If you thought 2014 was a bumper year for movies, and it was, then 2015 is shaping up to be every bit as big and varied with brilliant blockbusters, heartfelt indies and a panoply of other films all jostling for our moviegoing attention. Given the sheer volume of movies Continue Reading
Movies
Movie review: Big Hero 6
Much like Guardians of the Galaxy before it, Big Hero 6, directed with a vivacious sense of fun and deep sense of poignancy by Chris Williams and Don Hall, is that rare Marvel-sourced movie that manages to transcend the well-established bonds of its comic-book antecedents. Not that there is Continue Reading
Re-heating the popcorn: The 10 movies I loved most in 2014
2014 was a phenomenal year to be a movie lover. It seemed like every time you turned around, taking great care not to spill your oversized jumbo pack of popcorn or smear your choctop onto the blouse of the lady next to you, there was another engaging indie drama, Continue Reading
Movie review: The Captive
If there is one thing that can be said for Atom Egoyan’s movies of late, it is that he has not surrendered the immersive visual or narrative style that made his name with movies like Exotica (1994) and The Sweet Hereafter (1997). His latest film, The Captive, starring Ryan Continue Reading
“What does it all mean?” The trailer for Sundance documentary The Visit
SNAPSHOT An alien encounter. A hypothetical visitor arrives from Outer Space. The authorities are immediately alerted – the military, defence and communication advisors, and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. How to deal with this unprecedented event? How to reassure Earth’s inhabitants, who are prone to panic, Continue Reading
Weekend festive pop art: Santa Claus is coming to a movie poster you love!
Ever get the feeling that Santa Claus is EVERYWHERE? It’s a sensation not helped by songs like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, which incidentally is the most played Christmas song of the past 100 years, which has lyrics like: “He sees you when you’re sleeping He knows when Continue Reading
On the 8th Day of Christmas … I watched the movie A Merry Friggin’ Christmas
We love our families. We hate our families. It’s a war of competing, diametrically-opposed emotions for most families each Christmas who, though they long for tree-decorating, eggnog-sipping harmony, usually end up with the festive version of War of the Roses. Perhaps that it is a little extreme, but the Continue Reading
Where’s your head (or foot) at? The full trailer for Inside Out
My but we’re complicated creatures aren’t we? Rarely adhering to the logical approach to anything, as apt to run with the best way to do something as to disregard it on the basis of a whim, we are, to extents large and small, driven by the emotions that seem Continue Reading
On the 5th day of Christmas … I watched the indie movie Happy Christmas
The confounding of expectations, at a time of the year when they are at their zenith, is at the heart of Joe Swanberg’s Sundance-screened Happy Christmas, the follow-up to last year’s well-received Drinking Buddies, his most accessible and successful film to date. The film’s title is an ironic one, of course, given Continue Reading
Movie review: St. Vincent
Figuring out where we belong in life, and just as importantly who we belong with while we’re living it, are the two great undertakings of our short time here on earth. Getting them right, or as close to right as this often flawed existence allows, is not for the fainthearted, Continue Reading