2013-08-30

The Tarnished Angels

The Tarnished Angels (Douglas Sirk, 1957)
Adapted from William Faulkner’s novel Pylon, Douglas Sirk’s lavish black and white film stars regular Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone. Reunited two years after the making of the masterpiece, yes I said it, Written on the Wind, this trio does it again for another great Sirk film.

2013-08-29

Film Festival : Festival de cinéma de la Ville de Québec – Opening film announcement


With the third edition of the Festival de cinéma de la Ville de Québec coming September 19th to the 29th, it was recently released that the opening film this year will be Peter Landesman’s Parkland starring Paul Giamatti, Zac Efron, Billy Bob Thornton and Jacki Weaver.
It is the first time that a non-Quebecois film is the opening title. The programming director stated that Parkland is such a strong film that it needed to be the headline.
Amongst the other films coming are : Catherine Martin’s Une jeune fille, David La Haie’s J’espère que tu vas bien 2, Mathieu Roy’s L’autre maison for the known Quebecois titles so far and Don Jon starring Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson has been announced
More updates coming with the release of the entire program on the 3rd day of September.

2013-08-26

Bones Brigade: An Autobiography

Bones Brigade: An Autobiography (Stacy Peralta, 2012)
When six teenage boys came together as a skateboarding team in the 1980s, they reinvented not only their chosen sport but themselves too - as they evolved from insecure outsiders to the most influential athletes in the field.

2013-08-23

Obsession (1976)


Obsession (Brian De Palma, 1976)
The early career of Brian De Palma is filled with very inspired films that many filmmakers have cited as inspirations like Sisters, Dressed to Kill, Carrie, and Blow-Up. His 1976 film, Obsession is openly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, De Palma’s major and obvious influence. The script written by Paul Schrader has been widely rewritten by De Palma to simplify and make it more appealing to a wider audience. However, the plot and elements are revealing many recurring themes that Schrader has exploited in many of his other works.

2013-08-21

What's Up, Doc?

What’s Up, Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972)
Following his biggest hit The Last Picture Show that played as an homage to the old Hollywood of John Ford and Orson Welles, director Peter Bogdanovich teamed up with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal to pay a tribute to Howard Hawks’ quintessential classic slapstick comedies Bringin’up Baby and His Girl Friday. Doing a genre film is always tricky for a director that has his own voice and such encyclopedic knowledge of Film History. However, the movie was the third highest grossing title at the box-office in 1972.

2013-08-19

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World


Scott Pilgrim vs. the World(Edgar Wright, 2010)
Adapted from Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels Scott Pilgrim, this Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz)  piece of cinematic extravagance has a certain appeal to the Y generation in its obvious use of sounds of classic Nintendo and Sega Genesis games.
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is 22 years old and plays bass in a band called Sex-Bob-Omb and he has a new girlfriend the 17 years old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) that all his friends disapprove of. Not really long after his new relationship has debuted he meets another mysterious girl that he dreams about and rapidly fall in love with. She is Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and looks like a gothic hipster girl with coloured hairs. She seems fragile and Scott is torn between the two girls until he decides to go with Ramona he soon discovers that he’ll have to defeat her seven evil exes to get to go out with her.

2013-08-14

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!


This review is dedicated to the memory of Haji (born Barbarella Catton) who recently passed away August 9th 2013. She was born in my hometown, Québec City, and this film was chosen by me has our assignation for the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Club for August 22nd 2013. It was a coincidence but I'm glad that it turns out to highlight her career a little bit.
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1965)
Camp, cult, sexy, violent, influential, and indescribable are some of the best adjectives that comes when watching director Russ Meyer’s film. It is also a cinephile’s delight with the campy dialogues, the bad girls and the over the top acting and the crossing of the line of filmic codes. It is also a great transgenre that marries Western, Horror, Thriller, and Film noir. Definitely and without a doubt a huge influence on Quentin Tarantino’s films, especially Death Proof, it also has an edge of Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the weird family of men, the strong retarded son and the crippled father.

2013-08-09

The African Queen

The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)
This namesake adaptation of C.S. Forester’s novel of 1935 is an adventure movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Robert Morley and Katharine Hepburn play Samuel and Rose Sayer, brother and sister British Methodist missionaries in the village of Kungdu in German East Africa at the beginning of World War I in August/September 1914. Their mail and supplies are delivered by the rough-and-ready Canadian boat captain Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) of the African Queen, whose coarse behaviour they tolerate in a rather stiff manner. When Charlie warns them that war has broken out between Germany and Britain, the Sayers choose to stay on, only to witness the Germans burning down the mission village and herding the villagers away. When Samuel protests, he is beaten by a German soldier. After the Germans leave, Samuel becomes delirious with fever and soon dies. Charlie returns shortly afterward. He helps Rose bury her brother, and they set off in the African Queen.

2013-08-06

Flaming Creatures

Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith, 1963)
Filmed in black and white on a film that was probably intentionally scratched and used this one of a kind short film of 43 minutes was seized on the first day it was shown in Greenwich Village. Its director, Jack Smith an openly gay man wanted to make a comedy that presented the ambiguity of sexuality and gender. Showing the human body in its most simple way and crossing the line between erotism, pornography, and the stereotypical of genders. It is quite obvious that Smith wanted to make a clash with the American conformity of the society and its preconception of everything. It is a punch in the middle of the face to all the conservatism and the heterosexual « normal » behaviors.

2013-08-01

Fight Club

Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
An insomniac office worker looking for a way to change his life crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker and they form an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more...

From my generation, the 25-35 years old people of today, Fight Club represents one of the Canons of contemporary Cinema along with films like Pulp Fiction, Snatch, Requiem For a Dream, and Donnie Darko. This is a big studio piece of auteur film that challenges some and seduces others. Coming from director David Fincher (with previous films such as Se7en, The Game, Alien 3, and notable music videos), we have a misanthropic view on the post-modern world of lonerism and how it can alienate people who won’t fit into society.

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