Tag: Film

By Stephanie Shewchuk

Mardis Gras is the Catholic celebration preceding Lent and links revellers from all across the world. What once began as a period of abandon foreshadowing 40 days of penance has swiftly transformed into a nondenominational cause for debauchery. Even though many other countries partake in the holiday, New Orleans is the most notorious for its… Continue reading Film Review: WhenMoviesMatter – Mardi Gras

By Ben Hoffman

It’s not hard to find somebody to mutter disdain towards the United Nations in the years since the World Trade Center attacks. It has been brought into question time and time again whether the organization is as irrelevant as its post World War I sister, the League of Nations, became before the Second World War.… Continue reading Film Review: WhenMoviesMatter – The Peacekeepers

By Alan Cho

Forget the paper-thin story, generic direction and a cast with the collective acting prowess of Tara Reid’s left boob–for 10 minutes Doom is glorious. Rumours and the trailer only hint at the sublimity of the exact moment you paid to see when the first person perspective becomes the most transcendent moment in cinema today. Not… Continue reading Film Review: Believe it or not, Doom is dumb

By Peter Hemminger

Rize, the new documentary by Vanity Fair photographer David LaChapelle, has all the elements you would expect from a depiction of life in South Central Los Angeles. The opening features footage from race riots in both the ’60s and the ’90s. The film’s vivid colours begin to show hyper-kinetic dancing backed by an overbearing hip-hop… Continue reading Film Review: Urban clown dancing gets a Rize

By Peter Hemminger

A strong collection of entertaining and occasionally poignant shorts featuring sex education à la H. P. Lovecraft, a re-telling of Che Guevara’s revolutionary experience in 30 seconds and a hilariously graphic and bizarre horror/thriller parody. The inclusion of two re-tellings of the Oedipus tale was a bit unnecessary, and technical issues forcing the collection to… Continue reading Film Fest: Comedia Shorts

By Peter Hemminger

Buster Keaton holds a reputation as the most inventive of the silent film comedians, and The General is often held up as his crowning achievement. Watching it in the Uptown’s main floor theatre with its glorious 1920s architecture is about as authentic a reproduction of the glory days of film as one can find. The… Continue reading Film Fest: The General

By Peter Hemminger

L’Enfant (The Child) was highly praised at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is usually a solid barometer, and it didn’t disappoint. Essentially, it’s the story of a petty thief, his girlfriend, their newborn son and a series of bad decisions. The thief is one of the more despicable characters ever committed to film, completely… Continue reading Film Fest: L’Enfant (The Child)

By Garth Paulson

Fittingly ending the festival, Happy Endings is an intricate and delightful comedy about a Los Angeles group who can’t help but mess everything up. The film follows several interconnecting stories of ruined relationships before they all reach their inevitable, but carefully done happy endings. The movie isn’t very surprising but it’s pulled off with the… Continue reading Film Fest: Happy Endings

By Garth Paulson

Thumbsucker was one of the most eagerly anticipated entries at this year’s Film Fest, evidenced by the massive lines and throngs of people turned away at both of its screenings. Thanks to the buzz it will also go down as one the most disappointing. The film isn’t bad, it’s just entirely average. Boosted by clever… Continue reading Film Fest: Thumbsucker

By Sherri Shergill

Ground breaking, rebellious and defiant aren’t usually Canadian descriptors. Despite this, the documentary Escape to Canada displays Canada as a revolutionary country in conflict with the USA. It’s as if the documentary is committed to exposing Canada’s secret scheme to be different and consequently superior to America.This highly biased documentary pokes fun at the irrationality… Continue reading Film Fest: Escape to Canada