Category Archives: Comedy

Knives Out review — Playfully brilliant whodunit draws blood

November 27, 2019 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson | 130 min Bravo, Mr Johnson! The American auteur has shown he's a clever storyteller every time he's gone to bat: the teen noir Brick, the con-men hijinks of Brothers Bloom, the time travel twists in Looper, even the flawed-but-dynamic Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But here he's topped…Read More

Charlie’s Angels (2019) review — See it for the Stewarts

November 18, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Elizabeth Banks | Written by Banks, Evan Spiliotopoulos and David Auburn | 118 min A reboot no one asked for to a movie that wasn't so well received that last time out, the risible Charlie's Angel: Full Throttle from 2003. The prospect of a return to this material is sweetened by Elizabeth Banks,…Read More

Jojo Rabbit review — Biting anti-hate satire turns heartwarming

November 11, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Taika Waititi | Written by Waititi, adapting a novel by Christine Leunens | 108 min The 2019 TIFF Audience Award-winner has arrived in local cinemas, and I'm thrilled to report it's a lot better than last year's, Green Book, which unaccountably went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Jojo Rabbit is…Read More

Pain and Glory (Dolor y gloria) review — Almodóvar returns with movie memoir

November 7, 2019 flawintheiris

This film was expected to screen on Friday, November 8 at Halifax's independent screening series, Carbon Arc—two screenings with tickets sold for both. Without warning, it was pulled by the distributor, Mongrel Media, earlier this week and given to Cineplex. Carbon Arc has replaced it with an award-winning documentary about Syria, The Cave, Please go…Read More

Parasite (Gisaengchung) review — Class comedy will leave a mark

October 31, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Bong Joon Ho | Written by Bong Joon Ho and Han Jin Won | 132 min An earlier version of this review appeared on this blog back in September, when I caught this film at FIN Atlantic International Film Festival. It threw me for a bit of a loop—I wasn't entirely sure how…Read More

Zombieland: Double Tap review — Shambling, but not brain dead

October 24, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Reuben Fleischer | Written by Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, and Paul Wernick | 99 min Zombieland from 2009 was, for my money, an exquisite example of what some people call popcorn for the brain: entertaining while in the cinema, but a movie where the emotional, nutritional value is near zero. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg)…Read More

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot review — Snoochy disappointments

October 16, 2019 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Kevin Smith | 95 min The peak of the View Askew-niverse was 20 years ago—let that sink in for a second. In the American indie revolution of the '90s, New Jersey writer-director Kevin Smith was a peer of Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater. His movies were instrumental in making comic book…Read More

The Art Of Self-Defence review — The message of modern masculinity

October 9, 2019 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Riley Stearns | 104 mins "Never hold back. Not ever. It'll only make you weak, and you can't be weak anymore. Not in the night classes." This is the lesson Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) learns explicitly from the only woman in his karate dojo, Anna (Imogen Poots), and implicitly from his Sensei…Read More

Reviews from the Vault Vol. 10 — A few more very good movies

October 7, 2019 flawintheiris

From 2005 to 2009 I was a programmer on CKDU 88.1 FM in Halifax, every Sunday morning hosting The Love & Hate Movie Show. I talked about what I was seeing and revisited some of my favourite films of old, pretty much what I do now here on FITI. I still have a lot of…Read More

Carbon Arc Cinema: The Fall 2019 Season (Part One)

September 27, 2019 flawintheiris

A number of attendees at FIN Atlantic Film Festival recognized me in the halls of the Park Lane Cineplex last week, and it was largely because of my volunteer time at Carbon Arc Cinema, Siloën Daley's film series that runs through the fall and winter at the Museum of Natural History screening room on Summer…Read More