1st Reviews

  You wouldn’t think a coming of age story would work in a film where the main character is a vampire, because, well… vampires don’t age all that quickly. By taking growing old out of the equation, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person adds a refreshingly uncommon element to the mix - living for eternity in a life you don’t want to lead.  Sarah Montpetit plays Sasha - a teenage vampire whose conscience gets in the way of her taking lives. She’s a bit of an outcast, even within her own household, and miserable with the life she’s been born into. When she meets a boy (Felix-Antione Bernard) who’s contemplating taking his own life, it sparks a new kind of feeling within her, and everything changes. These two young actors are wonderful together, with the kind of awkward budding chemistry you’d expect from naive teenagers.  The humour is dry, dark and often subtle, but it never detracts from the meaningfulness of the story. This is a quirky coming of age story at...

  The   Saw  franchise has always been under a moral code from John Kramer (Tobin Bell). He only harmed those who have done terrible things or are horrible people. Over the years, the franchise has suffered balancing morally challenging backstories for their characters and the gore. The early   Saw   films did have a good structure. The characters were linked to Kramer and the game that he had built. But once they got away from the original trilogy, the stories grew weaker. And it became more about the kills. The   Saw  films do have pretty inventive kills that make each film memorable. And   Saw X  is no different. This film takes place between   Saw 1  and   Saw 2.  It explores the brain cancer John Kramer was diagnosed with. The   Saw  continuity has never been the greatest, but this chapter aligns with this particular placement.  Co-writers Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger take a hit at those who work i...

  An extraordinary technical and visual achievement held back by disappointing writing, The Creator is an uneven but ambitious science fiction epic that demands to be seen on the big screen. In a world of sequels, remakes and adaptations, getting an original project like this is a real treat, despite its flaws.  Whether you see it as an homage or plagiarism, this movie borrows a lot from other science fiction media. It does it well though, and even when it’s clear where inspiration was drawn from, it doesn’t feel like a rip-off. The major reason it doesn’t feel stale is because of the phenomenal world building we see throughout the story. This future version of earth is so brilliantly realized and full of history. The combination of old world technology and advanced AI beings is entirely organic. This is one of the best science fiction settings we’ve been given in years.  The film is a technical marvel, proving that you don’t need a gargantuan budget to make something loo...

  What begins as a small-town story about a 75-year-old funeral home owner trying to save his family business quickly turns into a complex web of race, power, and injustice. When it comes to big corporations, it’s important to note that they have gone into the industry for the wrong reasons. What could begin as a good-hearted business decision to help the family-owned businesses turns into something worse because of greed. Most of these businessmen lose their way when they near the top and forget why they started. Director Maggie Betts explores the many layers of corporate businesses in America in   The Burial  through a courtroom drama starring Jamie Foxx, Jurnee Smollett and Tommy Lee Jones.  Jeremiah O’Keefe has a beautiful family and has thirteen children to carry his family legacy. He attempted to make a deal with a larger funeral home corporation to save his business because he made a faulty deal with some insurance company. O’Keefe knew it was a gamble to take...

  With “Spencer”, Pablo Larrain gave us a haunting interpretation of a pivotal weekend in Princess Diana’s life, taking artistic liberty to draw from true events. “El Conde” finds the director taking his artistic interpretations a step further, with a vampiric fable using real historical figures and events.  This satire pairs Larrain’s signature dreamlike moodiness with a darkly funny skewering of the real Chilean dictator at the heart of its story. Anyone going into this expecting traditional humour will be sorely disappointed. This is a dry and melancholic account of a fascist dictator who refuses to let go of life. The satirical elements are employed to ridicule his life and the stain he left on his country’s history. That’s not to say this movie won’t make you laugh, because I did find myself chuckling a number of times. It’s just that garnering a laugh is not the film’s primary focus.   The striking, colourless monochromatic palette creates a rich atmosphere tha...

With a title as sappy as it’s subject matter, Love at   First Sight should not work as well as it does. My inner rom-com cynic is having an existential crisis right now, because despite my icy demeanour going into the movie, it kind of won me over.  This isn’t your standard rom-com, despite playing into several familiar trappings of the genre. There’s a bit of comedy here and there, but this is more of a straight-up romance than anything else, wearing its heart proudly on its sleeve. It’s cheesier than a bag of Cheetos, but it’s effective in telling a love story built around chance, fate and statistics.  Haley Lu Richardson and Ben Hardy are entirely charming together, but despite this being a story of new romance, the movie is at its best when looking at them as individuals. They’re both young, naive and hesitant to adapt to major changes life has thrown their way. The movie explores their relationships with their parents, and even when the romantic components feel trite...

