The Final Take with Parker Mott

Rating: PG – Nudity
Run Time: 100 minutes

"Farewell, My Queen"

Queen Marie Antoinette, to my mind, was perhaps the first trophy wife in French history. It’s true the Bourbon Monarchy arranged its king’s marriage and, yes, the wedlock of king Louis XVI and queen Marie Antoinette was hardly physical at all. The history books generally agree that an unhealthy amount of the king’s expenditures went either to the American revolution or his wife. She was, paradoxically, considered both a model of the old regime and the inadequacies of French royalty. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Violence, Language May Offend, Tobacco Use
Run Time: 91 minutes

Run Forrest Run!: Wilee the coyote (Gordon-Levitt) hustles down the New York streets in "Premium Rush".

Premium Rush was probably made for bikes the way The Fast and the Furious was for cars. Both are colourful and cartoonish romanticizations of their respective vehicles and don’t for a second break their smirk. They involve good-looking actors racing from one destination to the next, only this time Chris “Ludacris” Bridges isn’t waiting at the end of the tunnel. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language, Nudity, Violence
Run Time: 100 minutes

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are off to L.A. with crooks and a marshal at their pursuit in the harebrained "Hit and Run".

Here’s a movie that left me completely indifferent. Not insulted or excited – just bored. “Hit and Run” is a would-be romp about as generic as its title. There is entertainment on the screen, or at least what looks like it: hot women, streaky-haired beaus, fast dialogue, and nonstop frenetic car chases. I hate to use this silly social term, but the movie is a hipster exercise. It involves lots of noise and rambunctious behaviour only to swivel into obscure cut-and-thrust conversations on you-name-it topics. (continue reading…)

Rating: PG – Language May Offend
Run Time: 89 minutes

Robot and Frank.

A story about the sweet bond between an aging man and an ageless robot has the potential for pleasant viewing. That the terrific Frank Langella, an actor deft at displaying elderly torment, happens to fill the first unit shows high promise. Robots are machines and, therefore, defy first impressions. We view them based on their intentions towards humanity. Robot in “Robot & Frank”, unlike “2001″’s HAL 9000, means well. Thus, we can drop our guard and savor this man-machine relationship. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language, Disturbing Content
Run Time: 113 minutes

Robert De Niro is a mystical presence in "Red Lights".

“Red Lights” wages a philosophical war between supernatural and natural laws, and begs the question whether the former defies the logic of the latter. Is there something beyond the veil that exceeds our worldly understanding? John Locke believed we must predicate truth on mental perceptions, whereas the later David Hume was a skeptic to the validity of human knowledge and sensory perception. For me, the supernatural is adjacent to the realm of objectivity: both may exist, but they predominate a state outside immanent human existence. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language, Sexual Content
Run Time: 96 minutes

Chris Rock is blindsided by Julie Delpy's high-maintenance French parents in "2 Days in New York".

2 Days in New York is not a model example of time flying when you are having fun. This is a frantic film for frantic’s sake. So much energy and fast-talking momentum invested into a screenplay without a lick of intellectual merit. It will immediately call to mind Woody Allen movies, where middle-class/aged New Yorkers rant about their issues in situations dressed up in bittersweet nostalgia and absurdities. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language, Sexual Content
Run Time:  86 minutes

Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell face off in "The Campaign".

The Campaign is about two blowhard Southern politicians trying to outsmart each other at the polls. However, the movie’s raison d’etre has little I think to do with the upcoming U.S. election. Instead, The Campaign is more an exercise in the comic personalities of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, who make better use of their screen time contending for our laughs than their characters do to get votes. (continue reading…)

Rating: 18A – Coarse Language, Sexual Content, Graphic Violence
Run Time: 104 minutes

Killer Joe (McConaughey) meets with the dimwitted Chris Smith (Hirsch) in Friedkin's vile yet effective "Killer Joe".

Killer Joe is a deep-fried practical joke on humanity. It’s a murder story that doesn’t even have the curtesy of showing the murder and features a scrumptious chicken leg that doesn’t even get eaten. This is an uncompromisingly twisted and disturbing movie, but it is not a thriller. It would be less terrifying if it was. I suppose it can be called a Southern gothic dark comedy, but that still might be oversimplifying things. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language
Run Time: 104 minutes 

Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan in "Ruby Sparks".

Writers can be so fickle. One day they are in a flow, the next their favourite computer key is ‘backspace’. Often, their insecurities dominate the creativity, with them thinking most of the time they are not capable of their passion and life pursuit. I admire writers like Stephen King and John Grisham, who seem to have novels published every week. But truth be told: creativity is like sun in autumn – it comes in and out. Some writers deny the existence of writer’s block. They’re liars. (continue reading…)

Blood on his hands: Canadian filmmaker Jason Lapeyre.

Jason Lapeyre is a Canadian filmmaker with blood on his hands…in a good way. A romantic of crime films and novels, Lapeyre, like Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet, depicts his lurid film worlds with equal affection and scorn for the brutality and corruption they breed.

A York University-graduate, Lapeyre hurdled headlong into the film industry by helping out on sets and directing music videos for several years. He even made a funny short film that parodies the opening text crawl credits of “Star Wars”. His low-budget feature debut “Cold Blooded” is also funny, I suppose, but the humour springs from the audience’s discomfort. This is the Hitchcock rule: laughter is the reflex of our unconscious fears and desires. (continue reading…)