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‘The Zero Theorem’ Movie Review – a cacophonous, incoherent dirge from Terry Gilliam

In 1983, the final Monty Python film, The Meaning Of Life, was released with a rather ambitious title and intent to discover, well, the meaning of life. Thirty years later, and Terry Gilliam returns to these enterprising realms with his new film The Zero Theorem, a codex volcanic in enthusiasm yet insipid at its core. Terry does good press: he barks an intriguing sound bite, citing that his latest ode to chaos is an “impossible look at nothing,” which is certain to prick the interest of existentialists everywhere.

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‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ Movie Review – a colorful, middle-tier period piece from the Coens

Poor Llewyn Davis is not at a good point in his life. In February of 1961, he is a struggling, bearded bohemian shivering through a frosty Greenwich Village, a folk musician seeking the next gig just to keep the wolf from the door. With few possessions other than the fraying clothes on his back and his trusty guitar, he relies on the charity of others to keep a temporary roof over his head, oscillating from staying with two wedded musical companions in the tight-knit folk scene, Jean (Carey Mulligan, deliciously spiteful) and Jim Berkey (Justin Timberlake, polished) and the middle-class Gorfiens , the wealthy, perky parents of Llewyn’s musical partner, revealed to have committed suicide a few months earlier. Davis is a man scorned, sneering at others and certain of his superior musical skills. He’s not the most likable sort, as his futile attempts to escape the confines of his self-imposed cage make for a colourfully arranged period crooner.

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‘The Double’ Movie Review – an ambitious and darkly funny second feature

The Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky has been well served by cinema, especially his major works Crime & Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot, all of which have received numerous adaptations throughout the decades. The latter was lavished with a recent Estonian take, after receiving a Japanese decoding by Kurosawa no less, as well as Indian and (naturally) Soviet versions. It has taken until 2013 for a filmmaker brave enough to approach Dostoyevsky’s binary second novel; there is a certain numerical sense of doubling, since Richard Ayoade has decided to allocate his second film as The Double, an ambitiously promising plea following Submarine back in 2010.

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‘All Is Lost’ Movie Review – a gripping, tense tale of survival

The Oscar-nominated director and writer of last year’s potent Wall Steet drama Margin Call has circumnavigated the perils of sophomore filmmaking with All Is Lost. This is J.C. Chandor’s remarkable nautical thriller, plunging its audience into a whirlpool nightmare scenario. In a solo role, Robert Redford is a nameless figure, a stoic seaman sailing through the Pacific roughly 1,700 miles from civilisation before being jolted awake after an abandoned cargo container ruptures a yawning gape in his modest single-berth schooner.

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‘Nebraska’ Movie Review – boasts a grizzled, irascible performance from Bruce Dern

Venerable Woody Grant (a grizzled Bruce Dern) has a singular purpose in mind, to get from his adopted Montana home to neighbouring Nebraska to collect a million-dollar cheque that a suspiciously speculative postal disclaimer has promised to honour. Elderly and suffering with decaying mental functions, Woody clearly can’t see through the marketing scam, and his wife Kate (June Squibb) and son David (Will Forte) grow increasingly exasperated at his dangerous footbound expeditions before arriving at a mutual solution:

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FNC 2013: Five Must See Films in the Focus Program

The 42nd Edition of Montreal’s Festival du Nouveau Cinema is just days away and the weight of an incredibly diverse and exciting program can intimidate even the most weathered cineaste. Combining the very best of big name and upcoming filmmakers, the festival has built its reputation on giving attention to groundbreaking and avant-garde cinema. Though sometimes …

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Here Be Dragons: ‘Ghost in the Shell’

The animated companion to Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell seeks to delve even deeper into the nature of identity than its predecessor, distinguishing itself with a more political story and its backdrop as the advent of the information age. An animated art film is a nigh-singular achievement. It’s a cross-section of two genres you almost never get, and a great one to boot.

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‘Electric Man’ is a nerd comedy with no geek-cred

The opening credits sequence of Electric Man is structured as an animated comic, with panel shifts and camera manipulations aimed to recreate and enliven the experience of reading a comic. It’s a fun, kinetic sequence that actually seems to display some of the excitement of reading a comic. Unfortunately, it is one of the few moments in a film ostensibly populated with lifelong comic-book obsessives that feels even slightly enamored with the graphic medium.

