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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 Samurai Musashi aims to push it a little further. The film tells the story of a Samurai, Musashi, as he faces off against 588 opponents in a single 77-minute take. And that’s pretty much the entire movie, for better or worse. Technically, it is one of…
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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 story. It involves a talent agency specialising in hiring actors out to real-life events, a family-owned inn, and a cult. That’s pretty much all I can tell you without taking an express train to spoiler country, but to say this movie gets a little wacky…
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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 give up and let it. Feels Good Man is an engaging watch and takes the time to interrogate this question. I’m not sure it has an answer, but Furie, a soft-spoken artist, is unwilling to let his creation go without a fight. And that’s all we…
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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 take payment by other means. By “other means”, I mean he tries to rape her, and when she rebuffs him with a well-placed heel to the face, he returns to town and starts the rumour that she might be a witch. Enter a Witchfinder, played…
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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 out and see, presented in alphabetical order. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2020/01/ten-more-from-2019-you-should-totally-see/
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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 my favourites to just ten, so I have narrowed it down to twelve. This didn’t actually help much, and I still had to leave a ton of films out. I’m also going to do something a little different this year and highlight a few performers…
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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 sense. In any event here are a few disclaimers. First, I wrote this list at the end of 2018 so subsequent viewing in 2019 doesn’t really affect it. Second, if a movie you love doesn’t appear here there are two explanations: either I didn’t see…
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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 them I have seen multiple times and others just once, and that second-viewings are often where I end up solidifying an opinion and you end up with a list that looks like this. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2018/01/matts-favourite-dozen-films-of-2017/
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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 Oneespecially I’d say it’s some combination thereof, but ultimately where the original trilogy remixed samurai films and Flash Gordon, The Force Awakens and Rogue One remixed A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. […] Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2017/04/on-star-wars-then-and-now/
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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 order. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2017/01/matts-not-quite-best-12-movies-of-2016/
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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 out this year with the 12 best movies of the year, according to yours truly. These are presented in no particular order except for the two that truly stand out as the best of the year. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2016/12/matts-12-best-movies-of-2016/
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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 I have in previous years (Pixels was the worst film of last year, no need to mention any others), I’d tell you about ten more you should see. So let’s do that. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2016/01/ten-more-from-2015-you-should-totally-see/
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.
