I knew that Repo Men was going to be cut-rate sci-fi, so I didn’t watch it in the theatre. Set in future Toronto (at least it looks like Toronto, since it was filmed less than a block from where I live — Hey, the subway does not fly over Yonge-Dundas Square!) where everyone seems to…
Category: Movies
Movie #34: Diary of a Wimpy Kid
The title says it all: Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a well-written movie (based on a series of illustrated books) about enduring the first year of middle school told from the perspective (complete with narrative voiceover) of a smallish, less-than-popular young middle-child boy named Greg. We all know how tough school can be at…
Movie #33: Paranormal Activity
Believing the hype about its scariness, I decided to watch Paranormal Activity in the daytime. I’d always figured that horror movies are barely scary without the creepy music, but I guess this one was designed to be frightening without the soundtrack. The entire film is staged as video camera footage taken by day-trader Micah Sloat…
Movie #32: Ponyo
One of the qualities you can find abundant in films by Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki is imagination, not just in story-telling, but visually as well. While Ponyo is clearly inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”, it is still full of fresh wonder and enchantment. Sosuke is a 5-year-old boy living in a…
Movie #31: This Is It
The best parts of the Michael Jackson concert-rehearsal film This Is It were the numbers which were closest to complete, with full blown choreography, spectacle, and music. As most people already know, Jackson’s untimely death prevented him from performing the 50 sold out shows for which this movie showed him preparing. In lieu of actual…
Movie #30: Pirate Radio
Originally titled “The Boat That Rocked” in the UK, Pirate Radio was a very surprising movie. For one, it has a cast populated with many of the biggest names in recent British comedy — you may not recognize them, but you should. The list includes: non-Brits Philip Seymour Hoffman (not always a funny guy, but…
Movie #29: Drag Me To Hell
Drag Me To Hell definitely wastes no time living up to its title: in the first ten minutes of prologue, some poor kid, who stole a silver necklace from a gypsy, literally gets dragged kicking and screaming into Hell. So without further ado, the tone is set for this B-movie horror film. This is not…
Movie #28: Stone of Destiny
I can’t remember exactly how I heard about a small film called Stone of Destiny, but I typically enjoy light-hearted British movies like this one. Though there was a bit of a more serious political-historical flavour to it, this story of a group of young Scots, stealing the Stone of Destiny (an ancient symbol of…
Movie #27: The Class
I’m not sure what to say about The Class. It won the Palme d’Or prize for Best Picture at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, but I really didn’t like it — or more accurately, I didn’t enjoy watching it. Francois Begaudeau stars as M. Morin, a French teacher at an ethnically-diverse school in Paris. The…
