Toying with the traditional iconography associated with movies about restless spirits and the places they haunt, David Lowery’s materialistically mischievous, and altogether mesmerizing A Ghost Story (2017) does something very different as far as cinematic hauntings go. Reuniting with his cast from Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), A Ghost Story’s prologue introduces us to a […]
Author: Shane Scott-Travis
Pulling Focus: The Cabin In The Woods (2011) & It Follows (2014)
“[The Cabin in the Woods] ranks among one of the most wryly self-aware works of American pop culture entertainment in years. …by successfully analyzing tired formulas, it gives them new life.” – Eric Kohn, indieWire To a new World of Gods and Monsters This whip smart horror comedy from scribes Drew Goddard (also making […]
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The 15 Best Movies of 2017 at VIFF
Well, now that the sun has set on the sensational 36th annual Vancouver International Film Festival (which ran from September 28th to October 13th, 2017), Taste of Cinema offers up our favorites from what was yet another bustling, exciting, and very impressive festival. As with previous years at VIFF, it was a very crowded field […]
Thirst Street – VIFF 2017 Review
New York-based indie filmmaker Nathan Silver (Soft in the Head, Stinking Heaven) steps out of his comfort zone for the City of Lights in his wonderfully warped new film, Thirst Street. Initially, during the film’s pre-title preface the viewer is deftly launched into what feels like a keyed up Sirkian melodrama –– imagine, if you […]
The Other Side of Hope – VIFF 2017 Review
Ostensibly the middle film in Aki Kaurismäki’s still in the works Le Havre harbor trilogy (following 2011’s Le Havre), The Other Side of Hope is another eccentric humanist tale from the forever happy-sad Finnish auteur. Once again achieving the blissful balance between melancholy and mirth, Kaurismäki offers up flapdoodle optimism in this shaggy-dog detour involving […]
Lady Bird – VIFF 2017 Review
Delving into equal parts poignancy and playfulness with surety and poise, Greta Gerwig makes an impressive and unhesitating directorial debut with the charismatic coming-of-age comedy Lady Bird. A rare and relatable portrait of youth, and from a female perspective (Gerwig also wrote the screenplay), this is a film effected with affection, authenticity, and deliberate indulgence. […]