  The way stars are made in Hollywood now has changed drastically. Some actors come up from television series or independent film brings fame. Some actors have been around for a while but have never gotten the recognition they deserve. In Richard Linklater’s   Hit Man,  Glen Powell takes on many roles and shows his range as an actor. Powell has been a supporting actor in films and television series and has always stood out. He has this movie star charm, and he effortlessly draws you in. The film follows Gary Johnson (Powell), a staff investigator who plays the role of a hitman to catch individuals ordering a hit. The premise is simple, but Linklater has fun with this character to make this one of the best comedies of the year.  Linklater wastes no time in getting to know Gary Johnson. As the film starts, the audience is taken by Powell instantly because he narrates what Johnson does for a living. He is a professor during the week, and to make some extra money, he wor...

  Fair Play is a pressure cooker in movie form. It continuously builds tension with little to no relief, raising the stakes with every passing moment. A razor sharp screenplay brought to life through two excellent performances makes for an edge-of-your-seat thriller you don’t want to miss.  This is the debut feature of Director Chloe Domont, who also penned the script. It’s clear from the get-go that she’s got a strong understanding of gender politics in a cutthroat business environment, and how power dynamics can consume a fragile mind. The movie is billed as an erotic thriller, and while sexuality does play an important role, that spark is quickly extinguished. It’s painful watching a relationship filled with passion and physical desire decay into one filled with jealousy and contempt, but it’s one hell of a ride.  Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich compliment and contrast each other really well. It’s easy to believe their romantic and carnal chemistry when we’re first...

  A home invasion thriller with a major emphasis on the invasion, No One Will Save you provides good old fashioned extra-terrestrial thrills. No filler or fluff to be found here, just a girl trying not to get abducted or killed by aliens invading her house.  This is like Signs meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with a dash of A Quiet Place. It’s lean and functional, with minimal setup before getting right to the main event. Some may say it’s too simplistic, but if you’re looking for a concise little sci-fi thrill ride, this delivers exactly that. It gets weirder and wilder as it goes on, which ultimately means it gets better the further in you get. There were a handful of times I thought the movie was about to end, but to my (pleasant) surprise, it carried on in unexpected new directions.  There’s virtually no dialogue throughout the movie, placing emphasis on sound design and visual thrills. The alien design in particular is appropriately chilling, especially in the w...

  No One Will Save You is the sleeper hit of the summer.  This genre mashup film is so unique and will have you hooked within minutes.  A woman named Brynn lives alone on a farm and does not seem to have any friends or want to even talk to anyone in town. Everything seems fairly normal but things take a dark turn when her house gets invaded by aliens. The film wastes absolutely no time getting right into the suspense and the quickly paced movie makes you question how far the events in the film will go.  The film is short for a sci-fi film but that is because there is so much focus on the encounter and other than sound effects and noise, the film is silent. That does not mean, nothing happens but in fact, we get to know so much about Brynn and her story without the use of any dialogue or conversations. This is all due to Kaitlyn Dever's performance as Brynn that keeps you completely locked the whole time. Her performance is so emotionall...

  Fitting In  is a coming of age film for a new generation that deals with reproductive issues and gender identity. Following up from her breakout debut,  Mary Goes Round , Molly McGlynn crafted this semi- autobiographical story about a 16 year old, Lindy (Maddie Ziegler) who discovers she has a rare reproductive issue named  Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster- Hauser syndrome, which means she doesn’t have a uterus or cervix and has a shortened vaginal canal.  Faced with this new health issue, Lindy's world is flipped upside down as she must grapple with her new reality that will not allow her to have sex for the foreseeable future. This new realization puts every relationship she has in a spiral as she struggles to balance relationships, school, and extracurriculars. All of her friends are dealing with regular high schooler drama and she constantly has to deal with her own issues and daily routines and exams if she ever wants to "fix" her issue. ...

