You only need to get a few minutes into Ross Weber’s film to realize the title, Mount Pleasant, is more of an ironic jab at the East Vancouver neighbourhood than a helpful reminder that tells you where the story takes place, like Chicago or Philadelphia. It starts in an absolutely horrific manner, with the [...]

Reg Harkema has basically edited every good Canadian movie ever made. Now he’s written and directed a good Canadian movie of his own. Monkey Warfare is tight, funny and low-budget story about a pinko couple (Don McKellar and Tracy Wright) who fled Vancouver after a Molotov cocktail incident went wrong. Now in Toronto, the couple [...]

Unless you’ve been living in an extremely well insulated box, you’ve probably heard the buzz about Gabriel Range’s film Death of a President. Essentially a made-for-TV movie in the UK, the film has garnered such a colossal amount of hype it received a North American theatrical release. The premise is brilliant but simple and a [...]

If Entourage has you hunting for someone to befriend before their career in the film industry takes off, you should consider cozying up to Jamie Travis. After the 27 year old UBC film grad got people talking about him in 2005 with his short Patterns, Travis didn’t rest on his modest laurels. Rather, he made [...]

You have to go back pretty far to find a decent Canadian horror movie that anyone has heard of. The last one that’s worthy of mention is 2000’s Ginger Snaps; which, at best can only be described as ‘watchable’. To find a really good Canadian horror film you have to go back 20 years to [...]

Never saw The Devil Wears Prada but I’d lie to you if I did. Meryl Streep is supposed to be great in it. I’ve never seen a movie she’s been in but the middleaged women I play bridge with on the third Sunday of every month tell me she’s fantastic. I did see The Devil [...]

Douglas Coupland has been giving Vancouver gifts for some time now and I wanted to give him something back so I picked up a used needle from a Downtown Eastside alleyway and put it in an empty cassette case to give to him. I don’t normally give people gifts that you can rob a bank [...]

No one hates Leonard Cohen. It’s just a matter of whether you like him or you love him. Lian Lunson is straight up enchanted by the man. So much so, she made a movie about it titled Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Having cut her teeth doing music videos and a documentary on Willy Nelson, [...]

“NerrrRRRDDSS!”
-Ogre in Revenge of the Nerds
In most cases you wouldn’t have to specify that the quote comes from Revenge of the Nerds but when talking about the Darkon, a quote from “ogre” could mean any number of things. Directed by Luke Meyer and Andrew Neel, Darkon is a new documentary currently doing the festival circuit [...]

I don’t mean to alarm you but there are people watching pornography on their video iPods. I can handle the idea of people watching porn. Whatever you want to do in your place of dwelling is cool. But the prospect of someone sitting next to me on the bus, white headphones and all, watching a [...]

In film school, the good instructors will tell you to make films about things you know. It’s advice often ignored by young cineastes and the endless stream of student films about drug deals gone wrong and other malfeasance is a testament to this lesson lost. Clearly, Aubrey Nealon paid attention in class. His first feature, [...]

For a Canadian movie, a story about a group of friends who travel to a secluded cabin in an attempt to revitalize their lives through bizarre games of sexual dysfunction sounds like, well, just another Canadian movie. But in the hands of director Dylan Akio Smith, whose first feature, The Cabin Movie, screens at this [...]