The Corporation

coming soon!

Elles Etaient Cinq (Quebec)

coming soon!

Blood

coming soon!

Pan's Labyrinth

coming soon!

children of men

coming soon!

aurore - 9.5/10 quebec forgotten histories

what is there to say?

this is based on a real situation that happened in small town in quebec in the first half of the last century. my mother's family grew up in the same sort of time, in the same sort of French Quebec family, as did thousands of others - how many stories are like this one?

first, families suffered loss in those days. nothing was like it was today. most woman had complications with pregnancies and sometimes didn't have fancy hospitals to go to. i'm sure many women died in childbirth of from infections that today could be treated with ease.

i believe that blended families were much more common that today - too many mouths to feed, children taken care of by grandparents, children abandoned.

one must remember that the church played a much more important role in those days as well. the church was judge and jury in alot of cases, and everyone did mind their own business until they were involved. things that happen behind closed doors are no one's business.

since this movie is based on real events, i'm sure it was a precedent setting conviction. wasn't this just the normal way of life? abuse children because they are bastards/stupid/inept/dirty? what kind of anger must a person have to starve and beat your own child with the blind belief that they are sinful?

a must see, in my books. when you think this poor girl is nearly at the end, you can't believe what she went through (and even is this was dramatized - you just know that whatever happened, it was bad and probably far worse than what was portrayed on screen).

this movie hit me a little like "The Passion". how much can one person endure if they have to when they believe in something so fully, and are running against all odds?

the DVD i got had weird fade outs (i assume from being a CBC production and having those commercial breaks don't translate over well to full feature film). all in all, the production quality was very good.

Intertia - 8/10 menage a quatres

from winnipeg comes this strange tale of 4 people who all want to love someone. it revolves around a man, his estranged cousin, his lover, and his friend.

i think the format for the movie was interesting - the director allowed the actors to improvise and changed the script accordingly (as i seem to remember that most of the actors had theatre experience). it fell down in a few places, but overall, the timing kept up and it didn't lose my interest.

i didn't really understand the whole "its in the water thing", it seemed like an after thought.

in the extra bits, the director talked about winnipeg taking on one of the character roles. i like that about Canadian stuff. the city in question is usually featured in some way that otherwise would just be a backdrop of any city. i like that...

Capote - 8.5/10 newspaper articles

coming soon!

a day so beautiful (short - quebec)

a succinct film that tells a sad tale

in my opinion, a young man bound by death and wanting to keep on living...because his day is beautiful. written in poetic language, it struck me that most people don't see what is going on around them most days. just getting by. not taking the time to really think about the whys.

the gift - 8/10 bodies floating in trees

for such a high caliber ensemble cast this movie lay a little flat. not bad, but just flat.

following a small town and the characters in it, it lays out a story of an abusive man who the town psychic thinks may have killed a local socialite. i did like the overall concept of psychic ability and its quiet place within the community. cate blanchette downplayed her role very well. she is a very talented actress.

my favourite was the giovanni rabisi character who is the local mechanic with emotional problems. his character has the most depth and certainly his scenes (the truck and the gun, and the firestarter, are the most riveting of the movie).

what makes this movie a step above is the cast - award winning actors and actresses who seemingly took on this "smaller" role - the movie - co-written by billy bob thornton may have had something to do with it.

some of the language was stiff, but otherwise believable.

this movie won't scare you to death, but it is worth a rental.

nine 1/2 weeks - 6/10 mind-games

a few weeks back friends of mine got into a philosophical debate over this movie. i hadn't seen it (ever), so i could not add my two cents (as i always like to do...). that being said, i got it recently from zip and watched it. here is my take.

this is a movie about power and how some people are strong and other people are weak. if you can imagine a magnetic field. when someone steps into the magnetic field, their composition changes - they are pulled. this can happen to anyone...

in this story, the main character is going through a fairly smooth divorce (or so can be assumed since it is only a side-story). this woman is taken by a strangely alluring man who happens to show her attention and affection, likely at a point in time where she needed it. he also makes her feel beautiful, but playing into her sexuality, but this is at a price. he wants her to be a puppet and a toy to take care of, and to pretend she is something she is not. he gets her to agree to things that she likely would never have done before, and he suggests things by asking questions and making it seem like everything is normal and safe.

one of the best lines is : "how did you know i would respond to you the way i have?"; "i saw myself in you". brilliant.

she begins to lose herself. in most cases i would say that this was BAD, but in this case most of this stuff is tame, and probably for this movie at the time this stuff was not tame. are we becoming desensitized? i think the plot line where she realizes she has lost herself is weak, but then her entire character is weak, so maybe she was in character...

i did say to myself (and outloud) a few times as i was watching it - "danger" - meaning that i knew these situations were dangerous, but she was a grown woman, and other than a few romps (some on cement steps which were hot) and a self-love scene, we know that the man she met is dangerous and dangerous, but who cares? he's hot.

i recall my watching the movie Secretary - a much more provocative movie in my opinion...Secretary feels like a more "grown-up" version of "nine 1/2 weeks". darker.

okay if you want to see what dominance and submission is like, but watch Secretary instead. you'll be doing yourself a favour.

peau blanche (white skin) - 7/10 redheads

this is not the movie i expected from the little write up i got with it from zip.ca... strangely, it is a well thought through and well composed movie, but, when you realize what's happening, it goes a little south.

the story follows two young french canadian men (one from rural quebec, and one from urban montreal) who are going to university in montreal. i'm glad i understand french enough, because i found the english subtitles lost the subtleties of the language. i guess this is the case with most subtitles, but i found this one to be more so than others i've seen in the past.

we find out that the white boy hates redheads - doesn't like to see the veins beneath the skin (he wouldn't like me - i have translucent skin). it is a bit strange then soon after that he should fall for a redhead, and, that she isn't what she seems to be. he gets involved with this woman, and for the most part, exhibits normal "relationship starting" material - seclusion, secrecy, etc. he also experiences a hightened level of sexual stimulation from her at the outset. something is up, but we just haven't figured it out yet.

an interesting blend of supernatural and Quebecois makes this movie kinda interesting. it bent a little to far into the black/white debate for my liking. perhaps this movie tried to be too many things, and didn't do any one thing very well.

