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Reviews

Hevi reissu
(2018)

What a fantastic spoof
To be honest, subtitles are often a bit of a drag, however there was no problem with them in this movie.

We loved this crazy spoof of heavy metal.

It was fun from start to finish. The actors stayed in character all the way through.

The story was hilarious and knowing a lot of musicians, as we do, we felt they did a fantastic job of capturing the way some of those musicians can be. So, we thought the characterizations were great. That also applies to the big music promotor type. He was PERFECT, I know guys like that.

The cinematography was well done, the countryside is of course wonderful, and was the perfect backdrop for the crazed metal sound. It was fun that they had the occasional Reindeer wander through.

The sight gags were great. We laughed pretty much through the whole thing, to the point where we probably missed stuff and will have to see it again.

We felt that it was a real homage to Metal and also to several other music spoofs. We saw some influences from Spinal Tap (which the director admits to) but we also felt there was a nod to another Finnish movie "Leningrad Cowboys go America". If you saw that one you will know what I am talking about. I shall not put in a spoiler here!

This was the best fun we've had watching a movie for weeks.

Archon Defender
(2009)

A good effort
Archon Defender is a very complex and detailed animated feature, written and directed by Canadian indy filmmaker David T. Krupitz (also the Executive Producer), produced by Canadian indy filmmaker Morgan Muscat, and featuring the voices of Daniel Wooster (Six Reasons Why, Severance), Katie Uhlmann (The Devil Walks Among You), Robert Nolan (Severance and The Devil Walks Among You), and Astrida Auza (Cold Dark Mirror) and Morgan Muscat (Origin: A Call to Minds, Finding ODO) Archon Defender tells the story of a young woman, Colette, who is beset by a series of unfortunate circumstances.

In her world, a terrible war is going on which ultimately kills her parents and results in her being rescued and taken to another country called Archon. It so happens that Colette has powers which she gets from something called the Shard. This power of hers, however is deemed undesirable by those waging war in her former world, Echelon. In Archon there are others who share her powers. Training to help increase their abilities is given to those with the power. We are shown Colette in training with the monk types and it appears that she really has impressive powers. She will be involved in going along with fighter pilots to help ward off the shards.

At first, I thought the shard appeared to be a relentless weapon, rather than a magical power. Each time a vehicle or an aircraft were shot down, a bunch of shards would appear, piercing them and those in them. I later came to see that those who were "Shard Sensitive" however, seemed capable of disbursing the shards, although they did not always do so.

The story has potential, but the way in which it is told tends to be very confusing because one is never sure whether one is seeing a flashback or the present. Additionally, as the story progresses, a number of new characters are introduced to us who appear to be in the present story, but who, we discover later, are in fact in the past.

There are, of course, many ways of telling a story, and it may well be that the Director intentionally structured this story as he did to comply with the Anime inspired broken time line style which does not follow a linear narrative. For me however, it was quite confusing that the story jumps about, sometimes in the present, sometimes in the past, and with many unexplained characters.

We are first shown Colette and her father visiting a medical/government institution, getting tests. That visit appears to raise the suspicions of the police/army. Next, one sees Colette and her father and their friends being chased by armed men(soldiers) and trying to escape in an aircraft of some sort, which is subsequently attacked and shot full of shards, and goes down but appears to manage to recover and escape. Colettes' father and mother are apparently killed. Colette is distraught. This seems to be in the present.

Next, several new characters show up. They seem to be in some sort of training place, possibly in Archon, but that is not clarified. One of the females shown, Lucia, seems to be having an affair with a gardener much to the disapproval of her classmate. Next her classmate is seen talking to an older monk type (clearly in charge) and basically rats on her philandering friend. The young gardener is sent away to an undisclosed location. Lucia is furious and kills her classmate when she finds out it was due to her that the boyfriend was moved. In another scene, Lucia has tracked down the boyfriend, but at that very moment the place inexplicably comes under attack and he is killed. Lucia is upset. We certainly get the impression that Lucia is strong minded, vengeful and capable of killing, but we are still not sure what she has to do with Colettes' story.

