film

The New Old: Tricks & Treats

Our archival DVD column returns with a slate of seasonal offerings and oddities with Criterion editions of The Game, Eating Raoul, and Quadrophenia, special editions of Stuart Gordon's Re-animator, Halloween II and Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and the DVD and Blu-ray premiere of Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Vulgaria Review

Director Pang Ho-Cheung’s ode to bad taste and wall-to-wall shock humour, Vulgaria, is funny more often than it's merely nauseating and mercifully never gets as graphic visually as it does through dialogue. The ambitions aren’t high, but the filth is delightfully obscene and with this type of movie, what more can you really expect?

Arbitrage Review

Even when adding subplots involving a deadly cover-up, crooked cops, and a shaky marriage, it’s still hard to make a compelling film set against the backdrop of investment banking. Luckily, Arbitrage overcomes potentially dry material with some great performances and a solid cat and mouse story where the mouse is being chased by dozens of cats through several different houses.

Contest: See WINNIE in 7 cities!

Enter for a chance to win one of five pairs of tickets to an advance screening of Winnie in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, or Vancouver on Thursday, October 4th at 7:00pm from Dork Shelf and D Films.

Pitch Perfect Review

Pitch Perfect is a pure fun film. It aspires to nothing more than putting a smile on your face, making you laugh and getting your toes tapping. On all three counts it’s a total success. The film is basically an unholy mix of Bring It On, Glee and Mean Girls; taking the best elements of all three, shaking them all up and spitting out one of the most simply entertaining films of the year

Hotel Transylvania Review

It’s not going to raise the bar for animated story telling all that much, and it probably won’t do too much to repair Adam Sandler’s tarnished reputation with adult audiences, but the fleet footed and funny Hotel Transylvania manages to be the best thing to have the comic actor’s name attached to it in quite some time.

Contest: See The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Enter to win one of five pairs of run-of-engagement passes to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower or the grand prize including a copy of Stephen Chbosky's novel and the film's soundtrack, courtesy of Dork Shelf and eOne Films!

Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal Review

While the title of the Canadian and Danish co-production Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal might suggest a far goofier and more tongue in cheek film, director Boris Rodriguez has crafted a dark comedy with sly wit and genuine good will for a film about someone who really can’t stop eating flesh in his sleep.

Looper Review

Films like Looper come around so infrequently, and it’s doubtful that anyone could have seen into the future to know it would have turned out this great. It’s a gutsy and uncompromising genre film that will be hailed as a classic staple by many who see it.

Interview: Emily Blunt

We talk to Looper actress Emily Blunt about working within the action genre, the vision of director Rian Johnson, working with kids and accents, and her own thoughts on time travel.

This Week in DVD: 9/25/12

Now that TIFF has ended, our DVD reporters can finally start sifting through their piles of DVDs with looks this week at Cabin in the Woods, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Snow White and the Huntsman, Safe, Piranha DD, The Samaritan, Damsels in Distress, and We Have a Pope.

End of Watch Review

End of Watch perfectly embodies writer-turned-director David Ayer’s crime movie formula (Training Day, Harsh Times, etc). You take a basic crime movie premise, twist it initially in an intriguing way, populate it with talented actors, tease out some unexpectedly dark drama, toss in a few brutal set pieces, and then slowly let it all slip away as the film becomes increasingly conventional in a race to the finish line.