The art of going to the movies: a guide for casual viewers and film buffs alike

Learn how to perfect your movie-going experience with these five tips

By: Nalyn Tindall

(Nathan Engel via Pexels) 

Going to the movies is a unique experience unlike any other. With streaming services on the rise, some may feel the practice of going out to see a movie is dying, but I wholeheartedly believe it’s an experience that can’t be replicated. 

An outing to the cinema is the perfect date, after-class activity, family outing or escape from reality. Films naturally bring people together, allowing an audience to relish in a communal experience of emotions. Whether you're dying of laughter while watching the newest comedy or gasping in terror while viewing a bone-chilling horror movie, experiencing these emotions in a crowd amplifies the impact they have on each and every person in the room. Hearing those around you react to the screen prompts a similar reaction from yourself, creating an intensely immersive few hours.

An in-person theatrical viewing provides an experience that just can’t compare to watching at home — and it's an art that some have perfected with intricate steps that must be followed. As a frequent movie go-er, here are my five key steps to making the most of your time at the theatre.

 Step 1: Picking the perfect film 

When going to the movies, it's important to choose the perfect film, and there’s a multitude of factors that must be considered when browsing through your options.

The people you choose to share armrests with are key to the viewing experience. It’s important to consider everyone's movie tastes, how well you know each other and the nature of your relationship. There’s nothing more awkward than watching a sex scene with your parents or taking a new coworker to the most obscure movie of the year.

But ensure you are also thinking of yourself; while your company's taste matters, don't sacrifice your own to ensure you’ll enjoy the movie just as much.

Step 2. Picking your seats

This may be even more difficult — and more argument-inducing — than choosing the film. Agreeing on seats can be a strenuous experience, especially if the people you’re with don’t have the common sense to avoid the front row at all costs. Instead, it’s important to buy your tickets early so you have unlimited seating options.

But if you’re worried about fighting over which section is the best or find the wide array of seat options overwhelming, it might be a good idea to cut it close and purchase tickets when there are only a few seats left. That way, you can avoid adding stress to an event that is best experienced stress-free.

Step 3. Snacktime!

Although theatre snacks may be expensive, they’re an essential part of the experience. Going to the movies is a time to indulge in the finer things that can't be found at home. This can mean buttery popcorn, delectable candy or most importantly, a giant fountain drink. You’re bound to be parched sitting in the theatre for hours, so it’s essential to be prepared.

(Ron Lach via Pexels)

Step 4. Enjoy the magic

When the lights dim, you know it’s time for the magic to begin. The trailers will roll and the anticipation will grow. Sitting in a dark theatre surrounded by other aspiring cinephiles and casual movie go-ers, all absorbing the same piece of art, is an experience that can’t be recreated. 

While you may love a film that others hated, the shared viewing ties the audience together. Unlike at home, where your phone, emails or family members beg to distract you, you’re able to concentrate on the film in front of you, step out of your busy world and simply enjoy for just a few hours.

 Step 5. Debrief

This is the part I always enjoy the most. When the lights come on and the theatre empties, thoughts flood the mind. The conversations following the credits are always memorable, as I passionately rank films and compare my thoughts with my company. There are a million questions to ask them, from their favourite character or scene to what they would change about the film. As heated discussions rise and controversial opinions get challenged, the debrief acts as a bonding ritual and an incentive to go back for another. 

If you consider these five steps, you're bound to experience the perfect movie outing. While a few things may still go wrong, like your popcorn ending up on the floor or an actor not living up to your expectations, memories will be made. Going to watch a movie in the theatre provides the opportunity for long-lasting memories to be made above all else, which is why it will never go out of style. 

5 Canadian films to get you in the holiday spirit

By Nadia Brophy

It’s that time of year again - the one that gets you seated by a warm fireplace, curled up in a blanket with hot cocoa in hand, eyes glued to the TV screen. Ladies and gentleman, it’s Christmas time, and I’d like to gift you with a curated list of some Canadian holiday favourites to get you in the mood for celebrating this special season.

1.     Coming Home for Christmas (2017)

Nothing quite beats the feeling of flicking on the Hallmark Channel at this time of year and immersing oneself in a feel-good Christmas romance. In doing so, you may come across Coming Home for Christmas, a romantic comedy following the complicated love life of Lizzie Richfield, a house manager for an estate in Virginia. The film focuses on Lizzie’s task in planning a Christmas Eve gala before the estate is sold. During this time, she finds herself caught up in the life of Robert Marley, a member of the family who owns the estate, as she begins to fall for him while also being pursued by Robert’s brother Kip. If you’re not a huge fan of keeping up with complicated love triangles, I urge you to still give the film a chance simply for its beautiful Canadian scenery. Despite being a dual American-Canadian production, all of the scenes in Coming Home for Christmas were filmed in picturesque British Columbia. Canadians from the west will recognize the towns and landscapes of Abbotsford and Langley, B.C., which bear striking resemblance to the intricate Christmas village sets that occupy our mantles during this season.

2.     The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)

Romance is all good and fun, but perhaps you’d prefer to indulge in a bit of Christmas history. How about a biopic drama about one of the season’s most beloved authors, Charles Dickens, portrayed by Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens in the Irish-Canadian production The Man Who Invented Christmas. This film chronicles the author’s true story of emergence from financial difficulty after he publishes three novels that fail to gain success in England’s literary scene. After gaining some new-found inspiration, Dickens sets his focus on writing the renowned story of Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, A Christmas Carol. What arguably makes the film most intriguing is watching Dickens’ characters come to life as he writes them into existence. The audience is treated to humorous interactions between the author and the infamous humbug played by Canada’s own Christopher Plummer. The film’s score was written by Canadian composer Mychael Danna and features a series of ambient orchestral works that emulate the feeling of waking up on a snowy Christmas morning.

