There’s probably no one reading this review who isn’t aware of the recent passing of iconic American actor, musician, and singer Harry Dean Stanton (Cool Hand Luke, The Godfather Part II, Paris, Texas), who at 91-years-old, leaves us all with a fitting, lustrous, and touching adieu in John Carroll Lynch’s generously incidental comic drama of […]
Reviews
120 Beats per Minute – VIFF 2017 Review
A fast-moving flight of exuberance and ecstasy set amidst the backdrop of AIDS ravaged France of the 1990s, BPM (Beats per Minute) is the visually varied, intoxicating, romantically yearning, tragically uptempo, and entirely deserving Grand Prix recipient at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Robin Campillo, who also co-wrote the film along with Philippe […]
Dead Shack – VIFF 2017 Review
Director and co-writer Peter Ricq (alongside Phil Ivanusic and Davila LeBlanc) have constructed the sort of depraved little B-movie that’s ideal for late night showings designed primarily towards forgivable genre fans who crave considerably splatter, the odd quotable quip (my fave was probably “I think that if the blood’s black, there’s no going back!”), a […]
Bitch – VIFF 2017 Review
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” imparts desperate housewife Jill (Marianna Palka, who also wrote and directed the film) to her perpetually distracted and utterly assholish husband, Bill (Jason Ritter), in an early scene in the biting new comic drama, Bitch. Palka takes pains and considerable risks with this often confrontational piss-take on the patriarchy, […]
Entanglement – VIFF 2017 Review
Were it not for a charismatic turn from Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley, The Final Girls) and some striking visuals (many cribbed from the Michel Gondry playbook, mind you), there’d be almost nothing to recommend about Jason James’ latest foray into familiar romcom territory, the thorny, over-written, and painfully prosaic new film, Entanglement. Following up 2013’s […]
Never Steady, Never Still – VIFF 2017 Review
What at first feels like a small story of sentimental family struggles set amongst a northern BC backdrop (the film was shot in Fort St. James) gradually unspools with painterly precision into a naturalistic, sensual, and considerably-sized poetic canvas in Never Steady, Never Still, the assured directorial debut from Kathleen Hepburn. An instantly gripping film, […]