-
Fantasia 2020: ‘Special Actors’ is a Wacky Good Time | Awesome Friday!
•
Imagine being an aspiring actor and suffering an anxiety affliction so severe that you collapse every time you are nervous or confronted. This is the plight of Kazuto (Kazuto Osawa) in Special Actors, the new film by Shinichiro Ueda. Of course, that’s not the movie’s plot, and honestly, I am loathed to tell you much about…
-
Fantasia 2020: ‘Feels Good, Man’ asks if Pepe the Frog will ever be good again | Awesome Friday!
•
The sad truth is that when you upload something to the internet, you effectively lose control of that thing. This is not a fact I agree with or like; we here at Awesome Friday have had articles plagiarized. The question is not whether or not we can stop it from happening but whether we…
-
Fantasia 2020: The Reckoning is a Disappointment | Awesome Friday!
•
Set in the 1600s, Charlotte Kirk plays Grace, a woman who has just lost her husband to the plague currently going around the shire she lives in. Her landlord, the amoral and self-centred Squire (Steve Waddington), still demands rent be paid even though she can’t work the land and has a newborn and tries…
-
Fantasia 2020: ‘Clapboard Jungle’ takes a personal journey through the indie film business | Awesome Friday!
•
McConnell speaks to other indie filmmakers and producers, some well-known and some not so much, and they all have one thing in common: they all say the business is a slog. Following McConnell’s personal journey also makes this clear. Does that journey make an interesting documentary, though? Well, mostly. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2020/08/fantasia-review-clapboard-jungle-takes-a-personal-journey-through-the-indie-film-business/
-
Fantasia 2020: ‘Monster Seafood Wars’ is a homage to the silliest of Kaiju movies, but it’s not totally silly | Awesome Friday!
•
If you like Kaiju movies, particularly the Shōwa Era Godzilla films, then you should give Monster Seafood Wars a try. If you like Saturday morning cartoons, you should probably give it a try, too. It’s big, silly, weird, has a few things to say—everything you need in a Kaiju movie. Except for space aliens. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2020/08/fantasia-review-monster-seafood-wars-is-an-homage-to-the-silliest-of-kaiju-movies-but-its-not-totally-silly/
-
The Best of the Rest of the Films of 2019 | Awesome Friday!
•
It’s been a good year for film because it’s always been a good year for film. I already posted my favourite films of the year but every year there are those films that while they aren’t quite my favourite are definitely great and worth highlighting. This year I have selected ten more that you should totally…
-
The Best Films & Performers of 2019 | Awesome Friday!
•
Well, folks here we are at the end of the year, and what a year it has been. As always, it’s been a particularly good year for film because it’s always a good year for film. I have seen more than eighty films from 2019’s slate and believe you-me it is hard to pin…
-
The Best Films of 2018 | Awesome Friday!
•
I know what you’re thinking: December 2019 is a weird time to write about my favourite films of 2018. You might be right, but also there’s never a bad time to write about great movies. Last year I was on a break from blogging, this year I am back at it. See, it all…
-
The Best Films of 2017 | Awesome Friday!
•
Second, these choices are presented alphabetically except my favourite, which will come last. There are various reasons for this, but mostly it comes down to the fact that they are all good movies that I have a hard time grading relative to each other because they are all so different. Consider also that some…
-
On Star Wars Then & Now | Awesome Friday!
•
[…] Star Wars was the culmination of George Lucas’ influences but the films that influenced the people making Star Wars movies today are Star Wars. Whether this is the fault of the filmmakers themselves or the new corporate ownership whose primary business is merchandise, I don’t know. Judging by the reshoots and edits you can plainly see in Rogue…
-
The Best of the Rest of the Films of 2016 | Awesome Friday!
•
2016 was a good year for film; anyone who tells you differently didn’t see many movies. I’ve already posted my best films of 2016, but plenty more films didn’t make my best-of list that you should make the time to see. So then, let’s look at the not-quite best of 2016, presented here in alphabetical…
-
The Best Films of 2016 | Awesome Friday!
•
…it has been an excellent year for cinema. So much so that when it came time to figure out my top ten films of the year, I couldn’t get the list lower than 12 (and I narrowed it down from nearly twice that number). So, in an effort to get going again, let’s close…
-
The Best of the Rest of the Films of 2015 | Awesome Friday!
•
2015 was a good year! I already told you my ten favourite films from 2015, but those ten were hard to choose. My first pass over the list of movies I saw resulted in 25 candidates for the top ten, 15 of which were ultimately cut. So rather than make a worst-of list as…
-
The Best Films of 2015 | Awesome Friday!
•
Films that are fantastic but didn’t quite make the list include Trainwreck, Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, Brooklyn, It Follows, The Martian, The Hateful Eight and (again) so many others. Ultimately, it was tough to narrow it down to just ten films because while it was…
-
The Best Films of 2014 | Awesome Friday!
•
All in all, I saw over 75 movies released in 2014. Not a huge percentage when you think about it but certainly more than the average person. So with all that in mind here are my favourite dozen movies from 2014. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2014/12/matts-2014-the-best-dozen/