Category Archives: Indie

#AIFF2017 Day 2: The Child Remains, Mary Shelley, plus The Crescent

September 16, 2017 flawintheiris

The comfortably full Cinema 8 at Park Lane was the site of the gala premiere of Michael Melski's The Child Remains, his long-gestating supernatural thriller, on Friday evening. It was clearly an emotional event for the writer-director, and he had many kind things to say about his crew and cast. Unfortunately, we also had to put…Read More

Hunting Pignut review — Punky coming-of-age tale flies apart

September 14, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Martine Blue | 94 min One of the entries in the 2016 Atlantic Film Festival opens locally opposite the 2017 edition, but only out in Bayers Lake. Hunting Pignut is a scrappy Newfoundland drama about a teenager, Bernice (Taylor Hickson), from around the bay, estranged from her gutter punk father, who,…Read More

The Trip To Spain review — More culinary travels with caustic pals

September 4, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Michael Winterbottom | 108 min Interesting that the writing credits for these films—a UK TV series reedited for cinema release elsewhere—are a little vague. I think it speaks to how improvised they all are, and to the gifts of the two leads—Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon—playing exaggerated, ingrate versions of themselves. All of…Read More

Lady Macbeth review — Bawdier and bloodier than you think

August 31, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by William Oldroyd | Written by Alice Birch, based on the novel Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov | 89 min After a little delay, this interesting picture finally opens in Halifax on Friday, September 1. Katherine (Florence Pugh), a young woman, is married off—sold, really—to a wealthy man she barely knows. This…Read More

Ingrid Goes West review — Social media satire delivers laughs, cold sweats

August 26, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Matt Spicer | Written by Spicer and David Branson Smith | 97 min With this and The Little Hours, Aubrey Plaza has ascended to queen of the summer's American indies—producing and starring in both of these weird, wonderful pictures. We meet her Ingrid crashing the wedding of a supposed former BFF before pepper-spraying…Read More

A Ghost Story review — A melancholy slog

August 9, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by David Lowery | 92 min A Ghost Story is a feature with three or four ideas, one of which is good. It stretches what would have made a clever, perhaps even poignant short film to more than an hour and a half, forcing its audience to experience the eternal ennui of the…Read More

New On Canadian Netflix: June/July 2017

July 24, 2017 flawintheiris

Here are a cross-section of a number of mildly-to- solidly recommended films recently made available on Canadian Netflix. (You can click on the movie titles to read my original reviews where I’ve written them in the past.) *One note: In May I recommended Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, a film when I first saw it back…Read More

The Beguiled (2017 and 1971) review — Gothic western seduces across generations

July 4, 2017 flawintheiris

2017: Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, from the book by Thomas Cullinan and the 1971 screenplay by Albert Maltz and Irene Kamp | 93 min 1971: Directed by Don Siegel, written by Albert Maltz and Irene Kamp | 105 min I've not read the novel, but the two features adapted from this Civil War gothic…Read More

Baby Driver review — Wheelman can’t drive 55

June 30, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Edgar Wright | 113 min It feels like Brits want Edgar Wright to be their own personal Tarantino, the pop-culture obsessed filmmaker who will absorb all those Hollywood influences and create perfect, post-modern genre films for the 21st Century. He succeeded the first time out of the gate with Shaun Of The…Read More

The Bad Batch review — Post-Apunkalypse Now

June 27, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour | 118 min | On VOD Iranian-American auteur Amirpour's first feature was the dreamy, black-and-white vampire picture A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, shot in California with her actors all speaking Persian. It was a stylish statement of intent from a Jarmusch-esque filmmaker, and its follow-up—though in English…Read More