Every once in a while something really astonishing and fresh comes along and Thunder Road is both astonishing and fresh. It blew my mind! Jim Cummings deserves every accolade and more for this wonderful little micro-budget indie film. I'm a sucker for a good movie about mental illness. If you add in an element about parent/child bonds, family, or parenting alone then you've got me and I'll watch that movie. Thunder Road tackles loss, addiction, mental illness, masculinity, family bonds, and the stress of being a single-working parent, and yet somehow is a hilarious comedy. And it does all this without ever laughing at Officer Jim's mental breakdown. This film is filled with earnest love and pain and it balances all the feels and tackles tricky issues effortlessly. This is not a cringe comedy, it's all heart and soul. 5/5 MUST SEE! |
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Moonlight is exquisite. This astonishing film is the second feature from Barry Jenkins (Medicine 4 Melancholy, 2008). Told in 3 chapters Moonlight follows Chiron, a young gay man, from his schooldays in inner-city Miami, through high school, and into adulthood. Moonlight is based on the play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell McCraney. This is the most beautiful, and important film of the year. I have never seen anything like this before. From the casting to the sound editing, Moonlight is stellar. Moonlight has won a lot of awards and I predict Oscars this coming February. Moolight is a MUST SEE! DO IT! 5/5 Borealis is an enjoyable Canadian road dramedy about a gambling addict, single-father (Jonas Chernick) who takes his teenage, pot smoking daughter (Joey King) from Winnipeg to Churchill to see the Northern Lights before she goes completely blind. Of course Jonah, the father, owes money and so he's also on the lam with two gangsters (Kevin Pollack and Cle Bennett) hot on his tail. This is a delightful little Canadian film. King delivers as the daughter who is rapidly losing her vision. Chernick wrote and produced the film. This is the 5th collaboration between Chernick and director Sean Garrity. Ultimately, the film could have dispensed with the gambling debt/mob sub plot but truly, Pollack and Bennett are really enjoyable as Tubby and Brick. Give it a whirl. Support Canadian cinema. 4/5 I wanted to like Sisters but I doubted it for a bit at the beginning. Thankfully, that changed pretty quickly. Yes, I liked it. This is an Amy Poehler and Tina Fey comedy about two wacky sisters who stage a high school-style rager, and invite all their now late-40s high school friends, when they find out their parents (Dianne Wiest and Barry Bostwick) are selling the family home. As I mentioned, it almost lost me before it really got going but came around quickly. So, after a bit of a faulty start this turns into exactly the kind of Apatow-esque adult rauch-comedy you'd expect it to be. Also, there's a dance sequence. 4/5 If you know what's good for you, you like Flight of the Concords. And, you individually love both Jemaine Clement and Brett McKenzie. People Places Things is a little indie dramedy starring Jemaine that I recently watched on Netflix. It's a bit uneven, but it's charming enough. People Places Things is about a single dad, graphic novelist, teacher who is trying to move on from his recent divorce. I could relate to this film on a number of levels, but I'm not sure it will hit home for everyone--and that is just fine. I laughed quite a bit, though I often laugh at moments in films that no one else would ever laugh at, so I dunno if you want to take my opinion on the comedic value with a grain of salt. And with these caveats I do not mean to pigeonhole this nice little indie flick, it really was good. Jessica Williams of the Daily Show is great as art student Kat. Jemaine is solid. 3/5 |
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