WHILE WE’RE YOUNG finds the writer/director synthesizing his earlier observational comedies with his later, crueller character studies of self-destructive intellectuals. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are Josh and Cornelia, middle-aged Brooklynites whose marriage is invigorated by their friendship with Jamie (Adam Driver, who had a small role in Frances Ha) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), a hipster couple in their 20s. (See full review).
Rating: NNNN
Where to watch: Netflix, iTunes
THE WOLFPACK is a doc about the story of the six Angulo brothers, who – aided occasionally by their sister – spent a great deal of their adolescence in their New York City apartment making charmingly threadbare camcorder versions of their favourite features, including Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The rest of their time was spent watching movies their father, Oscar, would bring home for them – because he almost never allowed his children to venture outside. (See full review).
Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
ALLY WAS SCREAMING stars Calgary friends Seth (Giacomo Baessato) and Nole (Charlie Carrick) who have just buried their lifelong bestie Ally. The loss is doubly heartbreaking because she was just starting to turn her life around after leaving an abusive marriage. In her effects, they find a lottery ticket worth $30 million – but Ally’s grieving sister Casey (Camille Sullivan) is committed to honouring her duty as executor, meaning that if they tell her about the ticket, the money goes to Ally’s shitbag husband. What to do? (See full review).
Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
MISTRESS AMERICA is Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig’s follow-up to Frances Ha – another quietly frantic comedy starring Gerwig as a New Yorker teetering on the verge of success or collapse. This time, though, her character is observed through the eyes of her younger, more impressionable stepsister-to-be. Slightly adrift at college in Manhattan, Tracy (Lola Kirke) gets in touch with Gerwig’s Brooke, who’s trying to launch a restaurant. They hit it off, and soon Tracy is tagging along to parties and meetings and using Brooke’s life as fodder for a short story she’s writing. (See full review).
Rating: NNNN
Where to watch: iTunes, Netflix
DIAMOND TONGUES is a dramedy about a young woman (Leah Goldstein) trying establish an acting career in Toronto, Diamond Tongues works both as a character study and an exercise in cringe comedy: you spend an hour and a half watching someone make a lot of bad choices, hoping that she’ll learn from at least one of them. (See full review).
Rating: NNNN
Where to watch: iTunes, Netflix
THE LAST FIVE YEARS is an adaptation of the off-Broadway musical. A young couple (Anna Kendrick, Smash’s Jeremy Jordan) recount the ups and downs of their relationship in song – she moving backwards from the bitter end, and he going forwards from the optimistic beginning. Richard LaGravenese isn’t the smoothest director of musicals, sometimes struggling to translate the intimate blocking of a stage performance to the more “real” world on screen, but the actors are so good at selling the concept that it almost doesn’t matter. (See full review).
Rating: NNNN
Where to watch: iTunes
BEN’S AT HOME was one of the nicer surprises of last winter’s Canadian Film Festival. It’s a small, thoughtful character study that shows that a good story can be told with minimal resources. At the age of 30, heartbroken sad sack Ben (Dan Abramovici) has decided to abandon the larger world and become a shut-in. People can visit – and maybe even sleep over – but Ben won’t be going anywhere. He sees it as a conscious, self-actualizing choice he’s not sliding into depression but actively embracing his isolation. And if you believe Ben, it’s not such a bad life. Who wouldn’t want to play video games all day and hang around with a cool dog like he does? But a life in splendid isolation requires a supply chain, and Ben soon finds himself falling for Jess (Jessica Embro), the nice woman who delivers his dinners. (See full review).
Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
PEOPLE HOLD ON is one of those movies where a bunch of friends get together at a cottage for a weekend and wind up rehashing old beefs and reheating old attractions. Here, the reunion is to celebrate an impending wedding, but really it’s a showcase for its talented young cast, which consists of Paula Brancati, Mazin Elsadig, Jonathan Malen, Chloe Rose, Ashley Leggat, Noah Reid, Al Mukadam and Katie Boland. (See full review).
Rating: NNN
Where to watch: iTunes
