4/30/2015
Contest! Win Tickets to See 'Far from the Madding Crowd' in Vancouver and Calgary!
Calling all members of the Cinemablographer book club! A great
adaptation of a literary classic is coming your way when Far from the Madding Crowd hits theatres this May from Fox
Searchlight Pictures. Far from the
Madding Crowd opens in Toronto on May 1 and expands in the coming weeks,
but readers in Vancouver and Calgary can attend a sneak peek before the film
opens in their city. Answer the trivia below to win tickets!
4/28/2015
Hot Docs Review: 'The Amina Profile'
The Amina
Profile
(Canada, 85
min.)
Dir. Sophie Desraspe
Programme:
Canadian Spectrum (Toronto Premiere)
What kind of bait does it take to
catch a catfish? The Amina Profile
takes an absorbing look at a contemporary con that's spawning out of control in
the digital age as director Sophie Desraspe joins subject Sandra Bagaria on a
quest to uncover the truth behind Sandra's alleged girlfriend, whom she believe
to be a Syrian girl named Amina. Amina, the voice behind the blog A Gay Girl in
Damascus, has her virtual lover worried when she disappears and leaves Sandra
fearing that Amina's outspoken LGBT voice made her a target of Syria's
oppressive regime. The truth is far worse and it leaves far more victims.
Labels:
Canadian Film,
Capsule reviews,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
Hot Docs Review: 'Deprogrammed'
Deprogrammed
(Canada, 90
min.)
Dir. Mia
Donovan
Programme:
Canadian Spectrum (World Premiere)
The
endlessly peculiar world of cults come full-circle with the thought-provoking
doc Deprogrammed. Director Mia Donovan (Inside Lara Roxx) returns to the festival with the story of
professional deprogrammer Ted “Black Lighting” Patrick,
who made a significant, if notorious, career by extracting individuals from
cults and using his deprogramming techniques to remove the ideologies
brainwashed into them. Donovan’s brother Matthew is one of Ted’s last efforts,
and her personal connection to this unorthodox saviour/sinner offers a wild
springboard into the complicated world of unconventional organizations and the
lifestyles they breed by deception and choice alike.
Labels:
Canadian Film,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
Hot Docs Review: 'The Cult of J.T. Leroy'
The Cult of J.T.
Leroy
(USA, 90 min.)
Dir. Majorie
Stern
Programme:
Nightvisions (International Premiere)
I admit that
might my archive of obscure Canadian film data betrayed me roughly a third of
the way into The Cult of J.T. Leroy.
At some point, I realized that this tale of fictional literary sensation J.T.
Leroy is the same story that inspired the wacky 2008 comedy Who is K.K. Downey? Both
films tell of a hack author who can’t get published and therefore invents the
persona of a young reclusive transsexual drug addict truckstop prostitute. Both
are relatively modest productions, but the difference between The Cult of J.T. Leroy and Who is K.K. Downey is that the former takes
a fascinating subject and explores it in the least interesting way possible while
the latter runs with the silliness of the situation in one goofily eccentric
flick. The former is dull at awkwardly
shot, while the latter is a goofy microbudget lark. The groaner of the two is
the non-fiction version, which doesn’t offer much for anyone familiar with the
story aside from a very thorough explanation of what went down behind the
adored “author” of books like The Heart
is Deceitful Above All Things.
Labels:
Capsule reviews,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
Hot Docs Review: 'How to Change the World'
How to Change the World
(Canada/UK, 112 min.)
Dir. Jerry Rothwell
Programme: Special Presentations
(Canadian Premiere)
It takes a lot of moxie to title
a film How to Change the World. That’s a bold name, for a “how to” guide to
fix the planet is a large thing to tackle in one feature length film. The
thrilling and inspiring How to Save the
World, however, largely succeeds as director Jerry Rothwell recounts the
rise of Greenpeace with five quick tips on how to make the world a better
place.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
4/27/2015
Hot Docs Review: 'Sugar Coated'
Sugar Coated
(Canada, 91 min.)
