Competing for the Cheval Noir Award at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Ricky Ko’s Out of the Shadow has all the right ingredients for a fun time at the movies: a coming-of-age tale for a teenaged protagonist who learns to trust herself through fighting, intricately staged and choreographed Karate battles, and religious symbolism that will guide the journey each protagonist will
Read MoreWith the Fantasia International Festival well underway, there are plenty of movies to still enjoy and appreciate in the Hall and J.A. de Sève auditoriums at Concordia University. A movie that sounded interesting on paper to me was Hiroshi Shoji’s Tatsumi, a mob drama that centers on its titular character (Yuya Endo) seeking revenge on the people who murdered his ex-girlfriend,
Read MoreBefore Shinji Araki’s Penalty Loop played in front of a sold-out crowd at the Fantasia International Film Festival, audiences were treated to the classic advertisement for Nongshim noodles not once but twice. At first, I didn’t grasp why this happened (although the real ones know the ad played an endless number of times in front of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy last year).
Read MoreThe first thing that usually jolts the first-time Fantasia International Film Festival visitors are the elusive meows that are heard in front of every screening after the head technician says, “Et maintenant…que le film commence!” (“And now… may the film begin!”). As he dims the lights of the Hall Auditorium, the audience begins to meow and sometimes make even weirder cat
Read MoreIt will be very hard to talk about Osgood Perkins‘ latest film, Longlegs, without revealing a single element from its story and characters. From my understanding (I don’t watch trailers when they drop online, only when they appear in front of movies I see in cinemas), the marketing has shrouded its story and Nicolas Cage‘s role in secrecy. It even censored
Read MoreIt’s been a long time coming (thirty years, to be exact), but a new Beverly Hills Cop movie has finally graced our screens. Unfortunately, audiences won’t get a chance to reunite with Eddie Murphy‘s Axel Foley on the big screen, as Netflix would instead prefer to bring this $150 million megablockbuster straight into our living rooms. Of course, they were the
Read MoreI don’t know what happened for NEON to campaign hard for Robot Dreams’ Oscar prospects, only for them not to release it wide until the beginning of June. The movie was eventually nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (ultimately losing to Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron), but without the opportunity for the public to actively see
Read MoreIn the first scene of Bad Boys: Ride or Die, it doesn’t take long for directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah to pull out camera tricks that will ultimately serve the film’s aesthetic during its action-heavy last hour. Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) stops to get a ginger ale at a corner shop and stumbles upon hot dogs (yes, “are those
Read MoreWhen Alex Garland’s Civil War premiered at SXSW, the early reactions were quick to call it a “masterpiece” and an “important warning” or “cautionary tale” about the future of American politics and the state of journalism, as democracy is (quite literally) on the ballot in November. Some even (dared) compare its importance to the likes of Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of
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