Films That Matter
Montreal Magnum
When it comes to car chase scenes, the one that is always highlighted, and for good reason, is from Peter Yates’ 1968 action thriller Bullitt starring Steve McQueen... but some eight years later, the city of San Francisco was replaced by Montreal, Quebec in this little known Italian production with quite the epic speedy sequence of its own, Shadows in an Empty Room (1976), directed by Alberto De Martino. Fusing this touch of Bullitt with a Dirty Harry style storyline – hence why it is called Blazing Magnum in some markets (including the UK), while also including a hint of the ever popular at the time 70s giallo for some murder mystery elements, the narrative follows gritty, hard as nails Ottawa cop Capt. Tony Saitta (Stuart Whitman) as he dispatches some bank robbers in his own city... before getting the tragic call that his much younger sister, Louise (Carole Laure – Sweet Movie), who lives in Montreal, has died under very suspicious circumstances.
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Star Pick with Nathan Andrew Jacobs
WANTED Someone to Go Back in Time With MeSafety Not GuaranteedJanuary 1, 2016Sometimes it is not easy to qualify exactly what genre a movie is. Safety Not Guaranteed is one of those films. The 2012 picture was recommended to me by Nathan Andrew Jacobs, the writer/director of the independent film Killing Poe, who stated that it was an excellent Indie film that should be seen by more people.
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Star Pick with Nathan Andrew Jacobs
Sometimes Less is MoreRushmoreDecember 30, 2015Nathan Andrew Jacobs, the writer/director of the independent film Killing Poe, spoke to me at the St. Lawrence International Film Festival back in October. According to him, his film, which built up an unbelievable buzz over the four day festival, has been influenced by the work of Wes Anderson. He mentioned two of Anderson’s movies – The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore as being his favourites, and the latter will be reviewed here today.
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Frankly Speaking, See This Great Comedy
Frank and CindyDecember 19, 2015The closing picture of the St. Lawrence International Film Festival was G.J. Echternkamp’s Frank and Cindy; and it may have one of the more unusual pre-production tales to come out of Hollywood in recent history.
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A Wild Ride
The NymphetsDecember 14, 2015Sometimes the opening credits of a film can signal the type of experience you are in for and this is clearly the case with Gary Gardner’s The Nymphets. The credits are large, bold and frantically paced, which, along with the similarly themed musical score, highlights that we are in for quite the ride.
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Audition Mesmerizes
AuditionDecember 12, 2015Matt Herron’s Audition is an exciting and original quasi-documentary that fuses together footage from an audition process where fifty couples (yes, that’s one hundred actors) vie for the final position of being the leading man and woman in a movie; the footage the couples film are then taken and spliced together to form the narrative movie they are auditioning for.
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Mountain of Madness
Black Mountain SideDecember 10, 2015There has long been a history of films that deal with isolation and seclusion – some being big budget blockbusters while others are low-budget flicks. Movies such as The Shining, Cabin Fever and The Thing each created a sense of impending dread by using these two themes effectively. The low budget Canadian film Black Mountain Side continues the tradition.
