Reviews of the Bosch

Avengers: Infinity War is the best definition of a movie event. No less than eighteen movies, five independent movie series have led up to it. It’s way more than your average summer blockbuster, it’s the climax of a vast interconnected universe that’s been running now for ten years. Marvel couldn’t have picked better people to helm this movie either, as Joe and Anthony Russo have already directed two of the best movies the MCU has offered. And in a number of ways this film meets expectations; in others though, it does fall short. The alien warlord Thanos (Josh Brolin) finally begins his quest for the Infinity Stones, powerful objects that together could cause destruction and manipulation on a galactic level. Adding them to his giant gauntlet, he scourges worlds and civilizations for them, coming into contact with the heroes both on Earth and elsewhere in the galaxy. So each of these heroes we’ve been introduced to over the last decade (minus Ant-Man) have to band together in an ...

“ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs : the first animated movie ever, a trailblazer for generations of great cinema”. That’s how I opened my Disney Sunday series  three years ago, and I must apologize for my ignorance. Despite its many other innovative accomplishments, Disney’s  Snow White  was not the first animated feature. In fact that feat belongs to some movie that is likely lost forever. But the earliest feature-length animated film that survives is actually a 1926 German movie called The Adventures of Prince Achmed , animated entirely in silhouette, pre-dating Disney’s debut by thirteen years, and most interestingly of all, directed by Lotte Reiniger, a woman pioneer of the medium. Reiniger had in fact made a number of short animated films in Germany throughout the early years of the twentieth century, using a method she herself invented, an early form of multiplane camera -the device used in traditional animation to film frames atop one another to create the i...

Wes Anderson is one of the few filmmakers who can successfully transition between live-action and animation. He established himself as a capable stop-motion director with The Fantastic Mr. Fox  in 2009, and now  Isle of Dogs  is his follow-up in the medium; a movie just as intrinsically stylized, outlandish, strange and funny as he’s built his reputation on. Set in near-future Japan, an outbreak of a contagious dog flu has resulted in one particularly harsh Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) banishing all dogs to Trash Island off the coast. On the island, a former stray Chief (Bryan Cranston) leads a pack of alpha dogs (Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bob Balaban). When the Mayor’s nephew Atari (Koyu Rankin) crash lands on the island on a quest to find his dog Spots (Liev Schreiber), it results in the pack accompanying him on a journey to liberate the island and put an end to the dogs’ segregation. Even in animation, Anderson makes sure to maintain h...

“The cosmic ballet goes on.” These words were uttered by Leonard Nimoy in “Marge vs. the Monorail”, a 1993 episode of The Simpsons . Though intended as a joke, it's a quote that actually is relevant to the legacy and frequent re-evaluation of 2001: A Space Odyssey , fifty years after it’s original release in April of 1968. Indeed, many have rightly defined the moon docking sequence set to Johann Strauss’ Blue Danube  as an elegant ballet in the stars. I’m far from the only movie enthusiast who considers Stanley Kubrick’s operatic masterpiece as the pinnacle of science-fiction film. If you look at any list or any book of the greatest movies, you’ll usually find  2001  at the top (alphabetically, but still). Spielberg called it the “Big Bang” of his filmmaking generation, Scorsese lists it among his favourite films, as did Federico Fellini; and directors like Ridley Scott, Alfonso Cuarón, William Friedkin, Terry Gilliam, James Cameron, David Lynch, Christopher...

There’s nothing more sobering for a movie fan than to see a film that truly engrosses and challenges you and then to follow it up with something like Rampage . I saw  Indian Horse  the other night, and last week a great line-up of A Quiet Place , Journey’s End , The Death of Stalin , and even Best F(r)iends .  Rampage , directed by Brad Peyton and loosely based on the Rampage  video game series, is a solid reminder of the soullessness in a lot of mainstream releases. I’m not even mad, I’ve just been spoiled lately. The debris from a failed genetic experiment in space lands on Earth and infects multiple animals, causing them to rapidly grow, experience heightened aggression, and in some cases mutate. One of these is an albino gorilla called George, in the care of primatologist Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson). When the government comes for George, Davis with the help of a scientist (Naomie Harris) who worked for the corrupt genetics company behind these experiments...

The residential schools system will always be one of the most shameful blights on Canada’s history. An attempt at cultural genocide and assimilation that cost thousands of lives, it’s a dark part of our heritage that needs to be atoned for. One way to do this is through media, and it’s not something that’s ever been addressed on film, certainly not to the extent it is in Indian Horse . Based on the acclaimed novel by Richard Wagamese, directed by Stephen S. Campanelli, and executive produced by Clint Eastwood, Indian Horse  is a deeper, more brutal dive into the reality of the residential schools and the impact they left on those who survived, than many Canadians ever anticipated. Because of that, it’s an incredibly important movie, as well as an affecting story. After losing his family at the age of six, Ojibwe Saul Indian Horse is forced into St. Jerome’s Indian Residential School in northern Ontario where he and many other First Nations children are physically and emotion...

