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Untamed Review: Eric Bana Leads a Competent if Slightly Predictable Summer Mystery | That Shelf
You have seen this series before. There’s no getting around the fact that Netflix’s new series Untamed employs several tropes of the mystery genre. You’ll have seen the series where an older cop with a gift for investigation lives in a remote place due to some past trauma that keeps him isolated from the world, who has a plucky young partner who is very inexperienced but shows great promise and has her own trauma. Then, when a body shows up, they set out to find the killer and uncover a larger mystery at the same time. The key to a series like…
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“The Well” Walks a Well Worn Path Through an Intriguing World | ForReel
Post-apocalyptic stories tend to serve as warnings that come in many forms; sometimes they are about how the apocalypse might unfold, or about the resources we will fight over, or the people who will be doing the fighting. Whether the future is filled with robots or devoid of resources, there’s always human drama and things to learn. In The Well, Sarah (Shailyn Pierre-Dixon) and her parents, Paul and Elisha (Arnold Pinnock and Joanne Boland), live in one such future. The world is in environmental collapse, people are scarce and desperate, and the water supply is tainted. Deep in the woods,…
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A Second Life Review: A Lovely Walk Through Paris | That Shelf
We’ve all felt depressed. It’s a fact that sometimes life will get you down, and if you let it, depression and anxiety can isolate you from having any meaningful relationships. The luckiest of us have only had fleeting experience with this, but all of us have felt it at one time or another. A Second Life is a new film from writer/director Laurent Slama and co-writer Thomas Keumurian about a young woman in such a place and how, over the course of even a single day, things can at least begin to turn around. Elisabeth (Titane‘s Agathe Rousselle) works for a short-term rental company.…
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‘Oh, Hi!’ Goes Both Too Far and Not Far Enough | Awesome Friday!
Handcuffing someone to a bed might be fun, but if you don’t let them go, it becomes a crime, a civil matter, or both. In either case, this is the centre of the story of Oh, Hi!, the new comedy from director Sophie Brooks, co-written and starring Molly Gordon. In the film, Gordon plays Iris, a young woman on her first couples trip with her boyfriend Isaac (Logan Lerman). They are quite obviously infatuated with one another, laughing and singing, lovemaking, cooking, reading, drinking, and generally having a great time at a farmhouse in the country. It’s the kind of romantic getaway…
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Strong Performances Keeps “Horsegirls” on Track | ForReel
Horsegirls is a unique film about a young woman’s journey to find her place in the world. It hits several beats that you will see coming along the way, but it gets there with some important distinctions and directions that you perhaps won’t. Margarita (Lillian Carrier) is 22 and autistic. She lives with her mother, Sandy (Gretchen Mol) and is averse to working because she doesn’t want to wear “hard pants” (who does, though?), and she loves horses. She can’t have her own, so she visits a local stable so often that she has been effectively banned. She is, in…
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“Superman” Revels in Goodness to Find Greatness | ForReel
There are those who will tell you that Superman is a difficult character to write. Because he’s so powerful, there’s no foe he cannot defeat, and no obstacle he cannot overcome. This is, of course, wrong. Superman is not a difficult character to write; he’s the easiest, since all that you need to know about him is that he’s a good man, raised by good people, to do good in the world. He’s an inspirational figure, not because he can fly, but because he sees the right thing to do and then he does it, without hesitation, even in the…
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Drop UHD Review | Movies We Texted About
Single-location mystery thrillers are one of the tried and true genres of stage and film. When executed well, they can be an edge-of-your-seat experience and a satisfying watch. Writer/Director Christopher Landon has a history of taking high-concept versions of setups like this and delivering a good time at the movies; Happy Death Day was a time loop crossed with a slasher, Freaky was a body swap crossed with a slasher, and Disturbia was Rear Window crossed with a teen drama about grief. Each of the films succeeds because they have a solid emotional core that they use their setting to explore, and with Drop, he has delivered again. Link:…
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“Birthright” Goes Horrifyingly Wrong in All the Right Ways | ForReel
There is, it is fair to say, often generational divides. One that we are living through today is between millennials (who are now in their 30s and 40s) and boomers (who are now mostly retired). Boomers grew up in a world that had ample opportunity, and a more fair distribution of wealth, whereas millennials have grown up in a world where they were told that if they achieved certain goals they should expect certain outcomes, and those outcomes often did not materialize. Wages are stagnant, cost of living is up, and wealth inequality is greater than it has been in…
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Fantasia Festival 2025 Begins This Week! | Awesome Friday!
You know, Fantasia is one of my favourite film festivals. Good news, everyone! The Fantasia Film Festival is back for another year. One of Canada’s premier film festivals, and one of the biggest genre film festivals on the continent. This year’s lineup looks great, but here are five films I’m looking forward to. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2025/07/fantasia-2025-starts-this-week/
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June 2025 First Time Watches | Patreon
I know I said I didn’t think I’d have a lot for y’all this month, but it turns out I do, so that’s fun. Anyway, as with every month of the year, I saw a bunch of movies I had never seen before in June, and here are the highlights. Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/june-2025-first-134162903
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“Inside” Is a Compelling Prison Redemption Story | ForReel
Each of the men in this story exemplifies a part of these themes, both shared and individual. Warren (Pearce) is a scruffy older man serving time for violence he committed in the past. His parole is coming up, but he’s indebted to other inmates who will get what they’re owed one way or another before he leaves. Pearce is one of our most reliable and versatile actors, and Inside is another excellent performance in a run of great performances. He is world weary, but convinced that even the most evil of men have some good inside them, and watching him…
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Smoke Review: Arson Investigation Drama Is Rainy Day Viewing | That Shelf
The saying goes that where there is smoke, there is fire—a simple adage, and one that proves itself time and time again. When we’re talking about actors, where there’s smoke, there’s often Taron Egerton. This is not a perfect metaphor, but the point is that Egerton is on fire. He has talent and charisma for days, and his recent performances in series like Black Bird and films like Carry-On have only cemented him as a solid leading man. His latest project, Smoke, should only reinforce this reputation, even if the series around him is more than a little uneven. Link: https://thatshelf.com/smoke-review-arson-investigation-drama-is-rainy-day-viewing/
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May 2025 First Time Watches | Patreon
Every month, I watch films, both new and old, that I haven’t seen before. I’m a bit late posting this, but in May, I watched a dozen that fit this description and here are the highlights! Link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/may-2025-first-131501117
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The 2025 Canadian Screen Awards | Contra Zoom
The 2025 Canadian Screen Awards were handed out from May 30-June 1st and the television portion was hosted by Lisa Gilroy. Universal Language and The Apprentice were the big winners. We look at ten categories and discuss the winners and Dakota, Matthew and Jeff pick our own favourites. Real talk: most of the 2025 Canadian Screen Award nominees are _great_. Here are my picks from the categories we discussed Listening Links:
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Predator: Killer of Killers Gets the Formula Right | Awesome Friday!
The Predator franchise is the platonic ideal of an action horror franchise. There are highly skilled people in the world, and there’s a whole race of monsters that hunts those people for sport. The setup is simple, allowing it to serve as a framework for various kinds of stories. At their worst, films in the franchise are dumb-but-fun action movies; at their best, they’re character-focused stories that illuminate deeper truths about humanity. The latest entry in the franchise, Predator: Killer of Killers, is an animated anthology that lands somewhere in the middle of that. Link: https://awesomefriday.ca/2025/06/predator-killer-of-killers-gets-the-formula-right/
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.
