Category Archives: Drama

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

#AIFF2017 Preview + CTV + The Coast!

September 14, 2017 flawintheiris

September is here, and so is the AFF, or FIN, or AIFF. Whatever you call it, the local film festival is a bonanza for the Haligonian film lover, a chance to see local, Canadian, and international features and shorts, many of which won't ever find their way to a big screen near you. Last weekend…Read More

The Glass Castle review — Moving, messy family drama

August 14, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton | Written by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, based on a book by Jeannette Walls | 127 min From the writer-director and star of Short Term 12 comes an entirely different beast, a family melodrama based on a true story: 1980s New York gossip columnist Jeannette Walls (Brie Larson) is engaged to…Read More

Landline review — Lots of laughs despite familiar tropes

August 11, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Gillian Robespierre | Written by Robespierre, Elisabeth Holm, and Tom Bean | 97 min An unexpected and charming dramedy about a family dealing with intergenerational angst, sex and infidelity. It's set in an interesting liminal age, the mid-'90s, that pre-millennial period before cell phones, just as home computers were beginning to change our…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

Megan Leavey review — Only dog lovers need attend

June 9, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite | Written by Pamela Gray, Annie Mumolo, and Tim Lovestedt | 116 min Megan Leavey is based on the true story of a US Marine and her bomb sniffing German Shepherd, both of whom were deployed to Iraq. In the documentary Blackfish Cowperthwaite awoke the world to marine parks' cruelty to cetaceans, so it…Read More

12 Films To Get Excited About: Summer 2017 (aka the Anti-Blockbuster Blues)

May 15, 2017 flawintheiris

Usually I do a summer preview between now and mid-June—I did in 2015, and in 2014, but last year I couldn't find my thrill for the summer, so just did a post-mortem around labour day. With analysts expecting the Hollywood blockbuster season to be a total dud, thanks mostly to franchise fatigue—did anyone ask for fifth…Read More

The Circle review — Black Mirror for Dummies

May 3, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by James Ponsoldt | Written by Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers, from Eggers' novel | 110 min Mae (Emma Watson) is an American Girl living somewhere in America... probably California. She drives a crappy car, has a crappy job, but a cute boy, Mercer (Ellar Coltrane, of Boyhood), who builds deer antler chandeliers in his…Read More

Colossal review — The sleep of sobriety produces monsters

April 26, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo | 109 min It may not make you feel as awkward or uncomfortable as, say, The Lobster or Swiss Army Man, two of 2016's most singular features—delightful in at least their resistance to easy categorization—but Colossal is the first of this year's indie films to reach for righteous individuality, and deserves to…Read More