3. The Nutcracker Prince (1990)

I think we can all agree that there’s something very special about watching animated films during this season. Perhaps it’s the giddy child in us that grew up watching The Grinch and A Charlie Brown Christmas on repeat leading up to Christmas day. If you’re looking to feel that childlike excitement again, The Nutcracker Prince will surely fulfill that desire. Based on the classic story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A Hoffmann, the Canadian animated fantasy tells the tale of a young man - voiced by Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland - who has been cursed to live his life as a nutcracker doll gifted to a girl named Clara on Christmas Eve. When Clara finds out that the curse can be broken if the Nutcracker defeats the sinister Mouse King responsible for the curse and wins the heart of a maiden, she embarks on a fantastical journey to help her special toy become his true self once more. Part of her journey leads her to be shrunken down and transported through the Land of Dolls where Christmas is brought to life on screen through images of elegant white swans, massive evergreen forests and a towering candy palace. If you haven’t already been convinced to add this enchanting film to your Christmas to-watch list, it is also accompanied by the famed music from The Nutcracker ballet, a classic seasonal production that follows the same story.

4. The Legend of Frosty the Snowman (2005)

Yes, you did read that right - the ever-classic The Legend of Frosty the Snowman does indeed fall under the category of Canadiana Christmas. While the film was, in fact, a co-production between America and Canada, part of the animated tale was created by former Vancouver-based animation company Studio B Productions. The film also features the voice talents of Tara Strong, a Toronto native whose work includes Rugrats, Powerpuff Girls and Fairly Odd Parents. This classic animated fantasy is set in the fictional town of Evergreen, where children are forced to abide by a strict curfew and told not to participate in any fun activities. But that all begins to change when a black top hat escapes from a mysterious trunk that has been locked away in an attic for years and gives life to the most fun-filled presence of all - Frosty the Snowman. The magical character quickly wins over the hearts of the children in Evergreen as he encourages them to enjoy the winter season while it lasts. The plot begins to take a wicked turn when an antagonizing force leads Frosty to his demise and steals his hat in an effort to keep the town absent of fun. But that doesn’t stop the children of Evergreen from embarking on a quest to reclaim their snowy companion’s hat in an effort to restore the spirit of magic in their somber town.

5. Silent Night (2002)

When looking for films to get us ready for this joyful holiday, we traditionally wouldn’t reach for a dark flick with intense subject matter. But for those of us who are looking for a little more depth and substance in our films - still keeping with the spirit of Christmas, of course - can turn to Silent Night, a fact-based story set on Christmas Eve during World War II. The film follows a German woman and her son who attempt to escape the dangers of war by fleeing to an isolated cabin in the Ardennes forest. It is not long before their cabin is invaded by groups of American soldiers and their German enemies. The interaction would have ended in a bloodbath if it weren’t for the mother who, after much struggle, is able to convince the German soldiers to set aside their contentions with the Americans and partake in a Christmas Eve dinner together. The soldiers eventually build unlikely friendships that supersede the tension that once existed between them. While I wouldn’t list Silent Night under the ‘feel-good’ category we’re all familiar with during the holidays, I would nevertheless label it a film that captures the spirit of Christmas in bringing people together to celebrate the season.

Review: The Barbarian Invasions

By: Nadia Brophy

With the imminence of death comes a reflection on life, love, politics and sex in Denys Arcand’s 2003 French-language drama The Barbarian Invasions.

Arcand takes viewers on a trip through the cynical mind of terminally ill history professor Rémy (Rémy Girard) as he battles with the bitter-sweet reminiscence of a life of adultery that damaged his relationship with his son Sébastien (Stéphane Rousseau). Simultaneously, the film pays homage to its comedy prequel The Decline of the American Empire which follows the lives of young Rémy and his intellectual group of close friends as they partake in pensive conversations about sex and politics. The group regathers years later to celebrate the life of their friend in his final days and re-engage in their well-loved discussion.

From the beginning of the film, we are immersed in the complicated relationship between Rémy and Sébastien as they engage in several tense arguments about Sébastien’s career. Rémy expresses distaste over his son’s choice to pursue the construction of his own business over a good education, and Sébastien replies with snide comments about how his father’s preoccupation with mistresses prevented him from truly understanding his son’s choices.

We don’t begin to see why the two characters struggle to comprehend one another’s life choices until Rémy’s ex-wife, Sébastien’s mother, tells her son a story of his father’s dedication to helping him succeed academically throughout his childhood.

From that moment on, Sébastien makes the out-of-character decision to spend what seems like his every-waking moment providing his father with luxuries during his stay in hospital. The film spends so much time revealing Sébastien’s dislike for his father through several indications that he would rather be taking business calls than holding his hand by his bedside. This sudden turn of character, which otherwise could have been considered a climatic point of the film, appeared as nothing but a mechanism to speed up the plot.  

But I suppose it does the trick, because it is at this point that Sébastien invites the group from The Decline of the American Empire to visit his father, which swiftly changes the film’s focus from exhaustive father-son discourse to light-hearted interactions between old friends.

And there is something particularly hilarious about watching the witty middle-aged ensemble engage in predominantly sex-based dialogue. The sex-intrigued characters were written in light of the 1980 Quebec referendum, a time in which Arcand recalls a societal change in focus from political collectivity to the needs and pleasures of individuals. 

It is in these interactions between characters that actor Rémy Girard’s performance flourishes most, as he delivers emotional recounts of his character’s past endeavours like they were his very own. The film expertly includes quick-cut scenes of the thoughts occupying Rémy’s head, whether it be the moments he reminisces on women he once loved, his family members or personal experiences, the audience is taken on a visual trip through the mind of a man reflecting on the life he lived. I was convinced that his character truly loved this life too much to leave it.

Girard’s co-stars effectively matched his convincing emotions throughout the film, coming together as if in true friendship to honour the same dynamic exhibited in The Decline of the American Empire.

