Vampire films come in all forms, from comedies to horror and even romance.  The creatures themselves come in all shapes and sizes as well, from little children to the grotesque, barely human monster. The titular character of Abigail is one of the former, and as for the film, there is no doubt it’s a horror, with a little comedy thrown in to help keep the mood light around the gory moments. It’s a fun little film that will keep you entertained, even if it is more than a little predictable. Abigail follows the story of seven criminals hired to kidnap the ballerina daughter of a local crimin ..read more

Food service workers and farmers are essential workers and, in a perfect world, the world will treat them as such. Food, Inc. 2 shows that North American capitalism ‘perfects’ and tweaks a lot of things except for compensating workers properly. People watching this movie aren’t brand new to this information, as it shows a food service worker having to calculate her expenses. It’s more shocking to see farmers having to get consultant jobs instead of having farming as their sole income source. Zack Smith from Winnebago County, Iowa inherited his land from generations of farmers like him. He has ..read more

Ah, Inside Out, the classic 2015 Pixar movie that took us inside the mind of a tween girl named Riley. And what did we find there? A team of hardworking emotions that guided her through life. Starring Amy Poehler as Joy (as in the emotion, not just the woman’s name) and a bevy of talented comic actors, such as Mindy Kaling as Disgust, the original Inside Out was a hit that brought in hundreds of millions at the box office. So, it’s not surprising that Pixar is returning to Riley’s brain for a second installment. Only this time, everyone’s favourite hockey player from Minnesota is going through ..read more

The Ernie Game (1967) is set in Montreal in the middle of the winter. The film follows Ernie Turner (Alexis Kanner), who gets involved with two different women. One is a seamstress who is his ex-girlfriend Gail (Jackie Burroughs). The other is Donna (Judith Gault) who is a single mother and a copywriter. At the beginning of the film Ernie is sneaking out of a room he rents because he can’t pay the rent and doesn’t have a job. He then either lives off of Gail or Donna. He’s an aspiring writer but can’t seem to get started writing anything. Out of options, he eventually turns to petty crime. Wha ..read more

A film with a title like Saturday Night at the Baths will give its audiences certain expectations. Somehow, this film subverts such expectations by depicting a heterosexual sex scene evoking Varda but you know, less good. We can file this film under the ‘product of its time’ microgenre as a queer film with a heterosexual centre. I’ll get to why this couple is on screen and why we care. See, the man in the relationship, Michael (Frank Aberdeen) accepts a job as a piano player in a 1970s gay bathhouse. The couple, then, strikes a friendship with one of the bathhouse workers, Scotti (Don Scotti ..read more

Gay people make the best lovers and parents, and the former is more complex than regular straight people love. Ali (Samson Selim) has some one on one time with her boyfriend Toni’s (Vladimir Tintor) ‘landlady’ Dita (Anamaria Marinca). She explains that is her client as a social worker but that doesn’t explain the other people at home. Ali, a Romani living in North Macedonia, is wondering this about Suada (Alina Serban), who turns out to be Dita’s bisexual girlfriend. I presume bisexual because Suada has two Romani children, Vanesa (Mia Mustafa) and Mia (DZada Selim). Suada is also dying of pan ..read more

Anne (Canadian singer Mary Margaret O’Hara) is a Montrealer in between jobs when she hears a piece of bad news because it turns out, a cousin of hers falls into a coma in Vienna. There’s little to do in between visits to the hospital so she goes to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. There, she meets a guard, Johann (Robert Sommer, a non-actor), and they strike up a platonic friendship. Art is one of their main discussion topics but they also discuss things like music and their past lives. Anne and Johann’s friendship is central to Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours but there’s more to it than that in this fi ..read more

Well-made art about The Holocaust will always be worthwhile and important. In a historic event where millions died, there are, of course, millions of valuable stories to tell. Based on the 2017 novel by George Hunter (which was in turn inspired by the author’s family’s experiences in World War II), We Were The Lucky Ones, documents the lives of The Kurks, a close-knit Jewish family of five children who are determined to survive the atrocities of The Second World War and reunite with each other. When we meet The Kurks in 1939 Poland, their lives are full and beautiful. There’s a new grandb ..read more

Kids are the worst… After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl. From Radio Silence—the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett behind the terrifying modern horror hits Ready or Not, 2022’s Scream and last year’s Scream VI—comes a brash, blood-thirs ..read more

Democracy is fragile… From filmmaker Alex Garland comes a journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach DC before rebel factions descend upon the White House. Civil War is the definition of ‘event cinema’ and thanks to our friends at Elevation Pictures we have double passes to advance screenings in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa on Wednesday April 10th (6:30 in Toronto, 7PM everywhere else).  Your chance to win simply couldn’t be easier. E-mail us at itscontests@outlook.com with your full name ..read more