One of director Richard Linklater’s most fascinating (and bound to be misunderstood) projects in years, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a soothing, yet complicated sort of bedtime story for adults.
Cate Blanchett
As familiar and inviting as a mug of hot chocolate and a comfortable sweater, the seasonally appropriate young adult fantasy The House with a Clock in Its Walls gets the Halloween movie cycle off to an earnest, whimsical, and entertaining start.
Paring the original concept of its parent franchise down to its barest essence, transplanting the story to a different city, and swapping out smooth talking dudes for tough talking, fully capable women, Ocean’s 8 feels familiar and slightly off at the same time.
New on Blu-ray this month, reviews of five of the latest releases: Thor: Ragnorak, Coco, The Dark Crystal, Lady and the Tramp, and Darkest Hour.
German artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto has a cheeky, intriguing, and playful idea at its heart: casting a performer to act out and monologue various scenarios where famously groundbreaking treatises on art, commerce, and society (written by the likes of Marx, Debord, Breton, and a cavalcade of other big thinkers) are delivered by fictional characters in everyday situations instead of the historical figureheads best known for penning or expressing such game-changing edicts and opinions. Thanks to Rosefeldt’s decision to cast a performer as versatile and magnetic as Cate Blanchett to act a conduit through which all of these varied and often overlapping ideals will pass, the artist’s experiment mostly works.
The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood played host to the 86th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2, bringing together a star-studded group of stars, filmmakers, and special guests to honour the best of film from the last year.
Arriving this week on Blu-ray and on DVD: James McAvoy is the young and dashing Charles Xavier trying to save the world from evil mutants in X-Men First Class; Saoirse Ronan stars as a 16-year-old reclusive killer in Hanna; and a look at Brian DePalma’s notorious Scarface on Blu-ray.
Opening across Canada at a theatre near you: a teenage girl takes on the CIA in the modern action fairy tale, Hanna; Russell Brand plays a lovable man-child in Arthur; medieval times get a bit dopey in the comedy Your Highness; and a girl gets back on her surf board after a shark attack in Soul Surfer.
New this week on Blu-ray and DVD: Russell Crowe stars in Ridley Scott’s action-adventure, Robin Hood; Kevin Spacey stars in the 1990s satirical drama, American Beauty; plus a look at a number of new television seasons coming out on store shelves.
New in theatres this Friday: Russell Crowe stars in Ridley Scott‘s action-adventure, Robin Hood; Jay Baruchel plays a reincarnated historical icon in The Trotsky; plus a look at the romantic comedy, Just Wright.