Though for the most part a successfully executed concept, watching the group of friends engage in long conversations, often consisting of what seemed like inside jokes, can sometimes work against audience engagement. I’d be hard-pressed to say that watching the prequel to better understand the characters and their conversational cues wouldn’t help in interpreting the sequel.

Despite the fact that The Barbarian Invasions may not be remembered for particularly stunning visuals or an alluring score, it remains in your memory as an immersive celebration of life, love and forgiveness fueled by its dynamic characters and clever dialogue. 

This piece was edited by Brent Smyth. 

Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity: A Peek into the Chinese-Canadian Milieu

By Julianna Perkins

Grade: B-

In this 2002 feature-length drama, director Mina Shum succeeds in crafting an intimate portrait of the Chinese community in Vancouver.

More than that, though, Shum captures the everyday realities of Chinese-Canadian immigrant life and uses them to weave a story of precocious youthfulness, stubborn old age and strained family dynamics.

Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity is a winding tale that follows three storylines as they tangle.

The individual stories and characters are brought together by protagonist Mindy Lum (Valerie Tian) and her penchant for Taoist charms. Dedicated to magically solving her mother’s problems, Mindy becomes discouraged when nothing seems to work. Little does she realize that all of her spells have been just slightly off, accidentally affecting the rest of the community instead of her own family.

Long Life represents near-retired Shuck Wong (Tseng Chang) and his wife Hun Ping Wong (Tsai Chin) as they struggle to adapt to change late in life.

Happiness is the story of the film’s young and superstitious lead Mindy as she attempts countless spells and charms in a desperate quest to help her mother, Kin Ho Lum (Sandra Oh) find love and wealth.

Prosperity, the final thread, follows butcher Bing Lai’s (Ric Young) attempt to reconcile both his relationship with his estranged father and his expectations of his own son Peter (Kameron Xiao).

The film’s plot is cute, well-written and entertaining. Shum and co-writer Dennis Foon do an excellent job of creating a balanced story; there’s a little bit of laughter, a couple tears here and there, and you finish the movie feeling as though all the separate storylines have come to a conclusion.

The film’s greatest strength, however, is its cast.

There is no whitewashing here; this isn’t Ghost in the Shell or that weird Netflix version of Death Note. This cast is almost entirely Asian and the film has long stretches of dialogue in Cantonese (thankfully, my version had subtitles. Some versions do not).

It’s refreshing, to say the least, to move away from the white-dominated cinema screen and it is the single-most factor that makes the film feel so authentic and intimate.

But while the film is engaging, it can also be a bit slow. Director Shum makes up for that fact, however, by creating a detailed and attractive visual framework; at times, it feels as though the plot is secondary to the art.

Each scene is vivid, and some experimental camera angles add even more life to the film. At one point near the movie’s beginning, we are driven through a dim sum restaurant from a first-hand perspective on top of a waiter’s cart. We burst through the kitchen doors into a chaotic back room, and for a second you feel as though you yourself are interrupting.

The lighting, too, works to paint another layer of realism. Most of the scenes are lit softly and dimly as if to reflect the gray overcast skies that so often shroud Vancouver.

All of Shum’s meticulously curated details work together to create an incredible film about a community. An Asian community. And it is depicted with all of the intricacies of its culture in a way that Shum, an independent Chinese-Canadian filmmaker raised in Vancouver, understands and emboldens.

Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity succeeds as both a rom-com and a focused and animated observation of a city. The film may be 16 years old, but it’s lost none of its charm to time.

This piece was edited by Brent Smyth.

Classic Canadian Cinema: Goin’ Down the Road

By Ben Cohen

This is less of a review and more of a reflection. The quality of this film is undeniable, it’s been preserved as a "masterwork" by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada and was given a perfect 4/4 by the late Roger Ebert. We know it’s good, and a piece of Canadian history. Let’s talk about why that’s the case.

Peter’s had enough. Enough of the unglamorous Maritimes. Enough of toiling in perpetual poverty as a carpenter’s apprentice. He’s set his sights on a better life in Toronto. One where he’d be able to let his blistered, overworked hands and sun-fried skin heal inside an air-conditioned office. He corrals his friend Joey, and together they blaze on westward from Cape Breton in their spray-painted Chevy Impala.  

The iconic flame design and writing on Peter’s ‘60s Impala has become a fixture in Canadian pop culture. 

“I just wanna do something that matters. Somethin’ that shows for myself, says I was there; Peter McGraw was there,” he says to Joey.   

It’s not so easy, though. The pair spend their first big city night in the Salvation Army, flipping through newspaper classifieds looking for work. With barely enough money to eat, and certainly not enough to get back home, they find themselves with their backs pressed firmly against the wall.   

The following day, Peter decorates himself in a suit and barges into an advertising agency. The hiring manager can’t believe it. “You don’t even have a high-school diploma,” he reminds Peter. “The sort of job you’re applying for calls for a university degree.”

“Well what’s the sense in getting an education? I mean, you need an education to work on the docks? Or in the mines? There ain’t a hell of a lot to choose from in the Maritimes, you know,” he replies.

They give in, get menial jobs loading crates at a ginger ale bottling factory and spend their nights off by drinking and gallivanting down the almost unrecognizable 1970 Yonge Street strip. Joey acts as a foil to Peter’s – perhaps undeserved – ambition. He’s complacent. Though their new job is as back-breaking as anything they’d find back home, Joey appreciates the higher rate of pay that the Ontario minimum wage affords them.

In stark, realistic contrast to accepted Hollywood tropes, all of Peter’s attempts at bettering himself are thwarted. When he tries to learn how to operate some of the machines at work, he’s immediately shut-down by his superiors, who deride him, saying he’s “too stupid” to handle the responsibility. When he asks the office bombshell out, she tepidly agrees, but spends her time dancing without him and ends the night by slamming her apartment door in his face after a transparent excuse and a curt goodbye. While this may sound unpleasant to watch, it’s important to note that this movie was made before the advent of any real Canadian film industry. This somber, subversive, almost documentary-style tone helped define our country’s cinematic voice in the decades to come.   

