Cera was not available. Luckily for everyone, Jesse Eisenberg (the thinking man’s Michael Cera?) was available and Zombieland is much better […]
The films of the incomparable Claire Denis are subtle lessons in semiotics. They are like moving photographs, or graphic novels with almost no words: the viewer must (and can) put together the story from the images, like they are a fly hovering with no knowledge of past context. The third of Denis’ African-centred films, White […]
I don’t think a title has ever been more accurate for defining a film. Nor has a film been as divisive in recent festival memory as to whether it is a work of genius or an exercise in audience torture. This is not necessarily a film to love or hate though. Rather, like his earlier […]
One of the few animated films to be shown at the Cannes film festival (not only this year but in the festival’s history), this strange little gem from Belgium starts at a cracking pace that it easily sustains for 75 minutes of roaring fun. It is also the first G-rated film to be shown in […]
Only a Canadian could make a campy pseudo-musical film about the Manson Family. While perhaps fading from the memory of those not alive at the time, Charles Manson is still one of the icons of crazed cult leaders and serial killers. Director Reginald Harkema (A Girl is a Girl, Monkey Warfare) creates a visually stunning […]
