“Are we in another planet?’ asks a five-year-old Jack (an astonishing Jacob Tremblay) in earnest to his mother, having awoke beside her in an unfamiliar hospital room. Only the day before, Jack and his mother, Joy (a superb Brie Larson in her best role since Short Term 12), made a soaring exodus from the one-room […]
Author: Shane Scott-Travis
Entertainment – VIFF 2015 Review
As he wanders through a dusty, hard-hearted American landscape, mostly the Mojave Desert, a nameless anti-hero and ho-hum stand-up comic played by Gregg Turkington moves like a man thrown down, on a journey somewhere, maybe home. Entertainment is director Rick Alverson’s fourth feature film, following 2012’s The Comedy, and was co-written with Tim Heidecker, and […]
Victoria – VIFF 2015 Review
The roller coaster metaphor isn’t a perfect one to describe German filmmaker Sebastian Schipper’s single take dramatic crime thriller, Victoria, but it’s apt. Especially if you’re the type who gets nauseated by endless litany, easy to anticipate spirals, and, after a tedious build, you just want it all to end. That’s not to say the […]
Nina Forever – VIFF 2015 Review
“You’re a bit vanilla,” quips a clueless wannabe Lothario to Holly (Abigail Hardingham), dumping her unceremoniously in an early scene of the beautifully lensed new British horror comedy, Nina Forever. Written and directed by brothers Ben and Chris Blaine, Nina Forever is an occasionally romantic, often amusing, and outright macabre debut that showcases pronounced visual […]
The Boda Boda Thieves – VIFF 2015 Review
Co-directors Donald Mugisha and James Taylor pay an artful homage to the neo-realist movement, specifically Vittorio De Sica and his benchmark 1948 film, Bicycle Thieves, with their film, The Boda Boda Thieves. Set in the winding, crowded streets of Kampala, Uganda, the film focuses on 15 year-old Abel (Hassan “Spike” Insingoma), who must cover for […]
Cop Car – VIFF 2015 Review
Set in a rural present day America, Jon Watt’s (Clown) latest film, Cop Car, soon polarizes into a struggle between good and evil. Good, in this instanced, is represented by two young boys, Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford), whereas evil comes in the guise of a police man’s uniform with the shady Sheriff […]