What to Watch: Film Picks for June
Four weekends in June coming up, and that means four more weeks of film picks. Let’s take a look at what might be worth watching this month.
Category Archives: Film
Far From Last Place: “The Nice Guys” Reviewed
It’s easy to forget sometimes that Ryan Gosling got his start in the comedic foreground. If you were a teenager in the late 90s in Canada, there’s a good chance you saw him as Sean in Breaker High, that inexplicable teen show about students on a boat. He wasn’t the strong silent type, or the cool jock — no, Gosling was the needling friend, the schemer, the joke. Now, after The Notebook and his Oscar nomination and forays into music and auteurism, Gosling is generally thought of differently. What writer/director Shane Black suggests with Gosling in his new film The Nice Guys is: go back and think again. There are far worse conceits on which to hang a movie.
What to Watch: Film Picks for May
Week after week, the movies march on. If you’re wondering what to see in the month of May, here’s a handy guide that can help.
A Surprising Move from “The Dark Horse”
It’s easy to form a preconceived notion about The Dark Horse before it even begins. The film is based on a true story. It centres on Genesis Potini, a mentally ill chess prodigy. It involves a rag-tag group of underprivileged kids and a national tournament. There’s also a dark side to the film featuring a scary Maori biker gang and hints of a culture clash. Pick your movie cliche: a teacher learning more about himself as he teaches his students, an underdog sports story, a mental illness reclamation project. It’s all there and yet, The Dark Horse never quite feels rote.
Unknown Retro Future: A “Midnight Special” Review
There’s a governing principle in screenwriting that says a scene should work to raise a question or answer one. The best scenes strive to do both. In this way, a movie pulls the viewer along, introducing new information to urge us from one moment to the next. Good films make us want to know more. There’s an implicit trust that forms here, a pact between audience and filmmaker; the film reassuring that if you give up your time, you will be rewarded with something. But when a movie tosses out more questions than it answers, when its mystery grows beyond proportion, the audience is asked something slightly different. Here, faith is required.
What to Watch: Film Picks for April
What to Watch is the Same Page’s monthly film recommendations column where we help you decide which movies you should give your time to. For each week there’s a winner and a runner-up, with a brief write-up for each, to give you some idea of what each quality film is about and why you should maybe (or definitely) check it out.
Batman v Superman v… Women?
There are many things in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice that will instil a deep sense of disappointment. By far the most egregious thing is the piss poor representation of women in this film.
Big Enough Bang: ‘Batman v Superman’ Reviewed
Yes, they’ve done it. After all the interminable hours of filming, the painstaking special effects and post-production work, the waves of advertisements, the man-hours spent marketing and doing press junkets, the rolling thunder of pre-release hype and anticipation, it is here: A film that makes you feel immensely sorry for Ben Affleck. Or, as it’s more commonly known: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. We made it.
Strange Tales: A “10 Cloverfield Lane” Review
What do you get when J.J. Abrams produces a film in the Cloverfield universe, sets it in a bunker, and lets loose just a small cast that includes John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead? You get 10 Cloverfield Lane.
Five Hopes for Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War”
Pitting the Avengers against each other on two sides (one supporting government regulation of superhero activity and the other opposing it), Civil War looks every bit as big as an ensemble Avengers film. It’s certainly poised to begin a new chapter of Marvel cinema, introducing new characters and establishing a plot line that isn’t just about our favorite heroes taking on a new villain together. All that said, however, there’s still a great deal we don’t know about this film. But here’s a bit of what we hope to see.
Same Page Team 