1st Reviews

  In the words of Christopher Nolan’s great superhero epic  The Dark Knight , all great franchises can either go out a hero, or live long enough to see themselves become the villain. Too many great franchises that haven’t concluded on their own terms find themselves in the latter trap, running out of steam because they went on too long for the simple reason of trying to make more money. A project that may have been doomed from the start after the departure of franchise leads Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega,  Scream 7  feels almost like an apology for the freshness of  Scream VI , trading everything that made that film exciting for more of the same that we’ve seen done several times, over and over again.  We’ve seen the series return to Sidney Prescott years later in  Scream 4  and the fifth  Scream , which also finally allowed the big three of Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, and David Aqruette to give up center stage to new leads. At this point...

  [Everyone liked that] Amazon’s faithful, crowd pleasing adaptation of Bethesda’s hit game series has emerged from the vault for its sophomore season. Fallout players rejoice, this batch of episodes solidifies the show as one of the greatest video game adaptations of all time. Casual viewers might be left stranded in the wasteland trying to keep up, though.  This is a show made for the fans, but it’s still such a fun watch for franchise newcomers as well. It captures the quirky tone and adventurous spirit of the games perfectly, while still grounding itself in seriousness when needed. This season takes us to New Vegas, and just like in season one, we get stories set in the present wasteland, and before the bombs were dropped. In fact, there’s A LOT happening all at once this time around - Lucy and the Ghoul, Maximus and Brotherhood of Steel, Robert House’s sinister dealings in Vegas, The Legion, The Vault Dwellers trying to escape captivity… it’s perhaps a little much for jus...

  Passion, envy, and tension flies in the air in this fresh adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel proves Emerald Fennell as one of this generation’s finest filmmakers. The cinematography and score are especially what take the story to a whole other plane, with stunning backdrops and a transfixing score and soundtrack casting a spell on you. Charli XCX’s original songs enhance and transform some moments in the film, and leave you maybe even wanting more of them. Margot Robbie is splendid as Catherine Earnshaw, who finds her conflicted in her sense of self, including lust, love, and wealth, in a star-crossed romance with Heathcliffe, brought to life with a quiet yet thundering longing from Jacob Elordi. Hong Chau is also a huge standout as perhaps the most moral character in the film, as is Alison Oliver who takes her role to many surprising places. It’s truly Fennell’s vision that elevates this story that’s been told over several installments, but the beauty in many emotional s...

  Faithful adaptations be damned! Emerald Fennell has taken creative liberty to a new level with her audacious take on Emily Bronté’s acclaimed novel. Wuthering Heights strips away most of the source material’s thematic richness, and dials the lust up to eleven. Hollow as it may be, this movie smoulders with intensity and passion at surface level, which is, dare I say, intoxicating. I’d Imagine Emily Brontë is rolling in her grave right now with the way her source material has been treated. I’m not even familiar with the novel and I could tell where its intelligence had been castrated for this version. The leads have been aged up but still behave as teenagers. The major themes surrounding race and classism have been stripped away almost entirely. There are changes that seem to have been made purely to evoke shock from the audience. This isn’t an intelligent film in the slightest, but instead one that hinges on your ability to ride its emotional wavelength. It took me a while to get...

  It’s both the title of Gore Verbinski’s latest film as well as advice for anyone brave enough to endure this uninspired satire.  On paper, the premise for this sci-fi / comedy sounds like it could be a fun, mind-bending adventure in the vein of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Lord knows we’re in desperate need of more original genre movies these days. In fact, the first few minutes of this movie are bold and intriguing, filled with cool camerawork that hints at something that has the potential to be mind-glowingly amazing. However, “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” squanders any good will it has just seven minutes into this 138 minute movie. It’s at that point when the movie’s overall theme, the source of where its staggering amount of satirical humour comes from, is exhaustingly repeated over and over again with all the subtlety of a firework exploding in your face. Screenwriter Matthew Robinson wastes no time in establishing the through line of this movie which can sim...

  Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a boldly original science fiction adventure, bound to be one of the most unique movies you’ll see this year. It’s wonderfully strange, often beautifully shot and filled with strong performances by its impressive ensemble. So, how does such an inspired movie with so much working in its favour manage to feel so uninspired in everything it’s trying to say? We’re in the thick of AI and anti-AI content right now, and we’ve seen plenty of stories that tackle this ultra-relevant subject matter. This movie puts a quirky, time travelling spin on the dangers of AI, with pointed satire to drive its message home without question. The problem is, everything that’s being said here, we’ve seen and heard a thousand times before. It’s an important topic in today’s world, but this horse has just about been beaten to death. Don’t get me wrong - this movie has a lot of fun with how its commentary is laid out, but it can’t quite compensate for the recycled “AI is ba...

  It’s been a long time coming, but Sam Raimi has finally exhumed his distinctly gnarly, wildly energetic horror career. Not only is Send Help a welcome return to form for the director, but it continues to help shake January’s long-standing reputation as a “horror dumping ground”.  Think Castaway, but instead of a FedEx employee and a Volleyball, you’ve got an extreme narcissist and a borderline psychopath. Throw in Raimi’s unmistakeable filmmaking style and you get a wildly entertaining movie that seamlessly pairs survival horror with side-splitting comedy. Raimi may not have penned the script, but his directorial DNA is all over the film. Uncomfortable close ups, ridiculously goofy gore, and a few well-placed jump scares bring a welcome horror edge to what might’ve been a more standard thriller in other hands.  There’s a small supporting cast in the first act, but once we reach the island, this becomes the Dylan O’Brien and Rachel McAdams show. The commitment they bring...

  Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien are employee and conceited millionaire boss who are forced to survive together after a plane crash leaves them stranded on an island. Sam Raimi embraces his horror/thriller roots with humor more clever than his past entries, and an exciting structure that pulls out another surprise every time you think the concept is about to wear out. McAdams is always such a delight in any role she graces, but this may be one of her best performances — a woman whose lack of validation from others in her life turns into the ability to make horrific decisions. O’Brien is delightfully awful yet there’s a pity to the way he is unable to carry himself like a mature, generous human being. The CGI has a few distractingly bad moments, but that also contributes to the film’s silliness that it finds within the dark situations it finds, and then escalates. It’s a survival thriller that’s not a full on comedy, or a full on horror film, but has a bit of it all. The more the ...

  Last summer, I watched what I believed to be one of the best films to come out of the year 2023. In her directorial debut, Korean-Canadian playwright, Celine Song captures an interesting perspective on how love and identity can transform over the course of a person’s life. Past Lives , follows a young Korean playwright – based loosely off Song herself – as she is confronted with having to choose between a love from her past and the love from her present, and asks audiences to consider the forms in which love shapes, breaks, and re-shapes us back into the people we have become and will continue to become as we grow old.  The film’s plot is grounded by one evocative question: does the love sparked within a past version of who we once were exist long enough within us to be re-ignited? Past Lives does well to answer this question through the concept of In-Yun , an ancient Buddhist concept which states that interactions between two people throughout their current lives are rewar...