HOTDOCS13 REVIEW: Free the Mind [2013]
“We can suffer less if we take responsibility for our own minds” As Richard Davidson states in Phie Ambo‘s documentary Free the Mind, the human brain is the most complex creation in the universe. Here is an organic super computer that handles everything we do, feel, think, and dream and yet we’ve constructed a myth [...]
HOTDOCS13 REVIEW: The Ghosts in Our Machine [2013]
“Leaving is the reason that I’m haunted” We are carnivores. That’s a proven fact, right? Where a moral code of honor in our interactions with animals existed at one point—and still does in some cultures—the present slaughter of animals for human consumption has become a business. It used to be we made sure to use [...]
HOTDOCS13 REVIEW: ALIAS [2013]
“Every kid has dreams. But then you get reality.” Holding onto hope for a better life to strengthen each subsequent generation so one day his ancestors won’t be forced to hustle on the street, Alkatraz strives to achieve a future through his music. Raising his daughter on one hand and doing what he “has to [...]
HOTDOCS13 REVIEW: Tales From the Organ Trade [2013]
“In some countries you can pick up a kidney for the price of a laptop” With a name like Tales from the Organ Trade and its interesting casting selection of body horror maestro David Cronenberg as its narrator, I’m not sure one could blame me for expecting gruesome, unsanitary, back alley surgeons assisted by frightfully [...]
BNFF13 REVIEW: Submit the Documentary: The Virtual Reality of Cyberbullying [2013]
“Perhaps we were unprepared. Or maybe just naïve.” After the tragic events surrounding Williamsville teen Jamey Rodemeyer’s 2011 suicide helped spark a public outcry against the phenomenon known as cyberbullying, it’s only fitting to see Muta’Ali Muhammad’s Submit the Documentary: The Virtual Reality of Cyberbullying make its second appearance on the festival circuit here in [...]
SXSW13 REVIEW: Coldwater [2013]
“Make no mistake—we will readjust you” Whether true or not, hearing writer/director Vincent Grashaw wrote the first draft of his debut feature Coldwater right after graduating high school in 1999 was an intriguing tidbit for my preconceptions to process. A producer on hipster darling Bellflower—a movie I didn’t warm towards—its success may have been the [...]
TIFF12 REVIEW: To the Wonder [2012]
“In a dream you can’t make mistakes” For any who thought Terrence Malick‘s The Tree of Life was a divisive piece of cinema, you haven’t seen anything yet. Continuing to strip the very medium of film down to its barest essentials, form once again trumps narrative in his beautiful account of love through memory, To [...]
TIFF12 REVIEW: Room 237 [2012]
“Author intent is only part story in all forms of art” What happens to a film—or any work of art for that matter—when its artist has unleashed it to the world? Does it only exist to be what its creator intended or can it hold the potential for infinite possibilities as the disparate minds and [...]
TIFF12 REVIEW: Argo [2012]
“The United States government has just sanctioned your science fiction movie” In 1979, tensions between Iran and the United States reached a boil after Ayatollah Khomeini called for a return of his predecessor—Shah Pahlavi—in order to try him in what would be a kangaroo court whether or not deserved. Allowed passage into the US to [...]
TIFF12 REVIEW: Cloud Atlas [2012]
“Our lives are not our own” In grand fashion comes an epic about freedom and the wrongs of humanity forever marring how we’re seen through the annals of time. Every misstep is repeated; every stand against oppression spawned from the voice of one strong enough to understand equality’s worth over the cowardice of blindly hiding [...]
TIFF12 REVIEW: Ahí va el diablo [Here Comes the Devil] [2012]
“Frightened eyes never lie” If ever a horror film begged for multiple viewings, Ahí va el diablo [Here Comes the Devil] makes a good case. In fact, until a little over halfway through I was completely checked out. I saw what writer/director Adrián García Bogliano was doing, but the on-the-nose sexual juxtapositions of womanhood, devil [...]
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