Dir. Michèle
Hozer
Programme:
Canadian Spectrum (World Premiere)
“In the
most delightful way!” Yes, Mary Poppins was indeed correct when she flew into
town on her brolley and sang that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go
down. Director Michèle Hozer gets the recipe just right in Sugar Coated as she whips
up an intelligent argument with a dash of playful humour. This doc smartly
articulates the dangers in consuming sugar in excess quantities, and audiences
are likely to swallow this dose of what’s good for them given how succinctly
and sweetly Hozer conveys the argument.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
4/26/2015
Hot Docs Review: 'Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck'
Kurt Cobain: Montage of
Heck
(USA, 132 min.)
Dir. Brett Morgen
Programme: Special Presentations
(Canadian Premiere)
I really like Nirvana's music,
but I've never quite understood the mystique of Kurt Cobain. Fans and devotees
characterize the lost poet of rock with prophetic affection. Cobain's, one of
the 27 Club's most esteemed and tragic members, holds an immortal place in the
canon of rock and roll thanks to his game-changing electric music and tragic
death by suicide at the peak of his career. The phenomenal rock doc Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck doesn't
tear down or deconstruct this mystique of Kurt Cobain (if anything, it affirms
it), yet it undoubtedly builds a complex and fascinating character study of a
brilliant and deeply complicated man in an equally brilliant production that
elevates the art form. It's a stunner.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
Hot Docs Review: 'Jesus Town, USA'
Jesus Town, USA
(Canada/USA, 80 min.)
Dir: Julian Pender, Billie Mintz
Programme: Canadian Spectrum
(Canadian Premiere)
“I know how hard it is to be
Jesus,” says one of the many kind townsfolk featured in the droll doc Jesus Town, USA. The wise old barman, a
former portrayer of Christ in the annual passion play of a peculiar Oklahoma
town that features a full-fledged reproduction of ancient Israel, gives his
words of wisdom to Zach, who is the current incarnation of the Role of roles,
as Jesus downs some wine coolers to soothe his troubles. A passion play of its
own comes into play in Julian Pender and Billie Mintz wildly hilarious and
enlightening Jesus Town, USA, but,
thankfully, it doesn't end with a crucifixion.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
4/25/2015
Hot Docs Review: 'Tig'
Tig
(USA, 95 min.)
Dir. Kristina Goolsby, Ashley
York
Programme: Show Me the Funny
(International Premiere)
![]() |
Tig Notaro in Tig, Courtesy of Beachside Films |
'Good evening, I have cancer,'
sounds like the perfect line to kill the mood in a comedy club, yet Tig Notaro
totally killed it when she opened a stand-up comedy routine with this
unconventional lead-in in October 2012. Tig,
which marks a notable opener for the 2015 Hot Docs Canadian International
Documentary Festival as an LGBTQ-friendly film with a female subject and two
female directors, looks at this woman who found life in the face of death.
Tig's announcement and the comedy routine that followed it are natural moves
for a comic--using life to inspire material--but the candour and vulnerability
of her performance ignited a response from audiences so powerful that Tig
became a viral sensation. Tig proves
that laughter is indeed the best medicine.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Documentary,
Hot Docs
4/24/2015
LAFF Review: 'Panama Canal Stories'
Panama Canal Stories
(Panama, 106 min.)
Dir. Abner Benaim, Carolina Borrero,
Luis Franco Brantley, Pinky Mon, Pituka Ortega-Heilbron; Writ. Alejandro Fadel,
Martin Mauregui, Manuel Rodríguez
Starring: Lakisha May, Andre
Morris, as Carlos Eduardo Goldstein Alemán, Ivan González, Hannah Schöbitz,
Luis Manuel Barrios
We’ve strolled through the arrondissements of Paris in Paris,
je t’aime, roamed the boroughs of New York in New York, I Love You, and heard tales of
Hogtown in Toronto Stories. The next
stop on the travel anthologies train lets audiences stamp their cinematic
passports in Panama and learn the histories of the country’s iconic canal in Panama Canal Stories. This five-part
anthology film, which opens Ottawa’s Latin American Film Festival on Saturday,
differs from the aforementioned travelogues, since it offers not a tourist’s
view of the city as it takes viewers through five moments in time, rather than
to five geographical pockets. Panama
Canal Stories tells about the people who live and thrive in the city and the
characters whose lives are the lifeblood of the Panama Canal.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
CFI,
LAFF
4/23/2015
'Atanarjuat' Tops TIFF's List of the Best Canadian Films of All Time
![]() |
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner |
Labels:
Atanarjuat,
Canadian Film,
Stories We Tell,
TIFF,
TIFF CTT
Who Made My Clothes?
