David Raitt – Off-Topic

At first, American Hustle seems like a no-brainer: a period piece about con-artists, written, directed and starring a powerhouse group of Oscar-nominated (and Oscar-winning) filmmakers, with high-profile positive buzz and award nominations before it even arrived in theatres. On seeing it, however, you can be forgiven for thinking you are the one being grifted.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

Director Martin Scorsese is arguably best known for his Mafia films, where often penniless youths become made men, get rich, and then try to escape the law. The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese’s fifth film collaboration with star Leonardo DiCaprio, is not a Mafia film, but it sure feels like one, and it’s as good as or better than most of the others.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

It’s almost a shame that human nature finds comfort in threes. The modern trend toward telling stories in trilogies seems to ignore the fact that some of them benefit from simplicity and compression. Director and co-writer Peter Jackson’s film version of The Hobbit is a case in point. This second episode, The Desolation of Smaug, has all the elements of a good action movie, but as the middle peg in a trilogy, it just isn’t a superlative one.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

I’ve long been of the opinion that Matthew McConaughey is one of Hollywood’s most underrated actors. Variously dismissed as a dim-witted pretty-boy or a shirtless, bongo-playing surfer – images that haven’t been helped by a string of poor romantic comedies – he has recently built an impressive array of performances in smaller dramas. With Dallas Buyers Club, he gives one of the best of the year, coupled with another by the equally underrated Jared Leto.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

We think of “holiday movies” as tales of families coming together. Philomena is most definitely not a holiday movie, but its portrayal of a family torn apart and a search for answers warms the heart nonetheless. It’s worth your time this Christmas.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

As we’ve seen with so-called “Reality TV” competitions like Survivor and The Amazing Race, producers often have to re-jig the rules of their own games in order to maintain the interest of their audience. In The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the fascist overlords of Panem do the same to their gladiatorial exhibition, in an attempt to quell a resistance movement. The film itself, however, doesn’t change things up too much from its previous instalment. But in this case, that’s a good thing.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

As a film reviewer with a mandate to serve Oakville and its neighbouring citizens, I’ve become more and more frustrated by a lack of variety in our local theatres. Movie programming is determined by studio accountants and corporate projections, loading the high-profile, big-budget movies into more theatres to pump box office numbers. Outside of the big cities, this practice freezes out “smaller” pictures that don’t always have large distribution budgets. They may not necessarily be better, but they definitely add diversity, and some are genuinely deserving of larger audiences. I really don’t want to sound like a film snob, but surely a 10-theatre Oakville multiplex has room for more options than running Thor: The Dark World in 4 of its halls.

I caught one such “smaller” movie recently, and if you have the opportunity to get into the city, it’s worth the trouble to seek it out. All is Lost is a riveting survival tale, as much notable for what it portrays as for what it doesn’t.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

12 Years a Slave is a gripping, unflinching look at the horrors of slavery. It’s also one of the best films of the year.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.

Most people hear the word “pirate” and think of peg legs, parrots and Johnny Depp, but modern piracy is still a serious problem. With cargo freighter crews continually downsized to cut costs, even a small skiff of armed men can successfully board a ship to steal cash from the onboard safe, rob the crew, or even commandeer the vessel.

Captain Phillips is based on the 2009 hijacking of the US-flagged Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates. Despite a few problems, it’s an intense thriller with direction tighter than the confines of a lifeboat.

Though countless photos exist, it’s something most of us will never actually see – the awesome beauty of our beautiful blue Earth from orbit. And even as the title cards at the beginning of director Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity remind us that travelling into space is madness, we’ve all considered what it must be like to hang weightless above the clouds. The movie is a thrilling adventure, with moments of poignant drama.

Read the rest of my review at Oakville.com – click the title link.