Whiplash
Ok, so the plot may not be fresh or entirely plausible -- the tough as…
Boyhood
Wonderful storytelling, interesting characters, and the fascinating perspective of watching a child – the focus…
Nightcrawler
I’m glad I didn’t closely read the reviews for this film before I saw it…
Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
I had a great time watching Michael Keaton impress as a washed-up actor (known for…
Calvary
I admit that I am partial to almost anything the actor Brendan Gleeson does, so…
The Hundred-Foot Journey
This charming and sweet fable – a family of talented cooks fleeing violence in India…
Million Dollar Arm
Based on a true story, I was pleasantly surprised to quite enjoy this tale of…
Gone Girl
Given that the plot of this movie very closely follows that of the book upon…
St. Vincent
I think that if you like Bill Murray, you’ll like this film even though the…
Force Majeure
I missed this one when it was at the 2014 TIFF, but Sweden’s official Oscar…
The Obvious Child
I thought the concept – a comedienne, played by Jenny Slate, accidentally becomes pregnant as the…
22 Jump Street
Better than the first movie (in what is surely to be a lengthy series) –…
The Judge
I agree with a number of movie critics who complained that the story is weak,…
Borgman
The Netherlands submission for best foreign film Oscar in 2014, this is an intriguing story…
Snowpiercer
The title of this Korean film (with the characters speaking mainly in English) is the…
Citizen Koch
I didn’t know much about the U.S. billionaire Koch brothers (of Koch Industries fame), so…
A Most Wanted Man
Based on John le Carre novel of the same name, this film, set in Germany,…
The Best Offer
If you enjoy watching Geoffrey Rush in full acting action, you will likely find this…
Mitt
This documentary follows US presidential candidate Mitt Romney, his family and advisors in his 2008…
Night Moves
Although Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning play their parts well, I didn’t find this tale…
An Honest Liar
A very entertaining documentary about the globally famous magician-turned-paranormal debunker James Randi. From Randi’s start…
The Trip to Italy
I really liked the first in this (so-far) two part series – The Trip –…
Welcome to New York
A melodramatic imagining of a slice of the life of a very powerful international finance…
It Follows
A nifty horror (kind of sci-fi) story that is hard to describe – something about…
This is My Land
Interesting documentary about how the Israeli and Palestinian school systems teach the histories of their…
The Equalizer
I can watch Denzel Washington do pretty much anything on the big screen. This is…
Love is Strange
The story can be predicted in advance – gay men tie the knot, resulting in…
Mommy
This French Canadian film by Xavier Dolan was Canada’s official entry for a foreign film…
The Good Lie
Another film where you can see what’s coming, but Reese Witherspoon is enjoyable as an…
The Guest
A enjoyable popcorn tale of a discharged soldier, obviously hiding something, who insinuates himself into…
Code Black
An interesting and entertaining documentary about the busiest public E.R. in the US – at…
Tu Dors Nicole
The critics seem to have been a lot more impressed than I was with this…
John Wick
What more needs to be said: Keanu Reeves is a retired hitman pulled back into…
Listen Up Philip
Jason Schwartzman is quite good as a bitter and self-absorbed writer who is taken under…
Lucy
I like watching Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman in most things, but I lost interest…
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Yes, the cinematography is very impressive, dazzling in places, but there is not one mm…
The Skeleton Twins
Estranged bro and sis, the twins of the title, each very deep into depression (for…
The Rover
Set in a particularly bleak looking part of the Australian Outback, our hero, played by…
Laggies
Who doesn’t like Keira Knightley? Very few, I believe. So why did I lose interest…
Aire Libre
This film from Argentina focuses on a young couple dealing with number of challenges: careers,…
Chef
A delightful film about a talented chef (John Favreau), laid off from his job at…
Tough Love
A fascinating documentary about the inner workings of child welfare systems. The focus here is…
Four Letters Apart