Meanwhile, Joey’s girlfriend gets pregnant and they get married. They move out together. He gets himself a credit card on which he buys a fancy colour TV and expensive furniture. If only the guys back home could see all this, he says, beaming.      

Rejecting Hollywood convention once again, when both men find that they’ve lost their jobs due to seasonal downsizing, they don’t fall into something better right after. From that point on, the film becomes a desperate, frustrating, unfair crawl through the mire of unemployment as bills stack and Joey’s wife’s delivery looms closer.

The film ends when, after a botched grocery store heist, the two Nova Scotia men assault a cashier with a tire iron and flee into the night. They return home the following day to find that the police had beaten them there that morning and would return again soon. Having been swiftly evicted, they discover their belongings left unceremoniously on the street by the landlord. Fearing jailtime, Peter convinces Joey to abandon his pregnant wife, now staying with her aunt and uncle, and continue on to the west coast. She’d just slow them down, they rationalise, and she’s safe with her relatives. Plenty of husbands leave their wives, says Peter.

That’s it. This unforgettable, shoestring-budget tragedy finishes far from anything we’d hazard to call a happy ending. There’s no moral to the story, no reward for any risks taken, no punishment for any ethical lapses. The film’s unflinching realism depicts failure after failure. There is no God in Goin’ Down the Road, only men struggling to survive. That’s precisely what sets this movie apart from any of its contemporaries. It’s not a story that tries to make you happy, it’s a story about people trying to be happy.

Goin’ Down the Road is the Canadian Grapes of Wrath; it’s the story of anyone from a rural area who’s been seduced by big city lights, unaware of the loneliness and desperation hidden in the shadows they cast. This movie is as timeless as a love story, as gut-wrenching as a tear-jerker and as poignant as a documentary. That’s why it’ll never be forgotten. Goin’ Down the Road is a brand burned deep into Canadian film canon. This is the definitive story of so many real people that slipped through the fingers of prosperity and wound up cold and alone out on mean, unforgiving streets.

But, like so many other great artistic touchstones, there’s an unnecessary sequel released decades later to satiate a public that just can’t stop thinking about the original. Like Go Set a Watchman to To Kill a Mockingbird or Closing Time to Catch-22, there is a Down the Road Again to Goin’ Down the Road. More on that next time, though.   

This piece was edited by Brent Smyth.

Top 8 movies to get ready for Hallowe'en

by Brooke Houghton, Caroline Thorne, Brooklyn Johnson and Isabella Lopes No big plans for Tuesday night? Just decided to curl up and watch some good ol' fashioned Hallowe'en movies? Here are the top eight movies to get you in a spooktacular mood!

Backcountry (2015)

In this nature-horror film, young couple Alex (Jeff Roop) and Jenn (Missy Peregrym), go camping in the Canadian wilderness. As an inexperienced camper, Jenn lets her confident boyfriend take the lead. The couple heads to Alex's favourite spot on the secluded Blackfoot Trail. The two soon find themselves lost without a map or food to survive. Terror settles in when they encounter a strange man in the otherwise deserted forest.  

Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire (2007)

In a plot to get their mother out of the house so they can sneak out, siblings Adam (Matt O'Leary) and Chelsea (Laura Vandervoot) set their mom (Caroline Rhea) up on a blind date. However, their youngest brother Taylor (Myles Jeffrey) soon realizes that the man their mother is on a date with is a vampire. The trio of siblings spends the night following their mother on the date to prove it.

Twitches (2005)

On their 21st birthday, Camryn (Tamera Mowry) and Alex (Tia Mowry) find out that they are long lost twin sisters, with magical powers originally from a kingdom in an alternate dimension. The two must use their newfound powers to defeat the darkness that plagues the kingdom.

The Lost Boys (1987) When two brothers, Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim), move to a new town with their recently divorced mother, they get more than they bargained for, as they discover the town is a haven full of vampires! Beetlejuice (1988) A recently deceased couple haunting their former house hire a heinous ghost in an attempt to scare away the new residents. This all-star cast (featuring Alec Baldwin, Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton and Canadian-American actress Catherine O'Hara) has become a cult classic, growing in popularity every year.

It (2017)

In the small town of Derry, Maine, children are going missing at an increasingly alarming rate. Once his little brother falls victim to one of these mysterious attacks, Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) and his friend group including Richie (Finn Wolfhard), decide to investigate and ultimately destroy whatever evil force is terrorizing the town. Spoiler Alert: it’s a terrifying clown that will haunt your dreams. How is this a Canadian film? It was all filmed in Toronto, Oshawa, and Port Hope.

Prom Night (1980)

A masked murderer stalks and attempts to kill a group of six high school seniors on their prom night in this classic horror flick starring Jamie Lee Curtis. The group was responsible for the accidental death of young Robin Hammond six years ago. This movie was filmed all over Toronto, with some signature shots placed at the Scarborough Bluffs.

Scream (1996)

Scream is a (somewhat) modern classic, following Sidney Prescott (played by Canadian actress Neve Campbell) as she is stalked and attacked by the mysterious masked killer called "Ghostface." The film is famous for references to overused horror movie cliches and for mixing comedic elements into a classic slasher film.

TIFF Review: “Eye on Juliet” - Love in the Age of Drones

By: Urbi Khan

Letter Grade: B

While piloting his robotic spider from the United States, a hexapod operator and pipeline guardian (Joe Cole) becomes fascinated by a Middle Eastern woman (Lina El –Arabi, it’s the latest from the Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Kim Nguyen. – TIFF description

We have all come to know that Big Brother may always be watching. However, he observes us for our own good, apparently. This is the proposition that the Quebec filmmaker, Kim Nguyen sets for his latest film, Eye on Juliet.

The film, starring Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders, Green Room) and Lina El-Arabi, explores a drone-assisted love story that breaks down cultural barricades and long distances. Eye on Juliet is set in an utopian world where technology has the ability to influence love.

