Major Theatrical
Do you like movies about sassy R&B girl groups who wear sequined dresses and power sing until their heads are about to explode? How about movies that paint a bleak tale of the entertainment industry, what with all the drugs and corruption and woman beating? If this all sounds good to you then you’re probably already familiar with movies like Lady Sings The Blues and Dreamgirls, not to mention the original TV-movie version of Sparkle (starring Irene “Flashdance” Cara no less) and are eagerly anticipating this latest installment in the “cautionary tale against being a woman in the music industry”...
You’d think a film based on a story written by Frank Zappa’s son (Ahmet) about a little boy with leaves on his legs who crawls out of the garden would be way creepier or fun than the resulting effort, The Odd Life of Timothy Green. But then, the film was produced by Disney Pictures so what might have been a dark, Tim Burton-esque fable has turned into a case of whimsy gone seriously wrong. Joel Edgerton (yum) and Jennifer Garner (yawn) play a childless couple named Cindy and Jim who’ve just found out that they’ve exhausted all of their options...
Hope Springs is about a middle-aged couple, played by Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, who are struggling with the intimacy, or lack thereof, in their marriage. Streep’s character, Kay, takes the initiative to sign them up for intensive couple’s counseling with renowned therapist, Dr. Feld, played by Steve Carell. And after thirty years of marriage, they have a lot to work out. The thing I like most about this film is that it centers around normal, everyday people with normal, everyday struggles. Their marriage isn’t suffering because of a huge tragedy, it is simply suffering because yes, marriage is...
The remake of Total Recall is a solid action movie, but suffers from the fact that you just want it to be so much better. Plot: Set in a dystopian future, a disease has rendered the world uninhabitable, except for what remains of Britain (The United Federation of Britain, or UFB) and Australia (The Colony). The educated and rich live in the UFB, while the underprivileged masses live in The Colony and outlying places of the UFB. Civil unrest between the two populations abounds. When regular-joe factory worker, Doug Quaid goes to Rekall to escape his mundane life, he discovers...
It’s an odd thing to find yourself comparing a movie in the Step Up franchise to a Ron Mann film but since it so happened that I watched both this week, I’m gonna go ahead and do it. Like Listen to the City, Mann’s lost Canadian gem about the different ways people come together to voice an opinion, Step Up Revolution, the fourth in the series, also has something to say about the act of protesting ““ in this case through the art of dance. The story is as trite as they come, underdogs from a rundown neighbourhood along the...
Christopher Nolan tries to wrap up the wildly successful Batman trilogy with lackluster, preachy results. Plot: It’s been eight years since the death of Harvey Dent and Batman hasn’t been seen since. Neither has Bruce Wayne. The combined emotional damage of the Joker murdering a loved one and Harvey Dent’s corruption, has made Wayne a recluse. When a new threat comes to Gotham, he is spurred into taking up the cowl once again, but will he have to sacrifice everything to save the city this time? Good Stuff: As always, Christopher Nolan and his immensely talented crew have created a...
After two Trailer Park Boys films and last year’s Afghan Luke, director Mike Clattenburg continues his comedy streak with Moving Day, a film about three hapless hosers who work for a moving company. A.J. (Gabriel Hogan) is the handsome, square-jawed van foreman who flirts with the female clients and takes regular swigs from a flask in his pocket. Cedric (Charles Q. Murphy) is a wiseass with an anger management problem. Clyde (Will Sasso) is a gentle bear of a man who dreams of one day getting one of those sweet jobs working for the City, but is too afraid to...
Three reviewers, one movie. What’s Toronto Film Scene to do? In keeping with TFS’ July theme, a ménage à trois is clearly in order. Oliver Stone’s latest film Savages opens in theatres today. A couple of days ago, Toronto Film Scene Editor-in-Chief Trista DeVries, Managing Editor Kristal Cooper and Writer Brandy Dean attended a press screening and sat down to discuss their sometimes wildly differing views on a film that centres around another ménage à trois, this time between beach bum marijuana mini-moguls Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson) and their shared paramour O (Blake Lively) for whom they...
It would be very easy to dismiss Magic Mike as some sort of frivolous exercise in exploitation and rippling movie star abs. Thankfully, this project landed in the hands of director Steven Soderbergh and evolved into a nifty little mixture of bawdy humour, creeping darkness and yes, those all important rippling movie star abs. The story centres on 30-year-old Mike (the suddenly ubiquitous Channing Tatum), a likable puppy dog of a guy who meets 19-year-old Adam (Alex Pettyfer) by chance and introduces him into the world of male stripping in Tampa,Florida. Mike is one of a team of performers (including...
When Sony announced a reboot of the Spider-Man franchise inside a 15-year period, they were met with considerable trepidation by fans of both the character and the original series. Tides turned with the release of the trailers, and now that the film’s opening is eminent, it’s a safe bet that The Amazing Spider-Man is one of the most anticipated films of the year. The film tells the now well-known story of Peter Parker, a teenager who lives with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. After he is bitten by a super-spider resulting in spider-like superpowers, he becomes a crime fighter...
Does your ideal movie cocktail include an equal mixture of boobs, blood and carnivorous fish? Then Piranha 3DD is just the movie you’ve been waiting for! At least since the last Piranha movie came out anyway Seriously though, there’s really not much else to say about this, the sequel to 2010′s rehashing of the 1978 Roger Corman spectacular. This time around, the angry (and apparently very hungry) prehistoric fish discover an even better feeding ground for nubile co-eds then spring break: a creepy adult-themed water park! Marine biology student Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) returns home for the summer and finds that...
Edgar Allan Poe is certainly an important figure in the world of literature. His work has inspired artists in numerous fields, but it’s the horror genre that has truly embraced him. With The Raven, director James McTeigue not only brings the work of Edgar Allan Poe to the screen, but pieces of his life as well. Fact and fiction are weaved together, giving us a tense and bloody film that Poe fans will enjoy. John Cusack plays Edgar Allan Poe, frequently drunk and struggling to survive as a writer. He’s also engaging in a secretive relationship with Emily Hamilton (Alice...