Tommy Wiseau’s really been riding a high since The Disaster Artist . Even though that film doesn’t portray him in an entirely positive light, there’s been renewed interest in him. And so it’s perfect timing that he happens to be headlining a new movie -a small budget Indie movie, but still a movie. Best F(r)iends is   his first movie of note since his infamous 2003 cult classic  The Room , and it reunites him with Greg Sestero, who wrote and produced the film (with Justin MacGregor directing). And if this movie does indeed work, it wouldn’t at all without Sestero. Jon (Greg Sestero) is a homeless drifter in Los Angeles who happens upon a mortician called Harvey (Tommy Wiseau) who specializes in making masks for disfigured bodies. He manages to get a job as a janitor for the bizarre character and they soon become friends. However when Jon enters into a sketchy business enterprise, it has a potentially devastating impact on their relationship. Best F(r)iends  is an...

Armando Ianucci loves political incompetence. He’s based two whole T.V. series around it: The Thick of It and its American cousin Veep  -through which he’s covered corruption, scandal and spin doctoring, and developed one of the sharpest voices of satire in the medium. But as for film, he’s had less experience. The Death of Stalin  is his first since 2009’s  In the Loop , an adaptation of his former series. However this film, centred around the commotion and power struggle in the Soviet government in the aftermath of Stalin’s death, shows Ianucci’s just as comfortable and effective as he’s always been. When Joseph Stalin dies suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1953, it’s left to his Central Committee to figure out what to do next. As Stalin’s deputy, the weak-willed Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) succeeds him as General Secretary, but the other ministers have their own plans; from the reformative Nikita Krushchev (Steve Buscemi), the sadistic Lavrentiy Beria (...

Journey ’s End  ought to have been released (and in other parts of the world most likely was) this past March. Because last month was the centennial of the Spring Offensive of 1918, which is depicted in this film based on 1928 play by R.C. Sherriff. Journey’s End  isn’t the first adaptation of its story; it’s preceded by a 1930 film directed by James Whale, a 1931 film (retitled  The Other Side ) starring Conrad Veidt, and a 1976 film (retitled Aces High ) starring Malcolm McDowell and Christopher Plummer. However, I’m certain this film, directed by Saul Dibb, is different enough in terms of its authentic style and grittiness to set it apart. A despondent and traumatized Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin) is dismayed when his girlfriend’s brother Lieutenant Raleigh (Asa Butterfield) joins up with his company just as they’re being sent to the front. Stanhope doesn’t want her to find out how the war has changed him while Raleigh is unprepared for the reality of the trenc...

So I guess the best horror movies now are being made by former comedy stars. I’m okay with that. A Quiet Place  is the third movie directed by John Krasinski, but it’s his first for a major studio and his first horror movie. And much like Jordan Peele’s acclaimed 2017 debut Get Out , it’s a film that demonstrates a clear knowledge of the techniques of the genre and how to make them feel fresh. It’s not as striking or provocative as Get Out , but it is unique, incredibly clever, and consistently scary. In 2020, some time after an apocalyptic event, a family of four (Emily Blunt, Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, and Noah Jupe) live in constant danger of carnivorous aliens which, though blind, have an extremely heightened sense of hearing. To survive, they’re forced to live in silence, never speaking or making any sounds above a whisper while attempting to figure out a way to weaken these hunters. Of course this can only go on for so long, and soon accidents result in the creat...

It must have been incredibly surreal for Steven Spielberg to direct this movie so heavy in homage to media he either witnessed or oversaw himself at its inception. From the T-Rex of Jurassic Park  which he directed, to the DeLorean from Back to the Future  which he produced, as well as a ton of other cameos from intellectual properties from the 1980s to today. Indeed Ready Player One  was notable for its vast pop culture compendium before this movie came out -it was one of the main selling points of Ernest Cline’s novel. Set in 2045, Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) lives in a slum in Columbus, Ohio, where he, like most of the world, spends a lot of his time in a virtual reality called the OASIS. It’s creator, James Halliday (Mark Rylance) embedded a game in the OASIS before he died, where anyone can compete on a quest to find three hidden keys. Whoever achieves them will win control of the company and thus a monopoly on the worlds’ most lucrative past-time. Once Wade sta...