As a horror fiend, I’ve made my fair share of trips to the movie theatre this year. I am especially lucky to live in a city like Montreal, because I was able to see every single one of these on the big screen, thanks to smaller independent theatres and Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival (which I can’t recommend enough). This being the time of year for the spooks, and when most people want to get their horror fill, I thought I’d lend my own experiences to help people choose what to …

(500)Days of Summer, is not a love story, at least that’s what we’re told within the first few minutes of the film. It’s not a love story, like All the Real Girls or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind aren’t love stories; they’re about love but reveal the bleaker underside, the heartbreak and uncertainty that inevitably come with commitment.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Tom, and he believes in love. He learned about love from pop music and movies, and he believes that there is someone perfect out there for him. …

Although celebrities are clearly a better class of people, they are nevertheless still people, still subject to human frailties and medical conditions. In order to raise awareness and sales of their memoirs, some celebs have told the world of their troubles: Mary Tyler Moore chairs a diabetes charity, Magic Johnson has advocated for HIV awareness and safer sex, and members of the Brat Pack have never tried to hide their prefrontal lobotomies. But other celebs have hidden behind a wall of shame. Let us shatter the secrecy surrounding five …

Remakes (or in this case, second remakes) are handicapped from the get-go.  Playtime compatriot Daniel Swensen has already outlined the pitfalls of modern updates, and the new Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 falls in line on its tracks like the titular subway train. One can see the infinitely tense possibilities of the skeletal scenario of Morton Freedgood’s (alias John Godey’s) 1973 novel on which each movie has been based: four men hijack a NYC subway car and hold its passengers hostage; the head criminal has found a way to …

The audience is made up of equal parts leather-clad true believers, college-age hipsters, and, like me, cinematic onlookers hoping for a once-in-a-lifetime multimedia experience.  I’d never heard of the Canadian hard rockers Anvil, but since the unveiling of the sweetly-titled documentary, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, at Sundance in 2008, buzz had been mounting.  I frequently check this particular theater’s online listings, never knowing when a special event may appear, and tonight I’ve hit the jackpot:  Anvil itself is going to be at this midnight showing, thrashing through what could …

Though something of a nostalgia trip, Adventureland never falls into the traps of over romanticizing or sentimentalizing a bygone era. Inspired by the events of his own post-adolescence in the 1980s, Greg Mottola writes and directs this surprisingly tender film about confused and loveless young adults. Though beginning on a similar note as many films of its type — a party where the protagonist, James, is introduced as a virgin — the film takes an unusual path from there. He returns home to find out his summer plans are dashed …

"ONE lover, ah ah ah…"
From its somnambulistic opening, a slow-mo Joaquin Phoenix shedding his dry cleaning delivery along a pier and calmly plunging into Sheepshead Bay, his mind’s eye imagining a woman forlornly leaving a home, Two Lovers establishes its pervasive tone as that of fatalistic, romantic depression.  Phoenix is Leonard Kraditor, a young Brighton Beach man with emotional problems whose previous suicide attempt forced him to live in his parents’ apartment and to work for their dry cleaning business.  In quick succession, two love interests enter his life: Sandra …