This well-meaning, romantic story that circumstantially brings together two people together is a disappointment. Mainly because the so-called 'roundness' of the geopolitical landscape in this tale is extremely flat as Gordon (Cole), the hexapod operator is shown to be in suburban Detroit whereas Ayusha (El-Arabi) is shown to be only located in a town in the North African desert, her exact location is not identified.

The representation of the two characters’ location is uneven. Compared to Nguyen’s Oscar-nominated film, War Witch (2012), this film lacks representation of the diverse nature of Africa as it is very generalized in this film.

Eye on Juliet opens with a landscape seen in night-vision accompanied by low-frequency music. This sets the mood for the film that you are going off into an unknown world.

We first find Gordon, a handsome all-American man, in a night-club, where he is in the middle of a bad break up. On the verge of a mental breakdown, Gordon gets thrown out of the club. He goes home, sits in a corner and contemplates in a disheveled and empty room. We are introduced into the world of a character who is emotionally distraught and displaced. This is not unknown territory for anyone; it’s a cliché. The only point of solace in Gordon’s life is when he stumbles upon Ayusha in the North African desert through his hexapod, where he is guarding oil pipelines for the company he is working for.  

Ayusha’s storyline presents an inventively stylized Romeo-Juliet melodrama as she meets in secret with her boyfriend near the pipelines. Gordon interjects himself into her life as he has lost his own love. The Juliet-like character of Ayusha is arranged to be married to an older man by her parents; Gordon tries to resolve this through his hexapod all the way from the United States.

Despite all the stereotypical story material about a ‘third-world’ damsel-in-distress, who is essentially rescued by a white, male saviour, this film does have its enduring qualities.

When Gordon comes into contact with Ayusha for the first time, he speaks Arabic in a computerized, pre-set voice which is programmed to be “soothing” in sound. I find this to be reminiscent of Spike Jonze’s tech love story Her (2013), as human and a robot interact in a humanly, empathetic way.

Eye on Juliet could easily have been political as it centres around an white, American male and an African-Muslim female, but it is not and that is uplifting for the audience. However, it seems that this story is only an attempt at romance and is not fully realized as Gordon only helps Ayusha because he is lovelorn himself.

Another enduring quality of the film is its ability to bring in some elements of humour to an otherwise dramatic plot. The film  includes a blind, old man who appears only once. He apparently “sees” the world with wisdom and tells Gordon - through the hexapod - the true nature of love. Understandably, this is a Shakespearean allusion, alluding to the film’s title.

When Gordon questions the self-proclaimed expert on life, how you can know when you really love a woman the old man replies, “First you must embrace her, close. Close enough that you can smell her neck, smell her scent. And if you become engulfed by it - kiss her! Then the talking will ensue between you two. And if you didn’t like kissing her, than all talk ceases. After that, you must simply walk away.”

To this advice, Gordon chuckles.

Eye on Juliet is well-produced. The desert terrain and soundtrack creates an atmospheric experience as the sounds make it an impressive journey for the audience. When viewing this film, the audience can hear every trickle of water, the winds of the desert and see in vivid colour the environment that surrounds the characters.

Essentially, one leaves with the sense that this film is about a lovelorn, privileged saviour who is detached from his environment, until he finds an exotic cause to care about. The damsel-in-distress, Ayusha, alleviates the troubles of his mundane existence. In the end of the 90 minutes, the hero finds love and the heroine simply just accepts his love. Finally, Eye on Juliet leaves the audience with this message: Big Brother sees all and he protects. He is the saviour.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39r8FF94Iro[/embed]

A Brief History of TIFF

by Daniel McIntosh

September in Toronto brings three things: back-to-school traffic, colder morning weather and the Toronto International Film Festival, the city’s annual celebration of film culture. Anyone who has ever heard of TIFF knows it’s a breeding ground for Oscar nominees, future cult classics and emerging directors, but it wasn’t always as accepted for its merits. Look back through TIFF’s origin story to find out how the plucky festival became an industry powerhouse.

TIFF began in 1976 as the brainchild of co-founders Bill Marshall and Henk van der Kolk. The two film producers shared a vision of Toronto as a film hub, detached from Hollywood and American studios that dominated the industry.

In conversation with the National Post, Van der Kolk described how the idea for the festival first came to them.

 “All Bill and I wanted to make was feature films. Making a feature was a bit of an uphill battle in this country: you didn’t make feature films, you went to see American feature films," Van der Kolk said. "We needed to get noticed. How the hell do we get the world to realize we’re here, and how do we get a Canadian film industry? That’s why it started, really."

The pair, along with mutual friend Dusty Cohle, founded Toronto’s Festival of Festivals, showing films that were well-received in international circuits, in an effort to bring attention to Canada’s film scene.

The festival faced setbacks in its first year, with several Hollywood studios withdrawing their submissions, believing Canadian audiences would be too conservative for their content.

“The first year, we had a panel where the American distributors all said they would come, and they lied to us. So I put up directors’ chairs with the names of all the studio heads on them and went up and down and told them what shitheels they were,” Marshall said.

Nonetheless, the inaugural festival opened to 35 000 people, showing 140 films from 30 countries.

By the 1980s, the festival had gained notoriety in the international film community. In 1981, Chariots of Fire won the festival’s People’s Choice Award, providing fanfare that would contribute to it winning the Best Picture Oscar. The festival expanded from a simple community showing to a veritable predictor for future award seasons.

Hollywood began to take notice, and, seeing the burgeoning popularity of the festival, rethought their stance on attending the event. In 1982, Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall made appearances during a Martin Scorsese retrospective, beginning the long tradition of celebrity sightings that TIFF has become synonymous with, and marking the first major involvement of Hollywood stars in the festival’s programming.

In 1994, the name of the festival was changed to the TIFF we know and love.

