Mon oncle Antoine
August 20, 2008
For the last 25 years, Claude Jutra’s Mon oncle Antoine (1971) has been regarded as the “best Canadian film ever made” by film scholars, critics and directors. His film is a classic coming-of-age story set in rural Quebec during the 1940s. Jutra...
Smart People
August 12, 2008
Smart People (2008) is the latest in a long, checkered lineage of quirky, independent film dramedies (comedy-drama hybrids). Jodie Foster’s Home for the Holidays (1995) established the template with the following ingredients: take a dysfunctional family...
Stop-Loss
July 25, 2008
It has been almost ten years since Kimberly Peirce’s critically acclaimed, award-winning independent film, Boys Don’t Cry (1999). She’s returned with her first studio film – a drama about the current war in Iraq. So far, this kind of film has...
The Furies
July 7, 2008
Director Anthony Mann made the important transition from film noir B movies to westerns in 1950 with three films: Winchester ’73, Devil’s Doorway, and The Furies. The last film was an ambitious big budget mix of western and women’s melodrama with...
My Blueberry Nights
June 27, 2008
For years, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai has resisted the lure of the United States, content to make his films in his native country (with the exception of Happy Together which was shot in South America) without any Hollywood movie stars. This has...
Control
June 2, 2008
Ever since Ian Curtis, lead singer of the British band Joy Division, died in 1980, he has achieved the iconic status of an emerging artist showing signs of brilliance before meeting an early, tragic end. In Curtis’ case, he committed suicide on the...
Cassandra’s Dream
May 29, 2008
Cassandra’s Dream (2007) continues Woody Allen’s current string of European-based films. Whether for financial reasons or wanting a change of pace, the New York-based filmmaker left his favourite city in favour of London with Match Point (2005), Scoop...
The Lovers: Criterion Collection
May 16, 2008
When Louis Malle’s film The Lovers (1958) debuted at the Venice Film Festival, it caused outrage in Catholic Italy. Two months later, it was released in France and shocked and angered Conservative audiences with its sexual frankness. However, the film...
Death of a Cyclist
May 15, 2008
Director Juan Antonio Bardem has been cited as being a vital factor in launching modern Spanish cinema. His film, Death of a Cyclist (1955), was one of the first Spanish films to win the critics prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Bardem was inspired by...
I’m Not There: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition
May 2, 2008
If you want to do a decent biopic on a musician it helps to have their approval (or that of their estate) so that you have access to their catalogue of music. This has gotten harder with the debacle that was Oliver Stone’s take on The Doors (1991)....
