I am doing a few quick writeups of titles that are playing in my local Victoria Film Festival and the 2025 edition has bean absolutely wonderful and even quite a bit of a surprise for this film fan! While I tend to attend more major film festivals like TIFF and SxSW, VFF snuck up on […]
Film Festivals
Reviews, interviews, and news about film festivals.
Fantastic Fest 2022: SMILE & A WOUNDED FAWN
It’s the first day of Fantastic Fest, It was wonderful seeing many faces I haven’t seen since the last festival before the pandemic. We had an opening party with Goth Marching band Itchy-O The 57 member band with drummers, guitar players, Dancing tigers, floats, and confetti cannons. We also had cocktail serving robots brought to […]
Fantasia Review – THE FIGHT MACHINE
THE FIGHT MACHINE, directed by Andrew T. Hund, is a bad-ass film in the style of FIGHT CLUB but without the dual personality disorder. It’s a film that follows two young men that feel the weight of their parents’ expectation of their future. They rebel in their own way against their parents. Their journey leads […]
Fantasia Review – BABY ASSASSINS
Directed by Hugo Sakamoto Baby Assassins, directed by Hugo Sakamoto, is a fun Japanese Action comedy that I got to check out during the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. It has good action scenes but the best part of the film are the comedy sequences that is full of laughter and guts. The film is […]
Ten Underdogs to Check Out in 2022
Genre films are the staple of many lists of anticipated films for the new year, and not everyone is keen on seeing them. More often than not, documentaries are overlooked and what I offer are releases designed more to enlighten than to entertain. Another thought I had in mind when putting together this catalogue is […]
Fantasia Festival Interview – INDEMNITY director Travis Taute
At FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL I had the chance to see the amazing Action Thriller INDEMNITY. I got the opportunity to speak to the director TRAVIS TAUTE, this is his first feature film. I was excited when I heard this action film from South Africa. I have seen many South African action films. The last one […]
Fantasia Film Festival 2021 – Genre-Style Reviews & Remote Thoughts
It has been another crazy year of film festivals, and one that we have always loved & supported out of Montreal is the long-running genre festival Fantasia Festival. Both Antonio Quintero & myself (Jason) are fans of the bizarre, having also attended Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas many times. We are hoping next year that […]
Breaking Down SxSW 2021: The Top 10 from Jason & Antonio
Oh reader, you have no idea how much I missed Austin, Texas this year. Oh how I wish I travelled all the way to Austin from my little corner of the world in Canada to attend South By Southwest, a city I have not been to in person since 2019. This is SxSW year number […]
SxSW 2021 Review – LUCHADORAS
LUCHADORAS is my favorite documentary at SXSW this year. It’s a great tale of female wrestler in the City of Juarez that find their greatest opponent is their family drama. The must deal with bigger challengers that they face in the ring such as motherhood and Femicide in the City of Juarez. The film follows […]
SxSW 2021 Interview – THE FALLOUT director Megan Park
The Fallout is an honest look at what it is like to be a teenager today while traversing the never linear journey to heal after a tragedy at school. Having its World Premiere in the Narrative Feature Competition, we speak with THE FALLOUT director Megan Park. Welcome to SxSW! Is this your first SxSW experience? […]
SxSW 2021 Review – SUBJECTS OF DESIRE
SUBJECTS OF DESIRE is an insightful documentary about the beauty standards of black women in American. It shows the way in which these beauty standards have been used in America to discriminate against black women. For example, are you aware that until a few years ago an African American woman could be legally fired from […]
SxSW 2021 Review – PAUL DOOD’S DEADLY LUNCH BREAK
PAUL DOOD’S DEADLY LUNCH BREAK is a hilarious dark comedy from director Nick Gillespie. In his directorial debut. He has worked as cinematographer with Ben Wheatley, a director known for the likes of DOWN TERRACE and FREE FIRE. This works like a parody of horror comedy that Vincent Price used to make in the 70s […]
SxSW 2021 Review – RECOVERY
Recovery (United States, dir. Mallory Everton, Stephen Meek) *** out of **** With a lot of documentaries at SxSW this year that mention the Coronavirus pandemic, less has been mentioned in the narrative feature films, either because production already started before last March in 2020 or, I am guessing, many filmmakers want to stay away […]
SxSW 2021 Review – CLERK
Part of the SxSW Film programming this year is offering a handful of titles that were supposed to play in the 2020 edition. When the event was cancelled last March, many of the titles went into limbo. CLERK was a movie originally on my 2020 schedule and I’m happy it is included on this year’s […]
SxSW 2021 Review: POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHE
A very quick review on a doc I enjoyed while in the midst of SxSW screenings! Poly Styrene was a name I forgot about but as soon as POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHE started up I was immediately reminded of my teenage punk phase and searching out alternative British Rock when I wasn’t constantly […]