In order to celebrate accomplishing 70 years of existence with an impressive output of important documentaries and cutting edge animation, Montréal’s NFB Cinérobotheque on St-Denis and De Maisonneuve will be presenting a few free activities from Friday, June 5th to Sunday, June 7th, including screenings and workshops. Read more »
Tags: NFB Cinerobotheque
Screenings | 
May 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Some intriguing Québecois/Canadian films of interest. One of these is Luc Bourdon’s La mémoire des anges. For this production, director Bourdon compiled footage from over one hundred NFB films. This footage is all of Montréal from the 50s through to the 70s, and shows a different city to the one we live in today. While I didn’t care much for it (my review), it has been garnering some positive press elsewhere. Read more »
Tags: Addicted to Plastic, Babine, Ian Connacher, La memoire des anges, Luc Bourdon, Luc Picard
DVD Previews | May 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Eight years before Polytechnique, Villeneuve’ sophomore film, Maelström, won all eight of its Jutra nominations, as well as the Genie for Best Motion Picture. Unlike Polytechnique, in which he adhered to fact as much as possible, Maelström is completely fictional, and shows a sense of playfulness despite its dark tone and brooding sense of doom. Read more »
Tags: Denis Villeneuve, Maelström
Film Reviews | May 23, 2009 | No Comments »
I have a new obsession that any movie-lover should already be signed up for, or surely sign up for once they read this post. Hosted by Criterion (of Criterion Collection fame), TheAuteurs.com is an online repertoire of high-quality streaming films at a very low cost. It’s a mixture of community, magazine and cinema on one clean and easy-to-navigate website. Read more »
Tags: theauteurs.com
Uncategorized | May 21, 2009 | Comments Off
Review: One Week (2008)
The first big English-language Canadian film of this year showed a lot of promise. It is a film that on the outside has a lot of heart, and in the right place. The goal was to create a movie Canadians could use to show off this country abroad. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t say anything about Canadians, shows off a little bit of the country’s landscape between Toronto and Vancouver (sorry East Coasters, Québec and northerners), and does so by taking away from the story. Read more »
Tags: Michael McGowan, One Week
Film Reviews | May 19, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Thanks to a pretty high-profile Hollywood release this week dealing with a coup against Hitler, there are plenty of WWII/Nazi classics coming to disk. One is a German documentary from 1979, Top Secret Trials of the Third Reich (Geheime Reichssache) dealing with the trials against Hitler’s would-be assassinators. The other is a previously unreleased Fritz Lang film about a British hunter who has the opportunity to kill Hitler. Man Hunt (1941) should be worth it for cinephiles and Lang completionists. Read more »
Tags: Bryan Singer, Crips and Bloods: Made in America, Fritz Lang, Guylaine Dionne, Man Hunt, Serveuses demandées, Stacy Peralta, Valkyrie
DVD Previews | May 18, 2009 | Comments Off
Review: A Wink and a Smile (2008)
Running until Thursday, May 21 at Cinéma du Parc, A Wink and a Smile is a documentary on the Seattle burlesque scene. Montréal’s own Blue Light Burlesque team is present for all screenings, performing a small number before the doc and talking about their art post-credits. Anybody curious about the art will find this a decent introduction. Below is a review of the film and information on local acts. Read more »
Tags: A Wink and a Smile, Blue Light Burlesque, Deirdre Allen Timmons
Film Reviews, Screenings | May 17, 2009 | Comments Off
This week, Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique will be showing during the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes film festival. Since 1994, he has directed only three feature films, his latest coming after an absence of eight years. Despite such a short filmography, his work has shown an artistry and contemporaneity that is sure to gain him a place among great Québecois directors. This series will track his career backwards, reviewing and commenting on his work from 2009 back to 1994. Read more »
Tags: Denis Villeneuve, Polytechnique
Film Reviews | May 16, 2009 | 2 Comments »
One of the top choices this week is Terence Davies’ documentary portrait of his hometown, Liverpool. Of Time and the City is a short (70-minute) personal work that is more grounded than Maddin’s My Winnipeg. It has equally humourous moments, but comes from a more human and less fantastical part of its directors consciousness. Read more »
Tags: C'est pas moi je le jure!, Of Time and the City, Philippe Falardeau, Pierre Morel, Taken, Terence Davies
DVD Previews | May 12, 2009 | Comments Off
Review: Star Trek (2009)
It’s hard not to like J. J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek. Despite the directors’ warnings that die-hard fans should stay home, it is surprisingly true to a canon that never managed to stay consistent of its own accord anyway. As a fan of the franchise, the small details were appreciated, even though I knew I had to expect a completely different imagining: one that targets the blockbuster crowds that drew millions out for The Mummy and Transformers. Read more »
Tags: J.J. Abrams, Star Trek
Film Reviews | May 11, 2009 | No Comments »
Subscribe