A horrible female referred to as the Empress shows up, wreaking devastation and death all over the place and decides to attack Archon. Her mission it seems, is to subjugate/kill all those who are Shard Sensitive.

It is only toward the end that I clued in that Lucia and the Empress are one and the same persons, partly because of the name, and partly because of a hairstyle detail. I was surprised at her dislike of the Shard Sensitives since she herself seemed to possess those powers.

The lack of linear plot development left me somewhat confused, because the story is extremely complex and it is easy to lose a thread.

I found the animated characters very wooden looking, with stilted and limited movements. The "button" eyes had no expression, which was particularly disturbing. The costuming was also misleading, and as result I also found it hard to differentiate characters. I realize that part of this is due to the limitations of the animation package used, but that made it difficult for me to "get into" the story or relate to the characters. Because the animated characters came across visually as rather unemotional and cold, I was unable to relate to the dialogue, through no fault of the actors producing the voices.

I was really taken with the air battle scenes, with the airborne craft very nicely rendered. I also liked how the backgrounds were done. I thought that much of the foley was good, especially the explosions. I feel that the sounds for the various types of small arms fire need work.

This story is interesting and imaginative but, in my opinion, deserves a better animation style.

I think it is a testament to the strength of character and determination of David T. Krupitz that he was able to put this film together by himself. He was responsible for every aspect, including the music. In his own words this film was completed "using obsolete older versions of production software running on second hand computers".

A very good effort.

Final Dance
(2015)

Sweet Little Art Film
I enjoyed this film because it was quirky and well done.

It tells the story of a lovely, naive and rather thoughtless young woman, Julia (played by Evgenia Milmana), and her involvement with a much older man who is a down on his luck immigrant, Vikka (played by Srdjan Nikolic).

They meet in a restaurant where Julia and her friend have come for a break from their dance class. Vikka overhears them talking about dancing and approaches the girls revealing that he is a dancer too. Julia becomes interested in him and impulsively invites him to visit the dance studio.

A relationship develops quickly with encouragement from Julia. One quickly learns that Julia is very naive and very unrealistic in her views of life and people.

She encourages poor Vikka who appears to be mesmerized by her, and he agrees to help her improve her dancing for an upcoming competition. Julia finds out that he has no place to stay and is concerned. She subsequently tricks him into coming to her parents home, and gets her father to invite Vikka to stay at their house. This arrangement is clearly to the great embarrassment of Vikka. With Julia one constantly gets the impression of a very impulsive young woman, who is used to getting her own way with no heed to other people's feelings.

Vikka helps Julia to improve her technique and dances with her in the competition. Julia then manages to insult Vikka who leaves the club where the competition is being held. When he fails to return home that night, Julia realizes he has gone from her life, and is devastated.

Srdjan Nikolics' performance as the tragic, down at the heels immigrant is excellent and he is totally convincing. So is the performance of Evgenia Milmana. It was convincing enough that I wanted to shake her for being so selfish and silly.

The film is very entertaining, and I really appreciated the soundtrack by Vezi Tayyeb.

He Was a Quiet Man
(2007)

Dark, wicked and true to life
I really enjoyed this funny little movie.

This movie is about a sad, under-confident guy who is continuously run down and pushed around by the world, but at the same time despises that world, and eventually gets pushed to the limit.

The performances were great - Christian Slater as the lonely, loner, loser who can't seem to make friends, or won't try. What made the performance real for me is that I have known guys like that.

The office bully - sadly very real - have known and worked for idiots like this.

Without going through the whole cast, these were all people that are real characters that one runs into all the time.

I loved the music. It was brilliantly integrated with the scenes and perfect. Kudos to the creators for that touch.

The cinematography went above and beyond, in my opinion. There were places where it reminded me of The Graduate. It succeeded in helping one get inside this guy's head, one could understand how he was feeling, what he might do as a result.

There was only one point where I would have liked some clarification on plot and that was towards the end, but really, overall, I thought this movie was brilliant.

Club Utopia
(2013)

An Entertaining and Lighthearted Romp
Off the top, I have to say that I really enjoyed Club Utopia. It did something that a lot of bigger budget movies fail to do - it amused and entertained me and kept my attention.

