Jungle Cruise review — Ersatz adventure gets lost down the river

July 27, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra | Written by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, Josh Goldstein, Michael Green, and John Norville | 128 min | In Cinemas and on Disney Plus with Premier Access on July 30 Almost 20 years ago, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's first starring role in a feature was a picture called The Scorpion King,…Read More

Old review — Shyamalan goes back to The Village

July 22, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan | Written by Shyamalan, based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters | 108 min | In Cinemas If you've seen the trailer, you know the premise: A group of people vacationing at an exclusive resort on a tropical island head to a remote beach for…Read More

Beans review — Powerful real-life tale a must-see for Canadian audiences

July 22, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Tracy Deer | Written by Deer and Meredith Vuchnich | 92 min | In Cinemas For those who don't know, or don't remember, the eyes of Canadians in the summer of 1990 were on the Oka Crisis, otherwise known as The Kanesatake Resistance. In the history of settler and indigenous relations, it was…Read More

Gunpowder Milkshake review — Feminist, uber-violent actioner a whole lot of fun

July 20, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Navot Papushado | Written by Papushado and Ehud Lavski | 114 min | Netflix "There's a group of men called The Firm. When they need someone to clean up a mess, they send me." That's how this stylish, candy-neon actioner starts, right in the head of Sam (Karen Gillan), an assassin living in…Read More

Boss Level review — Groundhog Day as a video-game actioner

July 16, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Joe Carnahan | Written by Carnahan, Chris Borey, and Eddie Borey | 94 min | Amazon Prime When we meet Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo), he's already died and been revived more than 140 times. He's been decapitated, crushed, and knocked into a bus. He's deep into this time loop scenario, so familiar from…Read More

No Sudden Move review — Soderbergh returns to comfort zone with Motor City crime picture

July 13, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Steven Soderbergh | Written by Ed Solomon | 115 min | Crave Detroit, 1954. Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle) gets offered a job fresh out of prison, the kind work that involves heaters and a wad of cash for three hours of his time. He meets up with Ronald Russo (Benicio Del Toro) and…Read More

Dead Pigs review — Cathy Yan’s pre-Birds Of Prey movie shows how she got the superhero gig

July 12, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Cathy Yan | 122 min | On Demand/Mubi A deliberate drama of overlapping character arcs that serves to reveal a harder sign of life in urban China than we often get to see. It's got Altman in its DNA, but Dead Pigs is a 21st Century flick, deeply critical of late…Read More

A Second Screening of Black Widow

July 9, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Cate Shortland | Written by Jac Schaeffer, Ned Benson, and Eric Pearson | 133 min | In Cinemas and on Disney Plus (with Premier Access) My first look at the new Marvel Studios picture Black Widow came from a screener I kindly received from those Disney folks. Tonight, seeing it for a second…Read More

A Cult Of One: 84 Charing Cross Road

July 8, 2021 flawintheiris

This is an intermittent feature on FITI where I highlight an older film that doesn’t get much love but I believe is worth discovering… or rediscovering. 1987 | Directed by David Hugh Jones | Written by Hugh Whitemore, adapting the play by James Roose-Evans and the book by Helene Hanff | 100 min | Netflix…Read More

Bone Cage review — Gritty homegrown drama explores masculinity, relationship with nature

July 7, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Taylor Olson | Written by Olson, from a play by Catherine Banks | 89 min | On Demand A version of this review appeared during my coverage of the 2020 FIN Atlantic Film Festival. Full disclosure: I saw a rough cut of the film before picture lock, and offered my notes on it…Read More