21 grams - 8/10 accidents

i liked it. it wasn't what i was expecting.

a simple story, shot and cut in unsimple ways about the ties that bind three main characters together over one man's heart. i was reminded of crash in the way that the stories wove in and out of one another. i found the pace at the beginning very fast, but once the story was set, the pace slowed. it wasn't difficult to follow however, like i find some movies where the cuts are mind-blowing and you get a headache because you can't keep up...

the acting is quite good as well. i always like sean penn. he seems to play "wounded" very well.

this story will appeal to many people. i was thinking it was more about the whole idea of 21 grams - the exact weight lost at the time of death. an interesting concept if you think that we are energy and that this is the culmination of our lives - a simple 21 grams (nothing really) that your soul amounts to.

there are some subtle connections between this notion and several others themes running through the movie about the theory of numbers. i like stuff like this. makes you think about things you wouldn't normally care about.

butterbox babies - 7.5/10 untold canadian stories

this is not "road to avonlea".

by the same producer, and originally seen on cbc, this more realistically dark movie tells the tale of young women in nova scotia just prior and during the second world war, who got pregnant out of wedlock and who gave up their babies to keep the town secrets under wraps. well - that's my take on it anyway. it also tell of the tragedy and remorse that some people had during that time, and how good things can turn on you, despite best efforts and good will.

focusing on the man and wife team who helped these young girls, this is also a tale of the religious bent at that time, and i think the main characters that this movie portrays are quite progressive for the time - not because of progressive thinking, but because they felt they were doing the work that god would be proud of.

likely many babies did died under their care, and were buried in butterboxes. i'm sure that many more were saved, and sold at a profit, as the movie suggests. i'm sure there are still emotional wounds that run deep, although many of the "babies" that surviced would be past retirement age now. those who have ties to this canadian tragedy will be passing on this story and working this out for generations to come (much like the children who were sent to canada from the united kingdom at the turn of the last century as cheap labour).

truly a tiny dark crystal on the pristine canadian landscape, these are the types of stories that people need to see, need to understand.

for a cbc production - i was impressed.

birth - 3/10 reincarnated husbands

i'm not sure. i fell asleep. partly due to my lack of interest, and partly due to being tired. so, this will be a two part review. this first part will be my sleepy version, and i'll post another version when i watch it again.

part 1

if you can get past nicole kidman as a doe-eyed fiancee, and the creepy boy who thinks he's her dead husband (and i think i woke up and heard him say he wasn't) then i'm sure this movie is just great. i'll have to watch it again and see what is really happening....

eyes without a face - 6.5/10 creepy doctors

this movie is odd to say the least (and perhaps a prophetic commentary). having been made in 1959, i'm pleased that it took some strange chances that you just wouldn't see today. i would have preferred to see more depth in the characters. they were two dimensional in a movie that was trying to be something more than what it turned out to be.

it also shows us how far we have come. this is a science fiction of sorts about a doctor who tries to transplant facial flesh onto his daughter's face after a horrible accident, which we can only presume he feels responsible for. he is a "experimental" doctor who keeps dogs caged in a basement cellar (with his home operating room) so he can perform experiments on them. a little far fetching, but i'm always up for something different.

cleverly done were the scenes with the daughter - she wears a mask for most of the time we do see her face on screen. she has a sympathetic relationship with the dogs because she too is one of her father's experiments.

given the time period, it has some obvious flaws that you just would not see today in big budget films. for what it is however, it proves to be an interesting movie.

i'm being harsh, unduly, since i prefer more modern movies, but i feel as though i have to start watching older films to get a sense of what i am doing with my own writing. this is one of my first, and i have much left to learn.

the hanging garden - 9.5/10 sweet williams

this is just such a wonderfully magical dark canadian movie. one of my favourite movies, ever. gets you thinking about the things that happen in life that are never spoken of, things that are left undone, things that maybe should have been....

the story of a young man who travels back to his home for his sister's wedding after being away for ten years. and, he is dead. right. that's the magic.

we see an east coast family through the eyes of a young man, with gaelic roots, a hard drinking father, a distant mother, a rebel for a sister and a close-to-senility grandmother.

the sister has a wedding in the garden where her brother hung himself. she wants everyone to remember. this is the thing that hangs over the family. you could look at it two different ways: either he didn't die and he did go live in toronto, or her did die and his sister has brought his spirit back to life with the wedding.....he comes back the way he wanted to be, and his family doesn't really understand what he is doing here....but in the end they must all let go.

i don't want to give everything away, and i don't think i have. there is a richness to this movie that is lacking in cinema today. the willingness to risk and take a chance on a story that is not easy to portray and not easy to grasp. something magical.

this movie isn't for everyone, but i think you will like it anyway.