September 13, 2009: The Loved Ones I’ve long made a habit of seeing one of the Midnight Madness shows at the Toronto International Film Festival. These tend to be quirky or otherwise out-of-the-mainstream films, often with a youth focus since that’s the demographic most likely to see a movie (they run every night through the […]
September 6, 2009: Moonlight Mile I was particularly struck by Moonlight Mile when I saw it in the theatre in 2002. Jake Gyllenhaal was in the middle of a burst of widely varied and strong but quirky parts, Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon found meaty roles which allowed them to act their ages, and relative […]
September 6, 2009: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story I can’t believe that Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is 5 years old now. Looking back, it precedes the bulk of the Judd Apatow comedy craziness of the past several years but proves itself a solid example in a genre which was just beginning to reinvent itself […]
September 6, 2009: A History of Violence A History of Violence (2005) was the first of a one-two punch along with Eastern Promises (2007), which brought David Cronenberg back into the spotlight and redefined him as a commercially viable director whose films provide rich roles for actors. As sort of a Canadian version of David […]
August 30, 2009: Gremlins Gremlins (1984) was another in the stream of 1980s movies for which I’ve braced myself when revisiting, because some of them really hold up and are timeless, and others clearly don’t rise above their era. Gremlins, for me, is one of the latter. Gremlins, for those who aren’t familiar, is a […]
August 26, 2009: Inglourious Basterds I find it a bit hard to believe that after over 100 movie reviews, not only have I not watched any Quentin Tarantino movies, I haven’t in fact even mentioned him! This bad-boy post-modern auteur extraordinaire, who has killer geek cred to boot, triggered a shakeup in popular moviemaking through […]
August 26, 2009: Funny People The faithful Half-Assed Movie Reviews reader bears with me through a lot of “reviews” of crude modern comedies, which has inevitably involved plenty of talk of Judd Apatow and his influence, but I try to keep that discussion brief for the sake of the sanity of the readers. Every couple […]
August 22, 2009: Because I Said So Continuing the string of movies presented to us one evening on a long ferry ride which had begun with Coraline for the kids and The World’s Fastest Indian for the family, I guess someone figured that Because I Said So would be suitable for grownups in the 10pm […]
August 22, 2009: The World’s Fastest Indian I had never bothered to see The World’s Fastest Indian when it was released in 2005. I saw the previews a number of times, and they didn’t draw me in. I guess I knew it was about an old guy trying to set a speed record with an […]
July 22, 2009: Swing Vote I was intrigued by the idea of Swing Vote when I saw previews, but it certainly didn’t seem like anything requiring me to rush out to the theatre. Sure enough, the concept plays out in a thoughtful way and lots of territory is explored or at least acknowledged, though in […]