With the series largely driven out of pop-cultural consciousness by a combination of time and a slew of direct-to-DVD spinoffs, one might question the need for a fourth theatrical entry in the American Pie franchise. Surely such a sequel would be little more than a shameless cash-grab – an act of back-to-the-well laziness by a greedy studio and the prospect-less cast members alike. Well, you can hypothesize all you want [...]

Jean-Marc Vallée’s Café de Flore arrives with considerable hype from Quebec, where it garnered thirteen nominations in the 2012 Genie Awards. In many ways, the praise is understandable. Masterfully shot, edited, sound-mixed and scored, and featuring several fantastic performances, the movie is, in its best moments, phenomenal. Intermingling two tales of love and loss separated by thousands of kilometres and decades in time, individual scenes unfold with such devastating beauty [...]

Twenty-four teenagers enter an arena. Only one comes out. And millions of people watch, enraptured.

The similarities between the fans of The Hunger Games and the fans within The Hunger Games are obvious; the fact that director Gary Ross and his co-writers completely fail to examine this similarity is one of many niggling problems with their otherwise satisfying adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ sensationally popular young-adult novels.  Compared in equal measure to [...]

The directorial debut of actor Ralph Fiennes (Harry Potter), Coriolanus is a ferocious modern day adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays. Headlined by Fiennes himself, and bolstered by a staggering cast of supporting players, this appropriately theatrical tale of wartime politics makes some questionably antiquated statements about class, but nevertheless captivates thanks to towering performances, gritty cinematography and – at the risk of stating the obvious – [...]

A gangster movie out of Iceland, Black’s Game [Svartur-Leik] was executive produced by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn. As such, comparisons to his recent Drive — the best film of last year — are inevitable and perhaps not unwarranted. Both films are unashamed in their attempts to make every frame as cool as humanly possible. But while Drive employed ice-cold restraint and was a success, Black’s Game goes the [...]

The sophomore effort of writer/director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories), Take Shelter calls to mind the story of Noah, only to repaint the biblical hero as a paranoid schizophrenic. It begins when a Middle American family man named Curtis LaForche, played with ground-shaking intensity by Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road), becomes convinced that an apocalyptic storm is just beyond the horizon and is compelled to take drastic action in order to [...]