MONDOmagazine

Inception
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Warner Bros, 2010

Christopher Nolan became a filmmaker to watch almost a decade ago with Memento. Despite that being still of my all-time favourite films, naturally he remains best known and most popular for his reigniting the Batman film series. What I like about Nolan is that despite the new heights of mainstream popularity he’s reached, he still takes the time to do his own projects. Which brings us to Inception, his project in between his caped crusader adventures.

Inception is sci-fi/action film about a world where it is possible for people to enter and manipulate the dreams of others.  Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is one of the best extractors in the business.  He and his team break into people’s minds and steal their hidden secrets.  One day, a powerful businessman (and former target) named Saito (Ken Watanabe) asks Cobb to enter the mind of his rival Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) and instead of extracting information, Saito wants Cobb to plant an idea into Fischer’s brain (hence the “Inception” of the title).  Cobb then proceeds to assemble his team: Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is Cobb’s right hand man and researches the target, Ariadne (Ellen Page) is an architect and designs the dreamscapes, Eames (Tom Hardy) is a forger and can disguise himself as anyone within the dream, and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is a chemist that makes the sedative drugs required to put the team into a deep sleep.

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The Last Airbender
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Paramount Pictures, July 2010

You know, I’ve been an M. Night Shyamalan fan for a long time. I liked his directing style, his slow but engaging pacing, his characters and his stories. Where most people began to scoff at him for films like The Village, I still appreciated him. I even like Lady In The Water, which most people deride because of how silly it is — without realizing that it’s a fairy tale written for his kids.

And I’ve always loved the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon. It was suitable for kids but had a long, complex story during which deeply-layered characters matured and developed and became more and more interesting. It was rooted in, honestly, one of the best original mythologies I’ve ever seen.

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By: Caesar Martini, Rachel West, Sean Kelly and Isaac Mills

The crew is back, finding reasons for hope (Inception) and doubt (Salt) and plenty to gawk or gander at in the ever-changing landscape of late July.

JULY 16th
Inception

Caesar
I barely have any idea what this is about but I am so fucking stoked to see it. Leo Dicaprio, Ellen Page, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are, like, dream thieves or something? Most of the movie seems to take place inside a dream world where city blocks fold in on themselves and gravity barely exists and shit is blowing up everywhere in slow motion. Hell, yes. Also, it’s directed and written by Christopher Nolan and that dude has an awesome track record; and not just with Batman. Read the rest of this entry »

By: Caesar Martini, Rachel West, Sean Kelly and Isaac Mills

The crew is back at it with the welcome first appearance of comics-section heavyweight Isaac Mills. The gang punches in on The Last Airbender, Predators, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and piles more. Check in shortly for more expert speculation and conflict galore when we size up the releases of latter July.
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The Book of Eli
Directed by The Hughes Brothers
Warner Brothers, 2010

By Miles Baker

The future is sad because it’s grey and brown, but — if it’s any consolation — it’s also really well lit.

The nukes have landed and society has gone to shit. Gangs roam ruined highways, preying on passersby; others have sought shelter in the bombed out remains of small towns; food and water are scarce. But, worst of all for people like myself who work in publishing, books are rare and there are only a few people left who can read. In roams Denzel Washington, a post-apocalypic samurai who caries the most rare book of all, a King James Bible.

Enter slumlord Gary Oldman, who seeks the unifying/controlling power of the sacred text; and cue fight scenes. Mila Kunis and Ray Stevenson round out the cast (with a super sweet cameo from Tom Waits). Read the rest of this entry »

Sex and the City 2
Directed by Michael Patrick King
New Line Films, 2010

By Leo K. Moncel

Now, I am not the intended audience for this film. I didn’t see the first film and I’ve watched all of one episode of the series. I’d heard this one was a letdown even to fans and I went in with very low expectations, but nothing could have prepared me for this absolutely God awful movie.

I won’t criticize this film for it’s kitschy glam aesthetic, the target is too obvious and this stuff is for the most part well-executed. Where this film fails is in it’s near total lack of a story. This is not an accusation I often hurl. When a film critic says they found something story-less, it is often that they didn’t like the story. When I accuse Sex and the City 2 of being story-less, I mean that I found scarce little conflict start to finish. What’s on screen then, is almost two and a half hours of mainly set-pieces and banter.

