Cult Cinema: Volume 7 Good comedy is a mix of the familiar, the unexpected, and the shocking. Which is an elaborate way of saying that ending a knock-knock joke with a line about killing a baby is a sure way to get a laugh. Try it some time. At work. So, it’s no surprise that [...]
Cult Cinema: Volume 6 In the 1980s, author Clive Barker was dubbed the new face of horror. And what a face it was, one that looked like it should be fellating both Lord Byron and Aleister Crowley during a sex magic ritual, all arched eyebrows and smooth cheeks and smoky eyes. Barker’s 1985 short story [...]
Cult Cinema: Volume 5 Quentin Tarantino is every video store clerk’s idol, and every film critic’s nightmare. Venerated by midnight movie buffs and Blockbuster cashiers for his unadulterated love of cult cinema, Tarantino has proved that a film school education is no match for passion, creativity, and kinetic energy. Unfortunately for film critics, this has [...]
Cult Cinema: Volume 4 David Lynch films are a litmus test of intelligence. You don’t have to like them to prove that your cinematic IQ is above the level of a mouth-breather with a Vin Diesel DVD collection. But you do have to realize the films’ artistic merit. And then give lengthy interpretations of their [...]
Initially, I was somewhat wary of Chad Archibald’s Neverlost, the Guelph-shot genre film premiering at Fantasia tomorrow. After all, its story of a failed screenwriter living in squalor while struggling with insomnia and depression sounds like a documentary about my early twenties, except with fewer Star Trek conventions. But the film ended up being an [...]
Cult Cinema: Volume 3 In the 1950s, a group of French writers revolutionized film criticism with the magazine Cahiers du cinéma. By re-evaluating the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, and John Hughes, among others, the critics gave birth to a grand unified ‘auteur theory,’ which positions the director as the ultimate creative force behind [...]
——————— The amazing thing about the horror films of Herschell Gordon Lewis is not that they were shocking in 1960s. From what I gather from classic rock radio stations and Partridge Family reruns, vibrantly coloured juice raised eyebrows prior to at least 1975. No, what’s amazing about films like 1963’s Blood Feast and 1964’s Two [...]
Cult Cinema : Volume 1 Religion is a beautiful thing. Provided you’re a Paleolithic savage who needs fairy tales and a lumpy fertility idol in the shape of a BBW centerfold to explain where babies come from. Anyone else still believing in magic and wizards should read a book that wasn’t written before humanity invented [...]
The 2010 Golden Globes took place last night. And between Ricky Gervais camouflaging a mean bender as hosting duties and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s insistence on rewarding supervillain-esque megalomania over quality, there’s a lot to talk about. So, that’s our subject on tonight’s Sound on Sight round table, during our Big Fan/The Headless Woman [...]
Three weeks. That’s all it took for director James Cameron’s 3D spectacle Avatar to become the second-highest grossing film in worldwide box-office history. And we didn’t really like it all that much. Clearly, we’re in the minority. But regardless of our reticence to embrace a Pocahontas video game, what does this mean for Hollywood? Is [...]
Whip It 2009, USA Directed by Drew Barrymore Written by Shauna Cross (also novel) Starring Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden, Kristen Wiig Whip It is not for me. And I mean that literally: it wasn’t made for me. The producers of the film probably couldn’t care less what a 20-something male thinks of [...]
Tonight, Canadian viewers will have a chance to watch a two-minute, ‘cliffhanger’ scene from director Roland Emmerich’s upcoming disaster epic 2012. The scene will be broadcast between 22:50 and 23:00 on pretty much every channel we get up here, and its five-minute conclusion will be posted online. I’m actually kind of curious about the film, [...]
Take Out 2004, USA Directed by Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou Written by Sean Baker, Shih-Ching Tsou Starring Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye Lee, Justin Wan English/Mandarin In the context of film reviews, ‘hypnotic’ often means the critic fell asleep, but got the DVD for free and is trying to be nice. This is why Jean [...]
Surrogates 2009, USA Directed by Jonathan Mostow Written by Michael Ferris, John D. Brancato, Robert Venditti (graphic novel), Brett Weldele (graphic novel) Starring Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Ving Rhames The idea of creating an imaginary persona as a replacement for reality is nothing new, at least for those of us who try to [...]
Post Grad 2009, USA Directed by Vicky Jensen Written by Kelly Fremon Starring Alexis Bledel, Zach Gilford, Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch 89 minutes, English When it comes to a critic’s personal biases and preferences, transparency is crucial. So, I’ll admit that I have a hard time with films about pretty people years younger than me [...]
The American: Visions of damnation
A look back at “Wings Of Desire”
Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)
8: The Mormon Proposition
This Movie is Broken
The Last Exorcism: A surprisingly invigorating horror film
A Look Back At Spielberg’s Masterpiece “Jaws”
Fausta: The Milk of Sorrow
MIFF2010: The Illusionist
Piranha 3d
The Switch
Afterschool
Rampage
Stonewall Uprising
Toronto After Dark 2010: Doghouse (Review #1)
The Expendables
Toronto After Dark 2010: Last Lovecraft (Review #1)
