a SIFF 2013 review Nothing Cheap About These Bleakly Satirical Thrills Cheap Thrills is the best movie you are likely going to be too scared to see. An eviscerating satirical assault on financial disparity and the smug, narcissistic tendencies of a seemingly uncaring elite coupled with the anything-goes neediness of a working class oftentimes willing […]

Beauteous Ernest & Célestine C’est Magnifique France’s Ernest & Célestine was up against both Disney’s Frozen (the eventual winner) and Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. I had not seen it before the Oscars had been handed out so I couldn’t really say whether or not it deserved […]

Anderson’s Budapest Hotel a Comedic Masterwork I’ve said more than a handful of times in the past that the works of Wes Anderson are arguably made for certain palates, each motion picture a fanciful journey into a highly stylized world acquired tastes adore while everyone else scratches their collective chins wondering what all the fuss […]

This movie is a titanic achievement that I’m still mulling over, so many pieces of it speaking with such unabashed eloquence calling the finished film an instant classic is almost a no-brainer.

Her a Timely Spectacle of Intimacy, Heartbreak and Understanding Spike Jonze is as singular and as original a filmmaker as there is working today. The man behind such iridescent achievements as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, the idiosyncratic filmmaker has outdone himself with the beguiling, multifaceted science fiction-influenced love story Her. Set in a Los […]

Inside Llewyn Davis revels in its own lyrical idiosyncrasies, each note a tuneful reminder that the songs we sing secretly to ourselves are oftentimes full of bigger lies than the ones we happily hum out loud for the rest of the world to mindlessly listen to.

This isn’t just the year’s best animated film, it’s one of 2013’s finest motion pictures period, and as someone who has already seen, and loved, it twice I cannot wait to head out to the theatre and see it again before happily adding it to my personal library when it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray a few months hence.

Even at nearly three hours, Blue is the Warmest Color is never out of sorts or unfocused, and while certain tangents have the initial aura of being inconsequential, the filmmaker continually connects all the dots, giving things a ruthless eloquence difficult to describe and even harder to dismiss.

This is one of those rare instances where I feel like [Dallas Buyers Club] is one of those movies that, do not just live up to the hype, but also exceed it, making Vallée’s based-on-fact stunner one of the best films I’ll watch this, or in any other, year.