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Cube
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Alliance Atlantis, 1997

By Sean Kelly

With the release of his latest film, Splice, I thought I would go back and take a look at Cube – Vincenzo Natali’s first and most well-known film, and  something of a cult classic. The story is simple: a group of strangers find themselves in a maze of cubical rooms. Some of these rooms feature deadly traps and the group scrambles to find an exit.

This is essentially a one-set film, and it would have been impossible to pull off if it wasn’t for the quality of the character development. There are six main characters: Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint) – a cop, Holloway (Nicky Guadagni) – a doctor, Leaven (Nicole de Boer) – a student, Worth (David Hewlett) – an architect, Rennes (Wayne Robson) – an escape artist, and Kazan (Andrew Miller) – an autistic man. Each of these characters seem to represent a certain archetype, but as the film progresses their true roles are revealed.

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Splice
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Warner Bros./Dark Castle Entertainment, 2010

By Sean Kelly

You know, this film could have been absolutely terrible and it would have still been a film industry miracle. That this Canadian production was picked up by Warner Bros. for a wide release still amazes me. This fact alone told me that Splice was going to be something special. I was not disappointed.

Most would know director Vincenzo Natali from his 1997 cult sci-fi film Cube. Splice recycles the age-old morality tale about the dangers of playing God. However, in a world where there are news reports about the creation of artificial organisms, this type of story seems to be becoming closer to science fact than science fiction.

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By Caesar Martini, Sean Kelly and Leo K. Moncel

Woof! Woof! It’s Marmaduke season! Psych. We’re not even approaching that beast. Instead we’ve got the shakedown on The A Team, Grown Ups, Toy Story 3 and like, a dozen more. And, if you can believe me, we may even have a potential, that is, possible, now it’s too early to call it, but a disagreement over a Twilight film? Remember we write these separately and no one’s calling any names. But a fight to the death in the comments section is always a welcome option.

JUNE 4th
Get Him to The Greek

Caesar
Made by the same team who did Forgetting Sarah Marshall, one of that year’s best comedies, and starring the best character from that movie, British hedonist rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), how could I not want to see this?
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Robin Hood
Directed by Ridley Scott
Universal Pictures, 2010

By Sean Kelly

If there is anything I can say about Ridley Scott’s take on the classic legend of Robin Hood is that it was very brave of Scott to throw away the familiar plot and create an all-new story. Scott’s reimagined epic encompasses the origins of Robin Hood in a true historical context.

The classic Robin Hood villains – the Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) and King John (Oscar Isaac) are given a backseat in this story. The Sheriff only appears in 3 or 4 scenes and John, the newly crowned king, is more akin to a spoiled brat than a true villain. Instead, the main villain of this story is John’s traitorous aid Godfrey (Mark Strong – who seems to have a lifetime membership to “Villains ‘R Us”). Godfrey has joined forces with the French to create civil unrest in England aiming to pave the way for a French invasion.

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Edge of Darkness
Directed by Martin Campbell
Warner Brothers, 2010

By Miles Baker

I wish that these actors, these characters and this creative team were in a different plot. This film works on many levels, and I want to give it a glowing review, but the plot and the themes it explores does not work with the main protagonist.

I’ll explain.

Long-time Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven’s (Mel Gibson) daughter is shot on his front porch. The reserved and emotionally distressed detective begins his own investigation into his daughter’s death and uncovers a national security conspiracy between big business and the highest levels of the American government. Soon words like “national security risk,” “nuclear armament,” “radiation sickness” and “terrorist” are being thrown around in my nice little crime story.

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Austin Visschedyk, teenage paparazzo.

Teenage Paparazzo
Directed by Adrien Grenier
Co-presented with Hot Docs
Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor Street West)
May 8

By Kerry Freek

Forget Lady Gaga. Thirteen-year-old Austin Visschedyk is the fame monster. Not only is he a paparazzo-in-the-making, but the subject of Teenage Paparazzo comes threateningly close to becoming a celebrity himself, and almost certainly as a direct result of receiving this attention from director Adrien Grenier. Read the rest of this entry »