  The Holdovers is the cinematic equivalent of a big warm hug from someone you love. It’s cozy, sentimental, nostalgic and effortlessly endearing. Alexander Payne has not only given us one of the best films of 2023, but arguably the best of his career.  Paul Giamatti plays Professor Hunham - a curmudgeonly teacher at a New England boarding school, tasked with watching over a small group of students with nowhere to go during Christmas break. Through their time together, character dynamics shift and a few unlikely bonds are formed. It’s ultimately a story about an unconventional, seemingly incompatible “family”, and the surprising impact they have on each other’s lives.  Giamatti is exceptional as the tragically misunderstood professor with a very prickly demeanour. The students hate him, understandably, but through Giamatti’s performance you can tell this character hasn’t had the easiest life. In fact, the same can be said of the others as well. All of them come with emoti...

Very few films have been able to properly educate viewers about living with autism but Tony Spiridakis' own experience co-parenting a child with autism, allowed him to properly communicate the struggles. He went on a nationwide search for a boy that best fit Ezra and he nailed it with William Fitzgerald.  Former late-night turned stand-up comedian, Max Brandal (Bobby Cannavale) gets his stand-up "mojo" from his son, Ezra (William Fitzgerald). Max Co-parents with ex-wife Jenna (Rose Byrne) but that does not mean they agree on how to properly care for their son and his autism. One evening, Ezra gets himself in harm's way and that causes Max and Jenna to discuss possible resolutions to the dramatic situation. Max has an impulsive tendency to defend Ezra from any opinion he does not agree with that eventually gets him into trouble as well. In his own twisted way, he thought the best way to defend Ezra from all of the drama was to remove him from the equation and take him ...

  Dream Scenario takes a seemingly simple concept and runs with it, taking it to thought provoking and unexpected depths. It’s a nightmarish and utterly hilarious venture into collective dream-space, serving as a biting cautionary tale surrounding fame and cancel culture.  In reality, celebrities are “canceled” as a result of their own actions or words. I won’t go into whether or not it’s always justified, but there’s always a catalyst that leads to the collapse of their stardom. What if you had no control over the catalyst, though? What if the catalyst was never real in the first place? The premise of one man constantly appearing in thousands of people’s dreams might sound funny, but the implications and fallout are actually quite frightening.  Dream Scenario walks a fine line between absurdist comedy and horror, keeping both in equal balance throughout. It’s one of the funniest films I’ve seen all year, but behind the laughter I felt a constant unease, watching this man...

  Taking place in 1979 in the height of the Iranian hostage crisis and a Post-Vietnam America, Babak finds out the hard way what Americans think of him and Iranians as he attempts to approach his girlfriend's parents to discuss marriage. In order to make this happen, he changes both his name and appearance in order to be liked and to try to assimilate in American society.   Babak is balancing being alone in a new country that does not want any association with him and having to deal with being away from his mother and family. He is also trying to stand proud with his Iranian people in America through forms of protest against the hostage crisis. He is torn between these two lives as he is desperately trying to fight for his people. Motherland was a first for me, the first time I have ever held back tears in a short film thanks to  the tough dialogue by Jasmin Mozaffari and the incredible acting by Behtash Fazlali who played Babak. His conversation with ...

Next Goal Wins tells the story of the American Samoa National Soccer Team and their attempt to attain their goal of moving up just 1 spot in the fifa ranking from absolute dead last in the global ranking. The last time American Samoa played in an International game against Australia, they suffered the largest defeat in international soccer history with a whopping 31-0.  With the bar already to the floor, the organization decided they want to approach things differently for the upcoming qualifier and hire an off island coach for the very first time. Michael Fassbender plays Coach Thomas Rongen; the cast away coach of soccer whose only opportunity left is to coach the team that nobody wants. Coach Rongen is at the end of his career and desperately needs a win but his short temper and personal conflicts get in the way of his growth and everyone else's.  The people of American Samoa are a proud and hardworking people and Taika does a great job of represent...

 Perspective is everything, but it rarely shows you a picture in its entirety. Observing something from a singular point of view will only ever give you a two dimensional perspective. Monster beautifully showcases the importance of looking at a story from every angle, because not everything is as it seems upon first glance.  Director Hirokazu Kore-Eda and writer Yûji Sakamoto have crafted a brilliant story of clashing perspectives. Following a series of events seen through the eyes of three characters, this film unfolds in layered stages. The brilliance comes from how we as an audience perceive the narrative, depending on which point of view we’re watching from. These three chapters are meticulously designed to put you in each character’s frame of mind. It’s impossible to see the bigger picture in its entirely until the final moments.  This constantly changes the way you look at everything that’s passed, whether it’s a seemingly insignificant line of dialogue, or a charac...