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“Noviembre” Is a Gripping Tour De Force That Turns History Into Harrowing Theatrical Experience | ForReel
On November 6th, 1985, a left-wing guerrilla group called Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19, for short) stormed the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia. The intent was to hold the Justices of the Supreme Court hostage and force a trial against President Belisario Betancur. What happened instead was one of the deadliest attacks in Colombia’s ongoing war with leftist rebels. Tomás Corredor’s Noviembre re-enacts this event, but rather than a large-scale sweeping action film that depicts all sides, it focuses on a single microcosm of the event: several rebels holding a dozen or so hostages in a single bathroom, while…
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Meadowlarks Review: TIFF 2025 | That Shelf
In Canada, we like to think of ourselves as progressive and inclusive and, relative to other nations today, we most likely are. That hasn’t always been true; our history is littered with heinous events and policies that persecuted the Indigenous peoples of this country. One of the main efforts to erase Indigenous identity and culture is known as the Sixties Scoop, an approximately four-decade period in the late Twentieth Century when government policy allowed child welfare services to ‘scoop’ children up and out of their families for the express purpose of having non-Indigenous families adopt them. We, as a nation,…
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“Burning” and the Art of Captivating Storytelling | ForReel
Storytelling has been a part of the human experience since the dawn of time. From cave paintings to campfire stories to novels to film, at our core, we want and need to tell stories, and our memory is key to the process. What we write is informed by our remembered experiences, as is how we perceive and react to what is happening around us. This idea is central to the new film Burning (Ot), a Kyrgyz film written by Aizada Amangeldy and Dastan Madalbekov, and directed by Radik Eshimov. In the film, the citizens of a small town gather in…
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Spike Lee Retrospective: “Inside Man” | ForReel
Spike Lee is best known for racially and politically charged dramas like Do the Right Thing, He Got Game, Da 5 Bloods, and BlacKkKlansman. While these are some of the films that he might be best remembered for, he was not above more studio-friendly fare. In 2006, he also made one of the slickest heist films of that decade with Inside Man, starring his frequent collaborator Denzel Washington (who also stars in his newest film Highest 2 Lowest) as a New York City detective tasked to negotiate with a gang of thieves led by Clive Owen after they take hostages…
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Eenie Meanie Is a Perfect Work Night Movie | Awesome Friday!
Heist movies are fun. There are few things as satisfying in cinema as a well-executed plan coming to fruition, and the thieves that execute said plan making their getaway into the sunset. It’s even better if they’re driving a cool car, and get to do a bunch of cool stunts. Eenie Meanie, the directorial debut of Wayne creator Shawn Simmons, gets this. The story follows Edie (Samara Weaving), a young woman who formerly drove getaway cars during various heists for crime boss Nico (Andy Garcia), with her boyfriend and partner John (Karl Glausman). She left that world (and John)…
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DEVO Are Fearlessly Unique, but Their Netflix Documentary Isn’t | Exclaim!
The story of DEVO is one of art and protest. For many, it doesn’t feel this way; the band’s one enduring hit seems to be, on its surface, one of their silliest. An uptempo hit with nonsense lyrics encouraging people to solve their issues by “whipping it,” it also satirizes late-’70s and early-’80s American optimism and commercialism. In this way, DEVO have always been a band of truth-tellers and soothsayers, of confrontational art and societal warnings. As such, DEVO’s initial mainstream success is pretty amazing — and, less surprisingly, their success has endured. DEVO, documentarian Chris Smith’s new work chronicling the band’s five-decade…
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East of Wall: An Endearing Story of Loss and Redemption | KeithLovesMovies
The old west was a place of wonder and possibility, where one could hop on a horse with little more than the clothes on their back and a few supplies and head out to find their destiny. The new West has lost this. Now a land of established farms and ranches, one might head there to find themselves, but decades of corporatization and rising costs of living mean, along with the mechanization and automation of the available work, times are tough for many who still live there. East of Wall tells the story of one family in South Dakota living through…
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Weapons Review: Zach Cregger Weaves a Horrifying, Hilarious, Human Story of Trauma and Grief | Awesome Friday!
