John Cassavetes’ greatest legacy to film, besides his acting, will be his contribution to writing and directing. His cinema verité style of filmmaking gave his films a sense of reality - a style very much against the grain of Hollywood film. His entire directorial works will be shown at Cinema du Parc from July 31st to August 13th. Read more »
Tags: John Cassavetes
Screenings | 
July 31, 2009 | No Comments »
Sita Sings the Blues is what happens when you mix the Hindu tale of Ramayana and 1920s-style jazz. This animated film has been gathering much buzz from film festivals across the world (including a Canadian premiere in Montréal last year), and is also online under a Creative Commons license. This means you can check it out on your computer for free, or now pick up the DVD to watch comfortably on your television. Read more »
Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, Kevin Rafferty, Nina Paley, Ronald D. Moore, Sita Sings the Blues
DVD Previews | July 28, 2009 | No Comments »
South Korean film has had a strong presence at this year’s Fantasia, with many debut efforts by new voices of the dwindling ‘new wave’ movement. But even iconic filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s latest, Thirst, has failed to excite in the same way as the pioneer films. Yang Ik-June’s Breathless (Ddongpari) is the sole exception. It is a film that eschews polish for grit, and manages to find the humanity in even the most depraved people. For me, it is the only standout South Korean film of the festival, and among its best overall. Read more »
Tags: Breathless, Fantasia Film Festival, Fantasia'09, Yang Ik-June
Film Reviews | July 26, 2009 | No Comments »
Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
There aren’t many sure things when we talk about sequels in franchises. More often than not, they fail to deliver on the hype or lose the magic of the first. The Harry Potter films, however, are a sure thing. Like its predecessors, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a quality fantasy film with enough wonder, action and teenage camaraderie to make anyone’s gloomy summer day a bright one. Even though it is perhaps the lightest on plot, it leaves room for better characterization and even Quidditch! Read more »
Tags: David Yates, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Film Reviews | July 23, 2009 | No Comments »
Playing this Friday, July 24th and Monday, July 27th, the Canadian premiere of My Dear Enemy (Meotjin haru) is not likely to strike a chord with the usual Fantasia audience member. The reason is not because it is a lousy film - far from it: Lee Yoon-ki’s fourth feature is a slow-paced but surprisingly heart-warming little road trip film about how human kindness trumps economy. It’s the lack of action or gore that may turn off most. Regardless, it is worth discovering if you’re looking for something on the slower side. It may not be the most memorable South Korean film of recent years, but its minimalism is strangely alluring. Read my full review on Midnight Poutine.
Tags: Fantasia Film Festival, Fantasia'09, Lee Yoon-ki, My Dear Enemy
Film Reviews | July 22, 2009 | Comments Off
Canadian productions often have to rely on smart scripting if they are to find success as films. So when Bruce McDonald set out to make a zombie film, the usual budgetary constraints meant there was no way he could pull of a gorefest on the same scale as Dawn of the Dead. Instead, Pontypool has been lauded by many as one of the first ‘thinking person’ zombie flicks. Based almost entirely within a radio broadcasting office, the drama is how the action outside affects the characters inside. Read more »
Tags: Bruce McDonald, Cadavres, Christophe Van Rompaey, Coraline, Erik Canuel, Henry Selick, Moscow Belgium, Pontypool, Watchmen, Zack Snyder
DVD Previews | July 21, 2009 | Comments Off
First-time writer/director Na Hong-jin’s The Chaser (Chugyeogja) is another entry in the ‘new wave’ of South Korean films, most notably amongst its more violent contributors such as Park Chan-wook. Far from Oldboy, The Chaser is more like Na Hong-jin’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a film that relied too heavily on coincidence and cliché. Worse, its mixture of horrific violence, melodrama, misplaced humour and Bourne-like chase scenes makes The Chaser a wholly uneven first effort. Read more »
Tags: Fantasia Film Festival, Fantasia'09, Na Hong-jin, The Chaser
Film Festivals, Film Reviews | July 20, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Like the various incarnations of clones that follow the death of the film’s protagonist, Kanji Nakajima’s The Clone Returns Home feels soulless, an empty shell where ideas thrive but without enough substance to impact the genre. Nakajima, like Asimov or Tarkovsky, is interested in questions of ethics and philosophy: do clones contain but the resonance of their originals? Unlike his Russian counterparts, Nakajima’s film fails to make these ideas into an engaging experience. Read more »
Tags: Fantasia Film Festival, Fantasia'09, Kanji Nakajima, The Clone Returns Home
Film Reviews | July 15, 2009 | No Comments »
The genre film festival enters its second week. With strong ticket sales, great audience feedback and an increasing number of potentially hot films, Fantasia 2009 keeps the throttle at full. Check out some recommended screenings from Wednesday to Sunday on my Midnight Poutine preview post. The fine specimen on the right is Fantasia stage technician, Daniel, whose fans seem to grow exponentially every year.
Tags: Fantasia Film Festival, Fantasia'09
Film Festivals | | Comments Off
Hot from its free streaming run on theauteurs.com, the classic 1989 documentary of the Apollo space missions is coming to DVD thanks to Criterion Collection. For All Mankind compiled all the best images and sounds from multiple space flight missions in order to create what remains to this day the most sensorial historical record of the moon landing period. Read more »
Tags: 12, Al Reinert, Che: Part 1 - The Argentine, For All Mankind, Nikita Mikhalkov, Steven Soderbergh
DVD Previews | July 13, 2009 | Comments Off
Subscribe