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‘The Last of the Unjust’ Movie Review – A harrowing cinematic document

The Last of the Unjust Written and directed by Claude Lanzmann France/Austria, 2013 Anyone who has ever experienced the full 9-hour version of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah is likely humbled by such a powerful and riveting document, a witness statement culled from the incomprehensible and unendurable recollections of the victims and perpetrators of the unfathomable horror of the …

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Elmore Leonard Month: Out of Sight is sleek, sexy fun

For a period of years after the release of Pulp Fiction, mainstream Hollywood developed an obsession with structure, toying with time and pacing in ways that were often interesting and occasionally grating. The late 1990s also saw the release of a variety of pretty excellent Elmore Leonard adaptations, including Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty and Quentin …

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‘Deconstructing Harry’ is as Funny as it is Harrowing

Deconstructing Harry Written by Woody Allen Directed by Woody Allen USA, 1997 Like many Woody Allen protagonists, Harry Block is neurotic, damaged, and unhappy. Plagued with writer’s block and haunted by a string of failed relationships, Harry is searching for inspiration and meaning in his life. As he faces the fact that his ex-girlfriend is …

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‘The Killing of America’ Movie Review – Can Exploitation be Profound?

The Killing of America is an impassioned and emotional showcase of violence in America from the period of the early 1960s into the early 1980s. Resting on the thesis that the society quickly devolved into increasingly acts of senseless violence, the film utilizes rare and disturbing footage of both familiar and unfamiliar events. Rift with a somewhat confused ideology, the film nonetheless packs a punch and suggests where many others haven’t that access to guns are part of the problem, an issue that continues to be debated within American society to this day. Is this little more than a parade of greatest hits for snuff fans or does it reaches deeper, revealing darker truths and realities that we are unwilling or unable to face.

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Fantasia Film Festival 2013: Antisocial Tackles our Complex Relationship with Technology (Interview)

Antisocial is the feature length debut for directing and writing team Cody Calahan and Chad Archibald. In spite of their youthful appearances, they are not new to the Canadian film industry or Fantasia, having produced over ten short and feature length films – including Fantasia fan favourite Monster Brawl which screened at the fest in …

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Fantasia Fest 2013: ‘Massacre Time’ is an Exceptional Spaghetti Western

Lucio Fulci’s Massacre Time is playing at Fantasia in conjunction with the Festival du Nouveau Cinema as part of the The Django Project. The series takes a look at the western genre, as appropriated by other cultures, as it blends with irony, excess and pop-art. Though best known for his giallo thrillers, Fulci’s Massacre Time is an exuberant and exciting spaghetti western. Starring Franco Nero in a role obviously evocative of his work in Django, he plays a prospector who must return to his home and reclaim his family’s ranch from a man named Scott and his sadistic son Junior.

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The (In)Security of Horror: What Max Brooks Got Wrong about the Horror Genre

In a profile by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for the New York Times, Max Brooks, author of both World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide, is apparently quite serious about the zombie apocalypse. I have little doubt that Max Brooks is an intelligent man, and behind his facade of anxiety and fear, I think he has …

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DREDD’s Last Hope (UPDATED X2)

  UPDATE x2: So just over 80,000 signatures and rising. Congrats people, y’done good. But Dredd still needs our help.  That’s why on Wednesday, September 18th,  it’s time to put your money where your mouse is. 2000AD is launching a ‘Call to Action’, a global wide event with the hopes that the studio heads will notice …

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‘Jaws’: How a Shark Changed Hollywood

  Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) was a commercial hit. Upon its release in theatres during the summer of 1975, it broke box-office records. The film was put together by studios and agencies; essentially it was a product specifically made to make money- a lot of it. It is regarded as being the first ever “blockbuster” …

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‘The Bling Ring’ vapid and entertaining

The Bling Ring Written and Directed by Sofia Coppola USA, 2013 Her career was born in the excesses of the 1990s and Sofia Coppola’s career trajectory has brought her through one of the worst economic crisis’ in recent history and a period of social seriousness that she seems quite frankly out of step with. In …

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What Role Does Film Have in the Telling of History? A Look at Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique (2009)

What value does fiction have in the interpretation of a historical event? This question can become central to the reception and understanding of historical films and has taken on important resonance in past years in regards to films like Ben Affleck’s Argo or Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. These films are not documentaries; however they …

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The Ethics of Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932)

Produced by MGM in 1932, Freaks (dir. Tod Browning) was withdrawn upon its initial theatrical release and is one of the few films from the era that remains truly shocking to contemporary audiences. The film features real circus “freaks” and their apparent monstrosity was one of the driving forces of the numerous controversies that plagued …

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