// Category Archive for: Movie Reviews

Blu-Ray Review: Hired To Kill

By Less Lee Moore

How is Hired To Kill an actual thing that exists? Getting the Blu-ray from Arrow Video solely on the basis of the press release describing the film’s co-star Oliver Reed “chewing up the scenery behind an elaborate moustache,” I did not recall any of the plot details when I popped in the disc. So it was with much disbelief and amusement that I watched 90 minutes of something so outrageous that it felt like a parody but was shockingly, not intended as such. If Astron-6 ever gets around to doing for action films what they did for Giallos with The Editor, the result would be akin to Hired To Kill.  (more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Manhunter

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto residents! If you haven’t seen Manhunter in a while or if you’ve never seen it on the big screen, you’ll get your chance tonight at The Royal, where the Neon Dreams Cinema Club is putting on a screening of the film at 8:00 p.m. As always, come early for the pre-show and remember that The Royal is a fully licensed venue.

When most people think of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, they think of Anthony Hopkins. This is a bitter pill to swallow for those of us who fell in love with Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal and subsequently, Mads Mikkelsen as the titular killer. Yet even before that TV show birthed the devotees known as Fannibals, there were still those of us who always gave Hopkins’ portrayal of Lecter the side-eye. After all, he wasn’t the first to take a crack at the doctor cum psychopath (even though they only called him a psychopath because they didn’t know what else to call him).

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Blu-Ray Review: A Cat In The Brain

By Jeffery X Martin

Italian horror movies are a strange and different beast. American horrors rely mostly on jump scares and urban legends, things that go bump in the night. Italian fright flicks don’t care about your childhood scary stories. In fact, they don’t even care about linear storytelling. Most of them are simply a pastiche of set-pieces, offering gross-out after gross-out, with the barest thread of a plot holding everything together. It’s the visuals that matter, not the story.

That makes A Cat in the Brain all the more interesting. Lucio Fulci, king of the Italian gore movies, went straight up meta with this movie.

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Netflix Review: Team Foxcatcher

By Tyler Hodg

The chilling story of “philanthropist” John du Pont and his shocking murder of Dave Shultz is eerily depicted in the Netflix original documentary, Team Foxcatcher. The story was previously fictionalized in the five-time Academy Award-nominated film simply titled Foxcatcher. (more…)

Movie Review: Doglegs

By Sachin Hingoo

Doglegs co-founder, and star of the film, Shintaro Yano (ring name “Sambo” Shintaro) strikes a fighting pose. © Alfie Goodrich

Japanese wrestling or “puroresu” is a tradition that goes back to the 1950s, and is most closely associated with a more realistic, hard-hitting “strong style” than we normally see in Western pro wrestling, which is far more choreographed. Strikes usually land for real, though the intention is still primarily to put on a show, not actually hurt one’s opponent. The style is tough on the performers, and those that thrive in the competitive landscape of “puro” are considered some of the best and most resilient wrestlers in the business. Still, the style is often hard to watch, given what we know now about concussions and other injuries that can be commonplace in puro.

You can imagine, then, how hard it is to watch a puro match, not between able-bodied athletes in peak physical condition, but with disabled wrestlers. Heath Cozens’ Doglegs, a documentary about an eponymous group of mostly disabled Japanese wrestlers, is certainly difficult to sit through, but is ultimately worthwhile for its ability to wring triumph from tragedy.

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Movie Review: The Fear of 13

By Tyler Hodg

Some say life is stranger than fiction; The Fear of 13, a documentary by British filmmaker David Sington, is a whirlwind collection of unbelievable anecdotes told by Death Row prisoner Nick Yarris, which seem too crazy not to be true. Now available on streaming giant Netflix, the film publicizes humane perspectives of criminals, and those often unfairly tossed aside by society.

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Movie Review: Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made

By Brad Henderson

Since childhood, I’ve wanted to make movies. Last night I got to watch a documentary about a group of kids who were determined to make a shot for shot remake of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Raiders! The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made tells the story of this incredible attempt and the resulting admirable success.

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Movie Review: Warcraft

By Laury Scarbro

After years of waiting, between only fans wishing for it to multiple setbacks, the Warcraft movie finally crashed onto movie screens this weekend. Thus far, it has earned a lowly 29% on Rotten Tomatoes, and many reviews of the movie have not been good. I’ve never been one to take a reviewer’s word for it when it comes to movies, otherwise I would never have bothered with Pacific Rim, Starship Troopers, and many others that have found their way onto my DVD shelf. I ventured out today thanks to the kindness of a friend who also wanted to see it.

I was NOT disappointed in the least. So many times, video game movie adaptations come off hokey and things are just so completely wrong that those involved with it are almost cursed after the movie’s release (I’m looking at you, Prince of Persia).

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Netflix Review: That Gal Who Was In That Thing: That Guy 2

By Christine Makepeace

That Gal . . . Who Was in That Thing is the companion to 2012’s male-skewed doc of a similar name. While both films focus on what it’s like to be a character actor (a.k.a. someone not typically cast in leading roles), That Guy… played chicken with being overlong and repetitive. Gal gives us the opposite, trading personal tales of woe and triumphs for larger and more unsettling subjects.

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Movie Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

By Tim Murr

My first X-Men comic was The Uncanny X-Men #234, from September 1988. From then on I was hooked, collecting every new issue for the next eight years along with as many back issues as I could afford. The Uncanny X-Men was one of the best mainstream comics out there and this was the era when Ann Nocenti and John Romita, Jr. were doing Daredevil and Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle were doing Detective Comics, so that’s really saying something. I stuck with the X-Men until their books narratively crashed and burned and didn’t come back until Grant Morrison made it all better.

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