Traceable
(Canada/USA/India, 68 min.)
Written and directed by Jennifer
Sharpe
“It's difficult for a new
designer to come out with a new set of ideas when there is an established
industry that is moving to a completely different logic that's about low price
at whatever cost,” says designer and professor Lynda Gross in the fashionably
progressive doc Traceable. Gross’s words
perfectly summarize the conundrum in which forward-thinking fashionistas and
designers such as Traceable's central
subject Laura Siegel find themselves as they try to balance the wants of
consumers with the practical needs of the other threads in the fashion chain.
Siegel’s plight should be a simple one: to offer fashionable garments that
better educate consumers and retailers about the stories woven within the
clothes on their backs. However, consumer culture, especially the “fast-fashion”
on which the garment industry thrives with impulse buys and quick turnarounds, doesn’t
traditionally allow for new ideas other than those that popularize, say, The
September Issue. We’ve seen all those fashion docs before, as famed eyes of the
fashion world tell the stories of how they became trendsetters, but a new trend
is beginning and it starts right here.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Documentary
4/21/2015
Contest! Win Tickets to 'Adult Beginners' in Toronto!
Labels:
contests
4/20/2015
'The Grand Seduction', 'The Lunchbox' Win TIFF Film Circuit People's Choice Awards
![]() |
Taylor Kitsch and Liane Balaban in The Grand Seduction, an eOne
Films release
|
Labels:
Grand Seduction,
The Lunchbox,
TIFF
4/19/2015
Latin American Film Festival Gives Hungry Cinephiles a Nibble
![]() |
The 2015 Latin American Film Festival kicks off with Panama Canal Stories. |
Labels:
CFI,
LAFF,
Ottawa Arts
4/17/2015
Canadian Cinema Editors (CCE) Nominate 'Wet Bum', 'Backcountry'
![]() |
Wet Bum |
Labels:
Canadian Film
Vancouver the Gritty
Down Here
(Canada, 88 min.)
Dir. Teach Grant, Writ. Dean
Wray, Teach Grant
Starring: Dean Wray, Tantoo
Cardinal, Martin Cummins, Rebecca James, Teach Grant
The gritty drama Down Here takes audiences to the dark
underbelly of Vancouver’s Eastside. Beneath the sprawling mass of ugly,
towering condominiums sits a lost character of the city. Hidden, forgotten, and
overlooked citizens survive in the shadows, and this film by Teach Grant
explores how the unseen members of society are often the most vulnerable ones.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Canadian Film
4/16/2015
True Story: Jones (Almost) Saves It
True Story
(USA, 100 min.)
Dir. Rupert Goold, Writ. Rupert
Goold, David Kajganich
Starring: Jonah Hill, James
Franco, Felicity Jones
![]() |
Jonah Hill as Mike Finkel and Felicity Jones as Jill in True Story.
Mary Cybulski © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation |
Three cheers go to Felicity Jones
for almost saving True Story. The
British actress, Theory of Everything star,
and LEGO Oscar-winner dons a deep American accent for her turn as Jill, the
wife of ex-New York Times writer Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill), and she gets the
one big actorly moment in a film that should rightly be an actors’ showpiece.
It’s a great scene. Jones owns it.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Felicity Jones,
James Franco,
Jonah Hill,
True Story
Canadian Film Gets Big Boost with New and Improved NFB.ca
![]() |
Incendies is one of the major Canadian films now available on the NFB's VOD. |
Labels:
Canadian Film
4/14/2015
Contest! Win Tickets to 'While We're Young' in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg
Labels:
Ben Stiller,
contests,
Naomi Watts,
Noah Baumbach,
While We're Young
4/12/2015
Ottawa Independent Video Award Winners
![]() |
Cody Campanale's Jackie Boy, which won the OIVA for Best Director - Narrative |
Labels:
Canadian Film,
Ottawa Arts
4/10/2015
Contest! Win Tickets to Sneak Peeks of 'The Age of Adaline' Across Canada! (CONTEST CLOSED)
Is eternal youth all it’s chalked up to be?
Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) confronts the double-edged dilemma of being able
to live forever in The Age of Adaline,
a new romantic drama from the director of Celeste
and Jesse Forever. The Age of Adaline
opens in theatres April 24 from eOne Films, but readers across Canada who want
to catch a sneak peek are in luck. Answer the trivia below for your chance to
win tickets!