Today, TIFF continues to expand its presence in Toronto and the film world, with the 2007 construction of the Bell Lightbox—a theatre, research centre and museum dedicated to film culture.

The Lightbox, located on the north corner of King and John streets, features two gallery spaces and offers screenings, lectures and workshops for budding filmmakers, viewers and fans.

The Lightbox also contains archives, a film lab centre and houses the Film Reference Library, which provides access to a comprehensive collection of film prints, scripts, periodicals and press kits surrounding the festival and film culture at large.

Despite its rocky beginnings, TIFF has become an integral part of Toronto’s culture and an esteemed event for cinema lovers all around the world. Now after its 40th anniversary, and with its own headquarters for year-round events, it shows no sign of slowing down.

TIFF Review: "The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches"

By Julianna Perkins

Grade: B

Quebec director Simon Lavoie returned to the Toronto International Film Festival this year with a perverse gothic drama sure to stir conversation among the film crowd.

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches, a French-language film subtitled in English, is Lavoie’s latest work, loosely adapted from Quebec author Gaétan Soucy’s French novel of the same name.

The film, which has a rating of 18A, centers on the disturbing life of the Soissons, a family of three living in almost absolute isolation in 1930's Quebec.

The father, played by Jean-François Casabonne, is a drunkard prone to Carrie-esque fits of religious fanaticism who oppresses the household with a ramshackle paranoia that pervades every aspect of life. His children, played by Antoine L’Écuyer and Marine Johnson, are conditioned to fear and distrust any element of the outside world and are taught that their father formed them from clay.

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches lands its contorted focus on the young female child, Alice (Johnson), documenting her twisted upbringing at the hands of abusers, watching as she is forced to cut her hair and bind her chest, addressed only as “Brother” and “Son.” We follow along as one perverted disaster after another warps her youth, underscoring the film with the sense that femininity must equal pain.

This is not an easy film, nor is it a remotely pleasant film.

And yet somehow you stay magnetically attracted to the screen, observing incest, rape, torture, abuse, deformity, suicide and count after count of violence with the understanding that the inclusion of these acts is not gratuitous. This isn’t a jump-scare horror movie; instead, it brings up everything that you know is wrong and makes you sit in, consider it, and explore it, to the point that you almost feel disturbed.

Lavoie, who described the film as a “poetic period drama,” admitted that The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches was cinematographically influenced by the works of Pier Pasolini and a 1960's Czech film titled Spalovač Mrtvol or The Cremator. He said he wanted to create a “no compromises” film that stayed true to the “radical” nature of the original book by Soucy.

Filmed in black and white and woven through with tortured eroticism, The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is visually both beautiful and raw. The lack of major dialogue allows the silence in the theatre to feel oppressive, broken only by moments of intense and orgasmic operatic symphony.

“Overwhelming” is the most apt word to describe The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches. Visually and emotionally, to watch this film is to sit wide-eyed in a room full of strangers that collectively exhale once the credits roll. It is 111 minutes of palpable disgust.

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is no one-off from Lavoie, whose previous film Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves, co-directed with Mathieu Denis, won Best Canadian Feature at last year’s TIFF festival, also earning a spot in the 2017 Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival.

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches and its forceful acting worms its way into your memory in a way I feel few “scary” movies have had the power to do. Its intensity andconsistent use of close-ups will leave Johnson’s panicked eyes burned into your mind long after you step out of the theatre.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rcH8cJ-PGo[/embed]

TIFF Review: "Black Cop" - A Morality Play Wrapped in Satire

by Ben Cohen

A Black police officer (Ronnie Rowe Jr.) seeks revenge after being egregiously profiled and assaulted by his colleagues, in this searing political satire by actor-director Cory Bowles (Trailer Park Boys). -TIFF description

Grade: A

William Faulkner once said that the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself. Cory Bowles, known for his role as Cory in Trailer Park Boys, has written and directed just that: a raucous, stylish, vivid drama centred around a pariah in communities both blue and black, the titular Black Cop, who epitomizes internal conflict by virtue of his role in society.

Black Cop excels not just as a powerful political statement, but also technically, as a genuinely well-woven piece of cinema. The soundtrack is evocative, puissant and fresh. The score makes ironic use of minstrel songs, features “black spiritual death metal” (as Bowles referred to it after the show) and tempestuous, lyrical hip hop. One jarring scene in particular thunders with excellent musical pairing, wherein cacophonous jazz batters our brains into a state of alarm, tuning us into the main character’s frantic emotional state.

The cinematography, though occasionally borrowing techniques from other films (Bronson, 2008, in particular during recurring, creatively lit fourth-wall breaking asides), is intelligent, inspired and raw. The audience is exposed to police brutality in the film in the same manner as we are in real life, as the camera shifts from dashcam to body camera to smartphone recording during these troubling scenes. Though Black Cop was shot in only 12 days, one would never hazard to guess that.

Ronnie Rowe Jr. delivers a magnetic performance as the Black Cop. “Every moment [Rowe was] on camera, he moved me,” said Bowles in his introduction to the film at the Tuesday night premier – a statement I nearly agree with. Though I admire the skill with which Rowe navigated the emotional depths and complexities of his character, I couldn’t help but feel that his delivery of some of the more humorous bits of dialogue warranted a few more takes.

Politically, Black Cop occupies a space so relevant and contentious and finishes – after quickly doing away with the first act’s faux-passivity – with such vibrant, furious and unapologetic moral certitude that it seems almost fated to exist, like the word of God blaring across a silver screen, commanding everyone in attendance to champion the importance of black lives and to acknowledge the undeniable systematic oppression they face. In the end, Black Cop is an allegory carved from the same marble as Everyman. The lesson is that, in these divided times, to ignore is to encourage, to deny aid is to abet and that racial profiling and police violence can’t just be wished away.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RiOirLKtQM[/embed]

Movie Review: Last Night

It is Dec. 31, 1999, and at 12 a.m. the world is going to end. Last Night is the ‘90s action movie, written and directed by Don McKellar who also plays the main role. He is trying to find an answer for the teasing question that most of us have probably asked ourselves: What would you do if you knew that this was your last night on earth?