Weapons is not a subtle film. It is not difficult to draw a line from its premise -that one night at 2.17 in the morning, 17 children from the same elementary school class woke up, got out of bed, walked out the front door of their homes, and vanished into the darkness like a squadron of spitfires- to a specific recurring incident in American schools, and how that incident rips apart both families and communities as people look for answers. However, it also touches on a universal truth in contemporary society: the suburbs are scary. No matter what version of…
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Foreigner Review: A Slick, Bubblegum Horror About Immigrant Experiences | That Shelf
Starting a new life in a new city is difficult. Moving takes time, money, and effort. You leave your support circle behind, and start fresh in a new place with few—if any—friends. It is a challenge, to say the least. Then consider that younger people also have to go to a new school in a new culture. While immigrant experiences have been cast in past horror stories, this added wrinkle gives Ava Maria Safai’s Foreigner an extra edge, and for good reason: kids are cruel, and the popular girls might be the worst of them. Link: https://thatshelf.com/foreigner-review-a-slick-bubblegum-horror-about-immigrant-experiences/
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July 2025 First Time Watches | Patreon
Hey friends, thanks for being here. As per usual, I watched a lot of movies in July, and here are the highlights of the ones that I saw for the first time. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/july-2025-first-136182066
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The Naked Gun | The LAMBCast
Comedy films seem to be a rarity on the big screen these days, so when one comes along that works, it is a reason fro celebration. Celebrating is mostly what we do on this episode because all the guests were enthusiastic about this film Those who remember the Leslie Nelson films from Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, will be relatively pleased at the fidelity to the style and tone of those films that this movie tries to emulate. Howard Casner call this style the “Marx Brothers” of today. Fanboy Matthew Simpson is happy to have Pamela Anderson in the film, in an appropriately aged…
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Lurker Review: Théodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe Shine in an Exploration of Obsession | Awesome Friday!
Obsession is one of the great literary themes. One person in a position of power, another aspiring to attain it, a relationship between them evolving from fascination to camaraderie and into something else. Alex Russell, writer on such series as The Bear, Interior Chinatown, and Beef, takes on this classic setup in his first feature film, Lurker. In the film, a young retail worker named Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) worms his way into the entourage of rising pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) after impressing him with his taste in music. Oliver, self-assured but desperate for validation, invites Matthew to a show and is soon…
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‘Buffet Infinity’ Review – A Mildly Chaotic But Unique and Singular Film | Movies We Texted About
There are movies, and there are movies, and then there are the wild and experimental films that use the cinematic form to tell a story in a way that only filmmaking can. Buffet Infinity is one of this third type. Set in a small town in Alberta, Canada, Buffet Infinity plays out as a series of local news clips and television advertisements for local businesses that slowly but surely become more and more interrelated, surreal, and downright messed up as the film progresses. It is part black comedy, part crime story, and part eldritch existential cosmic horror. Link: https://movieswetextedabout.com/fantasia-2025-buffet-infinity-review-a-mildly-chaotic-but-unique-and-singular-film/
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Marvel’s Eyes of Wakanda is Fun, Thoughtful, Gorgeous, and Too Short | Awesome Friday!
Marvel is, according to most, at a bit of a crossroads. We spent a few years saturated in their stories post-Avengers: Endgame, and that time has left most of us a bit jaded thanks to what felt like a focus on quantity over quality. In 2025, they’ve promised to get back to a focus on telling the right stories the right way, and they’ve mostly succeeded. Daredevil: Born Again is good, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is great, and two of the three movies they’ve released so far have been met with critical acclaim, if not the kind of runaway box office success they previously…
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A Familiar Narrative Holds “The Bearded Girl” Back | ForReel
There was a time when we regarded circuses with awe. – when we’d file into circus grounds to see trapeze acts and contortionists, and wonders from far-off lands. But those days are largely in the past now. The Bearded Girl is a coming-of-age story set among the remnants of those days. Centred on a family of sword swallowing bearded women –a combination of two classic circus sideshow performers– it charts a familiar course through the trials of growing up and of leaving the nest for greener pastures only to find that green grass isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to…
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.
