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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
In what feels more like a passion project for former athlete turned health advocate Christopher Nowinski than a proper feature from Hoop Dreams co-director Steve James, the documentary Head Games nonetheless offers compelling insight into the hot button issue of concussions in sports just in time for football season and something we probably would be talking about in hushed tones if there was a hockey season to immediately look forward to when discussing the status of Sidney Crosby.
We talk to Roller Town director and co-writer Andrew Bush from Picnicface and his leading actress Kayla Lorette about the making of the film, learning how to skate, and crafting the film's undeniably catch fake disco tracks.
Several months after winning the best actress award in Berlin for it's leading actor and hot on the heels of its announcement as Canada's official entry for contention at this year's Oscar race, Kim Nguyen's Rebelle (War Witch) has been building considerable momentum in recent weeks and rightfully so.
The good news about House at the End of the Street is that it’s not the aggressive swell of haunted house horror clichés that the trailers promised. Nope, this is actually somewhat of a traditional thriller that has more in common with a certain Hitchcock movie than it does with the latest direct-to-DVD genre rehash. Unfortunately, it’s not a very good thriller and the suspense/scares are doled out in such a dreary “slow burn” way that about as much time is spent developing a “battle of the bands” subplot as building up dread or atmosphere.
Making the jump from the computer and television screens of Canada to the big screen, sketch troupe Picnicface makes its first foray onto the big screen with the roller disco opus Roller Town, a funny and appropriately silly send up of 70s disco movie conventions that never lapses into outright nostalgia for the bygone days of bell bottoms and mirror balls.
It might not be too debatable that Dredd 3D works as a more faithful introduction to the cult comic lawman from the future than the character’s Sylvester Stallone vehicle from 1995, but it’s not better by much.
The Trouble With the Curve isn't the worst movie ever made, nor is it even close to the weakest movie of Clint Eastwood’s career. It might be dull and old fashioned, but I suppose it's perfectly watchable for passive viewers who like baseball or the aging movie star. It's just instantly forgettable and brings nothing new to the baseball movie genre that’s already overstuffed with these cliched entries.
The Master might be a movie of uncertainties, but it’s guaranteed that it will be the most widely discussed movie of 2012. Easy to admire, yet made in such a way that defies full comprehension (at least in a single viewing), folks will line up to spit out grand statements or theories about it’s greatness while haters will delight in tearing it down as a big beautiful beast of a movie signifying nothing. It reaffirms Paul Thomas Anderson's status as easily being one of the most intriguing (perhaps frustratingly so for some) directors around today.
We talk to Dredd writer Alex Garland about his life long love affair with Britain's favourite futuristic judge, jury, and executioner and his trial and error process of finding the perfect story to tell.