The terrifying news was announced two months before the movie’s action starts, and we see in the first scene that everyone got used to it.

The film links together a group of different Canadians living in Toronto during the last few hours before a mysterious catastrophe. Various individuals distinctly react to the end of the world. Patrick (Don McKellar) wants to spend the final moments of his life alone at his apartment. Some people, like his sister and her fiancé choose to go downtown where people gather for a New Year’s Eve countdown, which is in fact, oddly, the end of the world. Others, live life to the fullest until, literally, the end.  

When you watch this kind of catastrophic movie with everyone being passive about the current situation, you expect someone to resist. Sandra (Sandra Oh), who does not want to let the world kill her, promised herself and her husband that they would take each other’s lives away before midnight. She tries to get across the city to her husband, who spends his last night at work, but crazy people damaged her car. She runs into Patrick who tries to help her get back home, unfortunately, without any success.  Chaos errupts in Toronto– everything is destroyed, cellphones do not work, streetcars are out of service and people get insane on streets.

Sandra and Patrick are stuck at his place alone. Since she cannot be with her husband, she asks him to shoot her before the world ends (as we later find out her husband was shot by a psycho from the street). The most touching scene is when these two strangers share with each other their secrets to ‘fall in love in each other’ and die with a beloved one.

In the last few seconds on the earth, they both hold guns to each other heads, which seem like a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. The camera is spinning around them for a good moment to build up tension. When their lives are about to end they suddenly drop the guns and start kissing each other.Unfortunately, we do not get to see what force destroyed the world.

Both Oh and McKellar performed with great acting skills throughout the whole movie. Oh’s facial expressions and body language clearly expressed her aching anxiety for the current situation. Yet, McKellar invisibly assimilated with his character’s despair and stoicism.

One of the biggest achievements of Last Night was when it won the Award of the Youth at Cannes Film Festival in the foreign film category.

Flashback Film: When Night is Falling

When Night is Falling is a Canadian romantic drama featured around the beauty of a same sex relationship between a deeply religious woman and a free-spirited circus performer.

The film takes us through Camille Baker’s (Pascal Bussières) heartbreak, loss and inner turmoil as she struggles to make sense of her fascination with Petra (Rachel Crawford), a girl from the other side of the tracks.

Directed by Patricia Rozema, the two women first meet when Baker is crying in a Laundromat after finding out her dog has died. Petra, is immediately intrigued by Baker and tries to comfort her.

In an attempt to see Baker again after their intimate yet brief encounter, Petra intentionally mixes up their laundry, drawing Baker to the outskirts of town to where she is living with the circus.

Their second encounter reveals Petra’s intentions for the mix up and her attraction towards Baker. Ultimately surprised by her forwardness, Baker flees from Petra`s trailer.

Wanting to apologize for her forwardness, Petra tracks Baker down at her house and the encounter leads to the two kissing for the first time. Baker is a college teacher at a highly religious institute and is in a long-term relationship with another professor is conflicted with her feelings for Petra. The film continues on with Baker's struggle to balance her beliefs and her growing desires for a woman.

When Night is Falling is a love story that proves love has no bounds. It is a perfect movie to watch while spending time with your significant other, it’s a film that reaffirms the bonds that tie one another together.  

This 1995 film has several sex scenes that captures the intimacy between two people and it maybe just the film to spark intimacy in your own love life this February.

Baker throughout this film, fights her attraction for a woman and in doing so sleeps with her male partner. The contrast between the love scenes with Petra, and Baker’s male lover illustrates the difference between sexual attraction and love.

Rozema does more than grasp the intimacy between lovers, she  also grasps the struggle that same-sex relationships face from their community; and the battle with accepting who you really are and coming out.

Not only that but the film challenges the views of those who are afraid of the unknown and how humanly imperfect love is, no matter the shape or form that it comes in.

Flashback Film: Meatballs

Meatballs, a 1979 Canadian comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman, is the film that started Bill Murray’s successful comedic career as a leading actor. This coming of age story centres around a summer camp, Camp North Star. It is about a group of  adolescents who are dropped off by their parents for the duration of the summer. Comedy genius, Bill Murray, plays the head counsellor, Tripper Harrison.

Harrison, leads a group of new counsellors in training, also known as CITs, for various age groups. Harrison throughout the film frequently enlists the help of the CITs in pranking the camp's director Morty Melnick (Harvey Atkin) as he sleeps. Thus, strapping him to his bed and placing him various areas of the camp during the night. Some places are a little more creative and difficult to execute with poor Morty waking up in his bed suspended up in the tree line or on the side of the road.

Meatballs, provides an entertaining and lively experience for the whole family. Also, it is the definition of a timeless piece that despite its aged date is still relevant to this day. It is an embodying film about what it's like to grow up and make new friends and fall in love. While exercising our own adolescent milestones and the free, adventurous spirit of a youthful soul.

Summer camp cannot be without a healthy dose of competition and in this case Camp North Star faces off against their much more wealthier opponent, Camp Mohawks, who are situated from just across the lake. Camp Mohawk participants pay on average of $1000 a day and has a cliche of better experiences and practices that rival those of a spa retreat. The Mohawks have subsequently beat Camp North Star 12 times in a row and appear to be well on their way to making it a13th time unless Camp Northstars band of flawed misfit CITs can come together successfully.

Faced with insurmountable odds, Harrison delivers a motivational chant that obliterates the fear of losing, because as Harrison puts it, “it doesn't matter whether we win or lose, because even if we win, all the pretty girls will still only go out with a Mohawk because of their money!” Once a loser always a loser, doesn't mean you can't do it with style. Needless to say with no other outcome but total failure, I guess it does take out the stress of winning.