I thought the acting was good, and I loved the soundtrack, all provided by local GTA musicians.

The story involves a selfish, unlikeable, womanizing, control freak of a man Alex Enitlov(Srdjan Nikolic), with a beautiful but bored-silly wife Sally Enitlov.(Ellen Muller) A hate filled neighbour, Charlie, (Mike Oshust) a sleazy over sexed secretary,Gretchen(Inna Ivanova ) a hopelessly inept private detective Richard Sabatini (Frank Caruso), along with his complete wack job of a cousin.(Shiraz Tayyeb, another character is Sisco ( Brett Halsey), a strip club owner.

The Alex character makes it clear what sort of person he is from the first time we lay yes on him, and we immediately sympathize with his wife. Each time some little annoyance arrives at his doorstep, we smirk, and whenever his wife or anyone else gets one up on him, we love it.

One of the scenes I enjoyed the most is where Alex is trying to retrieve the morning paper under the watchful eye of his neighbour, Charlie, who is out hosing his driveway, and manages to soak Alex and the paper. Alex does not take this in good part and retreats into the house shrieking imprecations in Russian.

Alex has an unfortunate habit of recalling his infidelities in his dreams, in vivid detail. His subsequent sleep-talking makes Sally both suspicious and resentful, and provides us with side splitting laughter. Another annoying habit Alex has is completely ignoring Sally which leads to her brooding angrily, which in turn leads to her having elaborate dreams of avenging herself on Alex, and these are hilariously captured.

Even though he's carrying on a torrid affair with his secretary Gretchen, Alex is suspicious of Sally. Hethinks Sally is on to him and that she herself may be having an affair. He hires Sabatini, the inept private detective, to tail her. The scenes between Alex and Sabatini in Sabatinis' warehouse-office are hilarious. You know that if Sabatini wasn't broke, he would not take Alex on as a client.

Sally meantime has decided to get a job, and ends up through a series of mishaps, becoming an exotic dancer. The scenes with her interviewing for the job are really well done. I loved when she first meets the strip club owner, Sisco (Brett Halsey)and one of his strippers. Great scene.

The resulting chaos from Alexs' infidelity, Sally's annoyance with him, Sally's emergence from unassuming housewife to scintillating exotic dancer and the interactions with all the other characters makes a very entertaining romp.

Severance
(2010)

Excellent short film
Severance is about a selfish and spoilt individual who has lost sight of what is valuable in life in exchange power and money. He finds himself being plagued by his alter-ego who shows him what he has become.

Severance is a really excellent short film. The editing is tight, the acting is great, and the cinematography is excellent. The choice of music was really appropriate, with a great original score by David O'Hearn.

The story is quite thought provoking - how many people have managed to get into a position of power and have lost sight of who they are? This is addressed in Severance, and well covered to spite the short length (30 minutes). At no point do we feel that something is lost, or that a link is missing. It all comes together beautifully. Kudos to all involved.

The main character is well played and is really quite loathsome. We are relieved when he gets his comeuppance.

This film is living proof of how much talent we have in Canada.

Horrible Bosses
(2011)

Lame
Can they no longer write comedy? This was useless. Did not even elicit a smirk from either one of us. We actually thought that this, compared to Hangover, which we thought was gross and lame, was WORSE.

The writing was bad. It was that case of really bad timing for the so-called jokes. The art of writing good, punchy comedy seems to have died out with George burns.

The characters were all very bad caricatures of certain types, with no redeeming points. The so-called bad guys were as unlikeable as the so-called good guys.

The situations with each of the bad bosses were so far out, you couldn't relate to them.

These are all good actors, and it's a shame that they were so wasted in this pathetic, unfunny movie.

I'm really glad we paid only $4.00 for this, and that we will be able to return it and get something else. Total waste of watching time.

Duel
(2008)

Gripping
This 8 minute long film is gripping from the start.

The high quality of production, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the writing, the special effects - all impressive.

More impressive when you realize that this is the Producer's first short film, and that it was made by a group of students as a college project.

