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Fantasia 2020: ‘A Witness Out of the Blue’ is a solid action thriller | Awesome Friday!
Opening with a gang of thieves storming a jewellery store only to be cornered by the police as they finish filling their bags, some quick thinking leads to the thieves escape but arrange in their wake. Then, three months later, a gang member is murdered, and the only witness to the crime is a parrot. […]
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Fantasia 2020: ‘Climate of the Hunter’ is dark, weird, stylistic throwback | Awesome Friday!
To reiterate, this movie is deeply weird. It’s also shallow. Climate of the Hunter features several monologues from Wesley, stories of his travel, and his devotion to his wife, but nothing of any real substance is discussed in all his talk. Oh, sure, it sounds like there is, but it only sounds like it. The one […]
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Fantasia 2020: ‘Bleed With Me’ is a slow, but sure, burn set in the Canadian wilderness | Awesome Friday!
The remote setting of the story exacerbates all of this; the tiny family cabin set deep in the woods, further isolated by the winter’s snow, traps Rowan in an environment that is altogether warm and welcoming as well as unfamiliar and foreboding. Moses does an admirable job of letting the tension in the situation ratchet […]
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Fantasia 2020: ‘The Columnist’ is a revenge story we’ve all fantasized about | Awesome Friday!
Katja Herbers (probably best known for her recurring role on HBO’s Westworld) is fantastic as Femke, particularly in the scenes where she confronts the trolls she has managed to track down and asks them to their faces about the things they say online. Herbers navigates the changes in Femke’s demeanour as she moves from timid but upset […]
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Fantasia 2020: ‘Perdida’ is a satisfying thriller
Perdida will likely draw comparisons to Hitchcock, Fincher, and Bong Joon-ho, which are rightly deserved. The story will keep you on your toes; the framing and architecture are gorgeous, and the cast is magnetic. What more could you ask for? Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2020/08/fantasia-review-perdida-is-a-satisfying-thriller/
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Fantasia 2020: ‘Crazy Samurai Musashi’ is a technical marvel, but exhausting | Awesome Friday!
Spielberg and Cuarón use them frequently. Martin Scorsese probably produced the most famous long-take scenes in Goodfellas, and Park Chan-wook produced one of Oldboy’s most famous action long takes. One of the more ambitious examples is the historical epic Russian Ark, which runs 96 minutes and is entirely one take. The envelope is constantly being pushed in filmmaking, and Crazy […]
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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 the […]
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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 should […]
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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 to […]
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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/
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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/
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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 seek […]
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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 down […]
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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 makes […]
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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 of […]
I am a Rotten Tomatoes-approved, freelance film & television critic and podcast host from Vancouver, Canada! I am a co-founder of the Cascadia Film & Television Critics Association and a voting member of the International Film Society Critics, Pandora International Critics, and the Online Film & Television Association.
I maintain bylines at Exclaim!, Awesome Friday!, That Shelf, ForReel, Movies We Texted About, KeithLovesMovies, and I can be heard regularly on the Contra Zoom Podcast and The LAMBCast.