An inspiring documentary of how some Danish children are being treated for ADHD without the…
Ida
Set in 1960s Poland, this is a story of nun in training who is sent…
Edge of Tomorrow
What can you say, other than: it’s Tom Cruise suffering from a serious case of…
Empire of Dirt
An impressively acted Canadian film, it tells the tale of a young First Nations woman,…
Aftermath
Terrific and controversial (in Poland) Polish film, inspired by a pogrom during WW II, but…
Alan Partridge
I enjoy the English actor, Steve Coogan, in pretty much anything he does, so perhaps,…
The Raid 2: Berendal
Following up on the very violent original film, our hero cop this time goes deep…
Point and Shoot
This documentary tells of an unlikely young man from Baltimore who travels through northern Africa…
Blue Ruin
A grim but fascinating story of revenge as a quiet man, living on the edge…
We Are the Giant
Another fascinating documentary, this one telling tales of six people fighting several brutal Arab governments…
Under the Skin
I’ll admit that I understood very little of this very odd film which has Scarlett…
Locke
If a movie consisting solely of one (British) man driving (on Britain’s highways) and talking…
Maleficent
Angelina Jolie is well suited to this role of good and bad fairy and keeps…
We Are the Best!
Cute but nothing really new in this story of three young Swedish teenagers, two of…
The Immigrant
Joaquin Phoenix is terrific as man of many parts (some good, some not so good)…
The Grand Seduction
An English Canadian spin on a French Canadian story about a small east coast town…
Neighbors
Perhaps I laughed a half-dozen times during the entire film. I can’t for the life…
The Double
Based on a short story by Dostoyevsky, Jesse Eisenberg plays a shell of a man…
The Lunchbox
An absolutely charming and moving story, set in modern day Mumbai, about love, loneliness, and…
Gabrielle
A lovely and well-acted story from, and set in, Quebec about a developmentally challenged young…
Oscar Shorts – Live Action
A very enjoyable package of the Oscar nominated short films for 2014 (Live Action), with…
Omar
This Palestinian entry for the foreign film Oscar – about a young Palestinian informant forced…
Lone Survivor
Based on a true story of a US special forces hunt for a notorious Taliban…
The Square
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the people and events in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011. The…
Big Bad Wolves
An Israeli tale of the intersecting lives of a father out to avenge his daughter’s…
August: Osage County
I saw the Broadway play some years back and loved it, but I was disappointed…
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Unlike the first Captain America movie, which I found to be snooze-worthy, this one is…
The Past
From the director (Iranian Asghar Farhadi) of one of my favourite films of the last…
The Great Beauty
This Italian film – set among the lavish lifestyle of Rome’s literary and social elite…
Gloria
An impressively acted film from Chile, it tells the story of an almost 60-year-old divorcee,…
Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia
I didn’t know very much about the life of public intellectual and writer Gore Vidal,…
The Monuments Men
Even George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, etc. can’t take this film to a level…
Particle Fever
Enjoyable and informative/educational documentary about the international large hadron collider project – scientists from around…
The Husband
A very off-beat Canadian film about a sad-sack kind of guy, raising his son alone…
Enemy
Jake Gyllenhaal, good as usual, plays a double role as an emotionally tired Toronto man…
Like Father, Like Son
Very slowly paced tale from Japan of two unrelated and unfamiliar to each other families…
The Book Thief
One could think that a tale of young girl in Nazi Germany, abandoned by her…
Bad Words
The premise is, of course, ridiculous: a 40 or so-old man enters, through a legal…
Tom at the Farm
This Quebec film -- about a gay man trying to cope after his lover dies…
Nymphomaniac: Volume I
Well, I definitely won’t be seeing part 2. I look forward to Lars Von Trier’s…
RoboCop
I enjoyed the original movie from years ago, but this remake left me flat. Uninteresting…
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
An updating of the Jack Ryan, CIA analyst, franchise, that manages to be boring while…