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A grieving woman uses a time-bending machine to return her dead husband in Aporia. Sophie (Judy Greer) is having trouble returning to everyday life after her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) is killed by a drunk driver, which includes an estranged relationship with their teenage daughter Riley (Faithe Herman). However, Sophie learns from Mal’s physicist best…
Two neighbours decide to make a documentary about the paranormal events happening in their apartment building in Something in the Dirt. Levi Danube (Justin Benson) moves into a Los Angeles apartment block as a temporary crash pad before he leaves the city. He quickly meets his divorced neighbour John Daniels (Aaron Moorhead), who helps Levi…
A fictionalized version of the life of Marilyn Monroe is told in Blonde. As a child, Norma Jeane Mortenson was traumatized by the mental breakdown of her mother, Gladys Baker (Julianne Nicholson), leaving Norma to pine for the father she never knew. A decade later, Norma (Ana de Armas) is on the rise as blonde…
Two brothers hijack an ambulance after a bank heist goes awry in Ambulance. William James Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a military veteran, who is desperate for money to pay for cancer surgery for his wife Amy (Moses Ingram). Desperate, Will goes to his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) for help and ends up being…
A teenager becomes enamoured with an older woman during the summer of 1973 in Licorice Pizza. While in line for school photos 15-year-old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) strikes up a conversation with 25-year-old photography assistant Alana Kane (Alana Haim). Despite their ten-year age difference, Gary ends up asking Alana out and the two begin a…
Warning: This Review Will Contain Some Spoilers The torrid love affair between a comedian and opera singer leads to the birth of a very gifted child in Annette. Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) is a highly provocative stand-up comedian who is in a high-profile relationship with rising opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard). The couple quickly gets…
A man has to care for his deeply cruel and homophobic dementia-suffering father in Falling. John Peterson (Viggo Mortensen) is a gay man, who brings his father Willis (Lance Henriksen), who is suffering from the early signs of dementia, to John’s home in California with his husband Eric (Terry Chen) and daughter Monica (Gabby Velis)….
The events that lead to the writing of the screenplay for Citizen Kane are dramatized in Mank. Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) is a washed-up, alcoholic screenwriter who is hired in 1940 by RKO to write a screenplay for Orson Welles (Tom Burke). Put up in a secluded house while recovering from a broken leg,…
The daughter of a pair of grifters finds her world turned upside down after the arrival of a new accomplice in Kajillionaire. Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) is a socially awkward 26-year-old woman, whose only real lessons from her parents Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger) was how to swindle, scam, and steal at…
Hot Docs at Home is a Selection of Films from the Postponed 2020 Edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival That Will Air Thursdays in April and May on CBC, Documentary Channel, and CBC Gem The rise and fall of one of the world’s biggest public relations agencies are told in Influence. Bell Pottinger…
The divorce of a young couple becomes increasingly less amicable in Marriage Story. After a decade of marriage, actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and theatre director Charlie (Adam Driver) have decided to split up. Cast in a new TV role, Nicole travels with her son Henry (Azhy Robertson) home to Los Angeles, staying with her mother…
Quentin Tarantino brings us back to 1969 Los Angeles in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. In February 1969, fading 1950s television star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is struggling to find work for himself and his stuntman best friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), other than the various villain of the week roles on TV pilots….
The fantastical life and career of Elton John are told in Rocketman. As a child, Reginald Dwight (Taron Egerton) gained an interest in playing music, which was supported by his grandmother Ivy (Gemma Jones), tolerated by his apathetic mother Sheila (Bryce Dallas Howard), and all but ignored by his unloving father Stanley (Steven Mackintosh). As…
A high end Los Angeles art gallery exhibits works of art that turn out to be haunted by a vengeful spirit in Velvet Buzzsaw. Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) is a former punk rocker, who now runs one of the most high end art galleries in Los Angeles, with her always respecting the opinion of art critic…
The best goddamn cop on the force has to deal with an infestation of vampire tramps in Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires. Chuck Steel (Mike Mort) is a jacked up action hero cop, who knows what it takes to clean up the streets of L.A. While investigating a series of murders, Steel encounters an old…
A slacker goes to great lengths to find out what happened to his neighbour in Under the Silver Lake. Sam (Andrew Garfield) is directionless man in his mid-30s, whose daily routine involves playing retro video games and spying on his neighbours. It is during one of these spying sections that Sam sees Sarah (Riley Keough), a mysterious…
Bank robbers take refuge in a top secret hospital for criminals in Hotel Artemis. It is June 21, 2028 and Los Angeles is in the midst of the worst riots in its history. After a botched bank robbery, Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) and his brother (Brian Tyree Henry) are injured by gunshots and go for…
An aspiring actress and a jazz pianist fall in love in the Hollywood Hills in La La Land. Mia (Emma Stone) is a barista on a Hollywood movie lot, who hopes to one day achieve her dreams of being an actress. One day, Mia meets Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a gifted pianist, who one day wants to open…
The review was originally published as part of my coverage of TIFF 2015 A groom gets possessed during his wedding day in Demon. Peter (Itay Tiran) is preparing to marry his fiance Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska) at her family’s country home in Poland. The night before the wedding, Peter finds skeletal remains on the property, after which he…
A young model finds herself the envy of the fashion industry in The Neon Demon. Jesse (Elle Fanning) is a sixteen year old woman, who has just moved to Los Angeles with the hopes of starting a modeling career. At her first shoot, photographed by new acquaintance Dean (Karl Glusman), Jesse meets make-up artist Ruby (Jena…
A private investigator and enforcer reluctantly team up to locate a missing woman in The Nice Guys. Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a private investigator in 1977 Los Angeles, who is currently looking for a missing girl named Amelia Kutner (Margaret Qualley). However, Amelia doesn’t want to be found and hires Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) to tell…
A groom gets possessed during his wedding day in Demon. Peter (Itay Tiran) is preparing to marry his fiance Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska) at her family’s country home in Poland. The night before the wedding, Peter finds skeletal remains on the property, after which he begins acting strangely during the wedding reception. It quickly becomes apparent that…
A woman becomes violently obsessed over her roommate in Excess Flesh. Jill (Bethany Orr) is a somewhat overweight and introverted person, who lives with her anorexic model roommate Jennifer (Mary Loveless). Jill is unemployed and quietly pines for a man named Rob (Wes McGee), while Jennifer parties it up and has constant one night stands….
Paul Thomas Anderson returns with this adaptation of the novel by Thomas Pynchon. Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is a private investigator, who is visited by his old flame Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), who wants help involving her missing boyfriend Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts). Doc’s investigation results in him crossing paths with Lt. Det….
The End of Time is not an easy film to describe. The best way to put it is that the film is a somewhat experimental documentary about time and how different people from around the world conceive of it. The film is a mix of philosophical narration, interviews, and nature shots. In fact the nature…
Jim Carrey has had a very interesting career, which I essentially grew up to (Ace Venture: Pet Detective came out when I was 11). You had this guy, who was relatively unknown, except for being “the white guy” on In Living Color. Suddenly he appears in three hit comedies in 1994, is cast as The…
It’s time once again for my monthly look at independent film. This month, I went to see the Irish film Once. This film can be classified as a romantic musical. However, unlike most musicals, where singing starts for no apparent reason, this is a more realistic type of musical. The romantic part of the film…
