From The Vault: Extreme Measures (1996) review

April 27, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Michael Apted | Written by Tony Gilroy, adapting a book by Michael Palmer | 118 min | ▲▲▲ | Hoopla, VOD This none-more-'90s thriller starts with Hugh Grant fully in his floppy-hair phase as an emergency room doctor in New York City on a very busy night. Grant's Dr Guy Luthan seems a…Read More

Cheech and Chong’s Last Movie review — Dave’s here, man

April 25, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by David Bushell | 120 min | ▲▲▲ Driven by nostalgia, this documentary will be a welcome trip back in time for fans of the famously stoned comedians whose career reached its peak in the 1970s with a series of records, wildly successful stand-up tours, and box-office hit movies like Up In Smoke. It…Read More

The Shrouds review — Portals to the grave, and other good times

April 24, 2025 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by David Cronenberg | 119 min | ▲▲▲▲ | VOD An earlier version of this review appeared on FITI in September 2024 during coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival. David Cronenberg isn't the only legendary filmmaker in his 80s still making interesting, relevant films, or at the very least taking big…Read More

On Swift Horses review — Queer melodrama loses by a nose

April 24, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Daniel Minahan | Written by Bryce Kass, adapting the book by Shannon Pufahl | 117 min | ▲▲1/2 | Crave This is a deeply romantic drama, one that prefers mystique to grit. Its performers are all fetching, and an elegance in the cinematography makes sure to show them at their most appealing. It…Read More

Sinners review — Southern Gothic and the Blues

April 21, 2025 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Ryan Coogler | 137 min | ▲▲▲1/2 | VOD Ryan Coogler has proved himself a major Hollywood talent from his indie beginning telling a story based on actual events on Fruitvale Station. Then Creed, a clinic on how to revive and spin off a legacy intellectual property. Black Panther was his…Read More

From The Vault: The Holcroft Covenant (1985) review

April 21, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by John Frankenheimer | Written by George Axelrod, Edward Anhalt, and John Hopkins, based on the Robert Ludlum novel | 112 min | ▲▲ | Prime I've seen a lot of the movies Michael Caine made in the 1980s where, famously, he said yes to everything. Jaws 4: The Revenge, for example, in 1987.…Read More

The Ballad of Wallis Island review — Sweet, but slightly out of tune

April 20, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by James Griffiths | Written by Tom Basden and Tim Key | 99 min | ▲▲1/2 Basden and Key are British comedy writers who've been developing this material for years, adapting their own short film going back to 2007. The years of chemistry is clear in their performances, which aids this modest, if predictable…Read More

Warfare review — Bullets, blood, and dust

April 19, 2025 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland | 95 min | ▲▲ As I understand it, Ray Mendoza is an American veteran of the Iraq War. On Alex Garland's Civil War, Mendoza was a consultant for the militaristic action sequences. He shared with Garland the story of how in 2006 he and his…Read More

The Wedding Banquet (2025) review — Remake finds new storytelling paths

April 17, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by Andrew Ahn | Written by Ahn and James Schamus, based on the script by Schamus, Ang Lee, and Neil Peng | 102 min | ▲▲▲ 1/2 | Crave The original Wedding Banquet was Ang Lee's second feature, but the first to get a release in North America. Weirdly, it's pretty much unavailable online…Read More

The Knox Office: The Friend and three other movies now in cinemas

April 14, 2025 flawintheiris

ICYMI, here's the link to my most recent Knox Office on CBC Information Morning, with reviews of four feature films in cinemas right now — The Luckiest Man In America, Freaky Tales, Sacramento, and The Friend — and previews of a bunch more, including The Amateur, which I've now seen. Click here to listen! Read More