This is the first film that Bill Murray appears as the starring role, and you can see from his performance that the actor we know and love today was just as goofy and hilariously outrageous as he was at the start of his career.

Meatballs made a grand total of approximately $43 million in the box office, which was nearly 29 times the amount of the films budget for production ($1.6 million).

Flashback Film: The Keeper

The Keeper a 1976 mystery film directed by T.Y. Drake, is garnered around a psychiatric asylum, Underwood. Its patients tend to be wealthy heirs and heiresses. The man in charge of Underwood is a greying cripple known as the Keeper (Christopher Lee). Lee is a famed and renowned actor known for playing popular bad guys such as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Count Dooku in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Just as in those big box office hits, Lee played his part as a “bad guy” so well that goose flesh is a common reaction to the sound of his voice.

However, despite being graced by the presence of “bad guy royalty,” the movie seemed to fall flat in all other aspects. In all honesty, the majority of the film comprised of repetitive scenes of flashing colourful lights, and the spinning white and black pattern normally associated with hypnotism. It was a visual effect used to help the audience understand that the characters on screen were being hypnotized, but it really hypnotized the audience into a state of perpetual boredom.

The method of hypnotherapy doesn’t quite fulfill those expectations of what we all have seen on TV to look like. The patients of Underwood Asylum were brought into a small white room with an electric door that had no handle with nothing inside but a chair. Instead, it came off as more of a weird torture mechanism, which includes the patients being placed onto a seat that is electrified. These scenes do formulate sympathy and an unsettling feelings, for the characters having their genitals zapped now and again as the camera films close ups of their squirming and pained facial expressions, while being asked a series of probing questions by Lee.  

To continue this low budget film’s descent into a burning pit of ‘nope’, the film's plot and characters  were badly set up and introduced right from the beginning. I admit I was confused for a third of the actual film, not knowing what exactly was happening. Normally, mysteries have audience members wanting to find out what happens next, with them sitting on the edge of their seats gleefully watching as it unfolds on the screen before them. However, the Keeper, was more effective in helping me perfect my list making skills, of all the things I would much rather have been doing than watching that movie.

The Keeper and the Underwood Asylum are being investigated by private investigator Richard Driver (Tell Schreiber), and the town’s police force because of a number of mysterious deaths surrounding the relatives of the patients who attended Underwood. When the reasoning behind all those mysterious deaths and the Keeper’s overall scheme is revealed, disappointment was inevitable. It turns out that the whole reason as to why he was hypnotizing these insanely rich people and causing the deaths of their relatives was so he could be “the richest and most powerful man in the world.”

History tends to repeat itself; the Keeper, like all mad geniuses, nearly met his own demise by the hands of the very device he created. The film ends (thankfully), on a small cliffhanger, with the audience wondering what exactly happens to the inspector as well as the keeper himself. The final scene is a weird close up of Christopher Lee’s face, with his black soulless eyes staring into yours through your screen.

This movie was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia on a budget of $135,000 and over the course of only 23 days. The film was never actually theatrically released but made its television premiere on December 19, 1985.

Flashback Film: My Bloody Valentine

This ‘80s movie My Bloody Valentine directed by George Mihalka is the bread and butter of horror movie clichés. From the movie being set in a small town, where everyone knows everyone, to a complicated love triangle, to the combination of sex and gore being wrapped up in a beautiful pink heart shaped box just in time for Halloween.

The coal mining town of Valentine Bluffs did not have a Valentine’s Day celebration in over 20 years. Ever since a coal mining accident that killed 4 miners and left one trapped for several days. Due to two negligent supervisors who had left their posts early, in order to attend a Valentine’s Day party.

Harry Warden, the sole survivor from the mining accident went after the two supervisors for revenge, killing them with a mining axe and removing their hearts and stuffing them into heart shaped boxes. He warned the town to never hold another Valentine’s Day party or more killings would follow. After some years had passed and the memory of Harry Warden’s warning were forgotten, the people of Valentine Bluffs have decided to hold the first Valentine’s Day party in over 20 years.

The movie starts off with two miners dressed up in full gear, covering their faces with breathing masks; heading down into the depths of one of the dark shafts of a mine. Arriving at what appears to be an intersection of two shafts crossing one another, where the two come to a stop. One begins to undress, revealing that one of the miners is a woman, almost naked, except for her underwear beneath the navy blue jumpsuit.

The end of the first scene is tied off with the typical horror movie cliché of boobs, sex, blood and gore. A plot point that has become overly predictable with horror movies produced within the ‘80s, which has remained prominent in today’s movie productions. It’s almost like painting a bright red target on specific characters; a symbol that foreshadows their impending doom.   

The Mayor (Larry Reynolds) of Valentine Bluffs has something extra to celebrate about, with the return of his son T.J. (Paul Kelman), after he up and left, over a year ago. When T.J. left, he didn’t tell anyone where he was going and if he was ever going to be coming back. In the Fray he left behind his then girlfriend Sarah (Lori Hallier) who has since moved on and is in a relationship with Axel (Neil Affleck) another miner who works alongside T.J. Sarah, however, still has feelings for T.J., causing tension between the two men.

Now if the love triangle is starting to bore you, have no fear, this slasher film is in no short supply of bodies dropping throughout the film. The way in which every character is killed off gives praise to their creativity. Not one is killed off the same way, which keeps the audience members riveted to their seats and gasping every so often, in sympathetic horror and pain for the dying actors on screen. Furthermore, the gore scenes in My Bloody Valentine are elevated to a whole new level by the stellar job done by the special effects makeup artists who had to individually design body parts and various other gory pieces that make those scenes stand out.

Filmed on location in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, My Bloody Valentine provides a satisfying thriller with plot twists and an unsuspected ending. It is not your typical jump out horror movie, My Bloody Valentine is a classic suspense story that has you sitting on the edge of your seat, as your favourite characters navigate the dark with a killer that seems to be ahead of them at every turn.