REVIEWSetc.

Sasha (Eylul Guven, Amy Zimmer) is the child of Hungarian immigrants being raised on Vancouver Island. Blue Heron cuts back and forth between her youth in Canada, and her young adult years. It truly is a personal, restless look at trying to interpret your own childhood. This film very literally tackles the dissonance between your experience growing up, and how you then look back on it as a young adult. Although Sasha is the protagonist, Blue Heron is incredibly centered aroun

Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen) is an ultra-successful ad executive with the Atlas agency and he has an insatiable thirst for more. More power, more sex, more money, he wants it all. And in doing so, he ticks every wealthy male stereotype box we all love to hate. Adding fuel to this fire is the fact that he's been tapped by current CEO, Fred Powell (Charles Dance), to be his successor. Except there's a catch. In order to save face and show that Atlas is inclusive and diverse

With I Love Boosters, Boots Riley has made another film that feels like it was conceived at 2am by someone who read three books on Marxist theory, watched every heist movie ever made, and then ate something they probably should not have eaten. I mean this as a compliment. Mostly. Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, and Taylour Paige play three working class Bay Area women who steal luxury goods and resell them on the street at prices normal humans can actually afford. They are not crim

Betrayal, espionage, and a whole lot of cigarette smoking, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War picks up where the Prime Series left off. Our titular leading man, Jack Ryan (John Krasinski), is back, but rather than the abrasive CIA agent we know and love him to be, this time he is a civilian. At the end of season 4, Jack had testified before the Senate, exposing high levels of government corruption. Leaving him to be a regular man. That is, until Ghost War ropes Jack back into

There are certain pop rock songs that you pretend you don't know. John Carney has built a career out of making people like you feel okay about liking those songs. He has done just that with Power Ballad, his first feature in almost 20 years. The film caught me by surprise on an otherwise unimportant day. In the film, Paul Rudd plays the titular character who is a wedding singer in Ireland. He had the potential to make it big in the pop music world. He missed the chance, made

There is a moment early in Marty, Life Is Short where Martin Short's alter ego, the oafish celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick, scoffs at the very idea of a documentary being made about Martin Short. "They're making a documentary on literally everyone," Glick grumbles — and he's not entirely wrong. The celebrity documentary has become its own genre at this point, with Netflix leading the charge on what feels like a new one every few weeks. Short is self-aware enough to lampoon

The world is a judgmental place with judgmental people. Some face the consequences of that judgment more than others, and it doesn't help when something about your appearance makes you physically different. What if you knew the person responsible for the difficulties you've faced in life? Twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) live their lives with burn scars on them. Racine's scars are mostly on her arm, but Anaia's are on her face, causing people to st

It's been a while since Netflix aired their two seasons of The Punisher, and while I don't ever have the most crystal clear memory of shows I have binge watched, I do definitely recollect that I really loved both seasons. Which is more than I can say for their Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist seasons. Granted, their Daredevil gave us three straight big winners as far as seasons went, but I thought their other character outings were a lot more uneven. Yeah, The Punisher

A guy buys a wish granting toy from a crystal shop because he is too scared to tell his friend he likes her. She starts loving him unconditionally. He thinks this is great. It is not great. This is the premise of one of the most unsettling horror films I have seen in years and I have not stopped thinking about it. Curry Barker is a YouTuber. A prankster. This is his debut feature. I am as surprised as you are. What makes Obsession so genuinely disturbing is not the broken gla

Have you ever wanted to see one of the biggest global pop sensations in concert? Well, at Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D), you get to experience the artist's entire concert from beginning to end in the comfort of your movie theatre recliner. Teaming up with Academy Award-winning director James Cameron to capture the most immersive movie-going experience for her fans, the concert film is unique in being presented in 3D. Now I do not think I’ve been t

I am going to tell you something and I need you to stay with me. There is a film on Netflix right now in which a CGI octopus named Marcellus narrates the emotional healing journey of a grieving widow and I watched every single minute of it with my whole chest open like an idiot. Alfred Molina voices the octopus. He is wry. He is world weary. He has opinions. I respected him enormously. The crying is entirely Sally Field's fault. She plays Tova, a woman who has lost her husban

Talking sheep investigating the murder of a human character is certainly an interesting concept for a movie. One that many people, including myself, heard the concept of, or even saw the overly cheesy trailer and thought was going to be a downright silly if not flat out bad movie. So when the movie debuted in the 90s on Rotten Tomatoes, intrigue went up, and rightfully so. George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads mystery novels to his sheep every night, not knowing

Niki (Leo Woodall) is a piano tuner with perfect pitch. He works with a good family friend and father figure Harry (Dustin Hoffman), and together they drive around tuning pianos. He suffers from hyperacusis, causing him to have incredible sensitivity to loud noises, keeping him from playing the piano, which he has an incredible gift for. While on the job he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu) and quickly becomes infatuated with her. Along the way, he realizes his hyperacusis give

APEX is a new Netflix original, a cat-and-mouse survival thriller starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton. The premise has genuine potential — isolation, survival instinct, a compelling antagonist — and on paper, the cast alone is reason enough to show up. Kormakur has made this kind of high-stakes physical cinema before, so there was no obvious reason to walk in expecting disaster. And yet... GENERAL THOUGHTS APEX is the kind of film that relies almost entirely on its act

Ohm (Adam Scott) is an American novelist who travels to a remote, deteriorating hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parent's ashes. He is struggling with unresolved grief, and also a case of writers block. He is a successful writer, but seems to be struggling with the ending of the trilogy he's been writing for years. When he arrives at the hotel, something is clearly off. Whether it be the cagey staff members, or the low attendance, the hotel has an undeniable eeriness hang

Andy (Anne Hathaway) is back at Runway. After 20 years as an award winning journalist elsewhere, she's laid off when her company cuts its journalism budget. Miranda (Meryl Streep) is still running the show, but a lot has changed. The Devil Wears Prada 2 addresses traditional news media, how it's been affected over time, and the trajectory they are anticipating. The passion exists but the resources are limited. If you liked the humor in the first movie, you will most likely co

Olivia Wilde invites four people to a dinner party and somehow makes you feel like you were also there, slightly drunk, increasingly uncomfortable, and absolutely unable to leave. The Invite is one of those films that knows exactly what it is doing from the first frame and executes it with such confidence that you stop trying to predict where it is going and just give in already. Which, fittingly, is also what the characters eventually have to do. Seth Rogen plays Joe, a form

Married couple Dan (Jason Segel) and Lisa (Samara Weaving) go on a vacation with their own secret plans to kill each other. Shortly after finding out the other person's plan, those plans are interrupted when they find out two criminals and a police officer are hiding out in their cabin as well. Over Your Dead Body is written by comedy duo BriTANicK (Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher), who also wrote Pizza Movie, which came out on Hulu earlier this year. After watching both of t

You know a Shudder movie is a big deal when it gets a full theatrical release before it hits the horror streaming service. Previously, such films have included Late Night With The Devil and In A Violent Nature. These were efforts where there was clearly enough sentiment that they would do well in cinemas and draw in some more profit for the company, so they were released in theater months before they made their way to the service. In A Violent Nature finished with a modest bo

Let me tell you something about David Jonsson. The man has been in five films and already has a gaze that could make you feel personally responsible for every bad decision you have every made. In Wasteman he plays Taylor, a guy who has spent thirteen years in prison trying to become invisible, and Jonsson is so good at conveying that particular flavour of quiet desperation that I spent most of the runtime wanting to slide him a coffee and a hug through the screen. Then Tom Bl