It's wonderful what these guys managed to do with fairly limited resources. For me, he mood was set with the lighting. The set was kept very simple, and the use of shadowy, indistinct background scenes added to the tension.

Another thing that really added to the film was the excellent choice of music.

I recommend it as a "good watch", and one that makes you think.

Cold Comfort Farm
(1995)

An engaging British style comedy
Loved this movie. Loved the book and was totally impressed with how they adapted it, nothing was lost.

The story is simple: Set in England, sometime around the 1930's - a young woman, Flora Post, is left with a very small annuity after her parents die. She needs to either find a suitable job, or find some suitable relative with whom to live.

After she sends out enquiries to a number of relatives and receives responses, she decides to go to her country cousins, the Starkadders.

Flora has no qualms about setting off on this adventure, but her cousins have NO idea of what they have let themselves in for.

We join her on her adventures and are completely sucked into the story and the surroundings. Nothing defies her, nothing worries her, she sails through the lives and routines, gloom and joy of her cousins and their associates with the greatest of ease and comfort.

Flora loves to organize things, and she relentlessly creates order from chaos at Starkadder Farm, in a charming way.

There is so much to love about the story itself which is lightheartedly and gently making fund of a certain time in British history.

The acting is amazing, the casting is incredible. The pacing of the movie is great - not for one minute does one feel bored or restless. We have seen it 5 or 6 times and it retains its charm.

Highly recommended for fans of the out of the ordinary, or British humour.

Click
(2006)

A good idea which somehow got lost in translation (pardon the pun!)
I like the premise: you get the opportunity to fast forward through the annoyances in life.

I'm certain we'd all like that!

I was confused at the uneven plot devices. I got the impression that there was more than one director. A scene would be progressing reasonably with some pretty good laughs, then suddenly - a really stupid gag is introduced.

This was unfortunate because it brought it to a rather low humour level which didn't mesh well with the rest of it.

So although I liked the general idea, I felt the execution was weak. Shame, because they had a really excellent cast.

The cast did their best, and were convincing in their roles, but for me the movie missed the mark.

Iron Man 2
(2010)

Nowhere near as good as Ironman 1
The script was weak, the acting predictable, the action reminiscent of The Transformers and the soundtrack, which had promised a whole lot of AC/DC featured exactly TWO songs from them.

Other than that, I suppose it was okay entertainment.

While Ironman was not particularly highbrow stuff, the script at least was pretty good, and the plot moved right along.

Ironman 2, however seemed to be all over the place. The beginning/intro was WAAAAAAY too long and very boring. The plot came and went, editing was not particularly tight, the action sequences were over the top and after a while I was hoping the movie would self destruct.

I saw no point (other than eye candy) for the introduction of the kung-foo fighting girl, just an excuse to see a pretty girl dressed in a skintight outfit kicking ass - did NOT really help the plot.

Ivan-with-a-grudge character could have worked, but the writing would have needed to be way better.

I'm glad that I didn't go to the theatre to see this, would have cost a lot more and I would have been even more irritated.

So if you like to see a bunch clownasses blowing things up without a particularly good story, you may enjoy this.

The Men Who Stare at Goats
(2009)

A well made tongue-in-cheek look at the U.S. Army and some of it's wacky ideas
The basic premise for the movie appears wacky at first glance, but seems to be based on stuff that actually happened, at least in Russia.

The casting is spot on. The individuals are very believable and one can honestly say that they are very reminiscent of characters in real life.

The idea of someone looking into mind control as a possible method of warfare is hilarious, and the way this story is carried out is hilarious.

It reminded me in places of a Cohen Brothers movie, crossed with Catch 22, and some Team America thrown in for good measure.

The direction is excellent, as is the screen writing, and as I mentioned - the casting is great. It's typical that this was under the radar for awards, to my mind, it should have won some awards and the actors should definitely have won something significant.

George Clooney is a fave anyway, but his role in this film was just great, as was Ewen McGregor and of course, The Dude, Jeff Bridges.

I loved the little digs made toward the various U.S. activities in the middle east, and politics.

If you want good entertainment and you have a twisted sense of humour - you will love it. If you are looking for "same old, same old" Hollywood action flick - not so much.

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