Labels:
Adaline,
Blake Lively,
contests
Contest! Win Tickets to 'The Water Diviner' in Toronto and Vancouver!
We all know that Russell Crowe is one of
the best actors of his generation, but can he direct? The answer seems to be
yes, as the Oscar-winning actor’s directorial debut The Water Diviner has already scooped the Oscar equivalent in its
native Australia before heading to theatres in over here. The film opens April 24th
from eOne Films, but readers who want to attend a sneak peek are in luck!
Answer the trivia below to win tickets!
Labels:
contests,
Russell Crowe,
Water Diviner
4/09/2015
Cinemalinks: Weekly Reads
![]() |
Ned Rifle |
Labels:
Cinemalinks
4/08/2015
Ottawa Independent Video Award Nominations
![]() |
A still from Christopher Rohde's Odd One Out, which is nominated for 2 OIVA awards. |
Labels:
Ottawa Arts
4/07/2015
X Marks the Spot with 'Kumiko'
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter
(USA, 105 min.)
Dir. David Zellner, Writ. David
Zellner, Nathan Zellner
Starring: Rinko Kikuchi
THIS IS A TRUE STORY. The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.-Fargo (and Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter)
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Kumiko,
Rinko Kikuchi
4/06/2015
Contest! Win Tickets to see 'True Story' in Calgary! (CONTEST CLOSED)
Here’s some unexpected casting! Funny guys
Jonah Hill and James Franco play against type in the upcoming psychological
drama True Story. The film opens April
17th from +Fox Searchlight, but Calgary readers who want to attend a
sneak peek are in luck! Answer the trivia below to win tickets!
Labels:
contests,
James Franco,
Jonah Hill,
True Story
4/03/2015
A Portrait Both Past and Present
Woman in Gold
(USA/UK, 109 min.)
Dir. Simon Curtis, Writ. Alexi
Kaye Campbell
Starring: Helen Mirren, Ryan
Reynolds, Tatiana Maslany, Katie Holmes, Daniel Brühl, Max Irons.
The spirit of Philomena lives on in Woman in Gold! This crowd-pleasing
historical dramedy puts Dame Helen Mirren in Dame Judi Dench’s shoes as Maria
Altmann takes a cue from Philomena Lee by confronting the past to find peace in
the present. Altmann enlists the help of rookie lawyer Randol Schoenberg (Ryan
Reynolds, an unexpected co-star for Mirren) to reclaim a painting of her aunt Adele
that was taken decades before and was assumed to be lost to an Austrian museum forever
until new details surfaced in the letters of Altmann’s late sister. The case
isn’t so simple, though, since said painting is Gustav Klimt’s famous “Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” which is valued at over $130 million, and it was stolen by the Nazis
during the Holocaust.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Helen Mirren,
Ryan Reynolds,
Woman in Gold
'Stop Being a Benny!'
Pretend We’re Kissing
(Canada, 78 min.)
Written and directed by Matt
Sadowski
Starring: Dov Tiefenbach, Tommie-Amber Pirie, Zoe Kravitz
Benny:[ben-ee] Noun. Slang1. Benzedrine, especially in tablet form.2. A tourist who visits the Jersey shore from Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, or New York (or anywhere near these places.) These tourists pollute the beaches and are rude to the locals. (Hat tip, Urban Dictionary)3. Abbrev’d name for Eggs Benedict.4. A meek guy unlucky in love.
Labels:
2015 Reviews,
Canadian Film,
Pretend Were Kissing
4/02/2015
'Just Because Something Isn't Supposed to Be True Doesn't Mean It Can't Be'
Cast No Shadow
(Canada, 85 min.)
Dir. Christian Sparkes, Writ.
Joel Thomas Hynes
Starring: Percy Hynes-White, Joel
Thomas Hynes, Mary-Colin Chisholm
“Just because something isn’t
supposed to be true doesn’t mean it can’t be,” says Jude (Percy Hynes-White in
Christian Sparkes’ Cast No Shadow.
Jude wrestles with imagined things as monsters lurking in caves came out to
haunt him. Not all things creeping in the shadows are the Babadook, though, and
sometimes an imagination can be a beautiful thing. Make believe can be a
saviour when the scariest monsters exist in real life.
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