Category Archives: Saturday At The Movies
Saturday at the Movies: GOON
Goon is a hockey movie that aims to glorify the old school hockey spirit that many fans feel is being squashed from the league. Fists, fights, blood and brawn are the tools of the goon trade, and Jay Baruchel (writer and co-star) has helped create an opus to the glory of goon hockey.
Co-written with Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express), these Canadians present a well-written and fairly snappy script, considering it’s a movie about hockey fights.
I have a feeling that some of the jokes go unappreciated, hence the movie’s lukewarm reception in theatres (in Canada especially, where you’d expect this to be a huge hit!) But with the onset of the last round of the Stanley Cup, and my beloved Toronto Marlies in the Calder Cup finals, Goon is a perfect movie to set the mood – read on if you want to know why (some spoilers).
Starring Seann William Scott (Stiffler) and Alison Pill (Kim from Scott Pilgrim) this is a hockey-lover’s love story, and a poetic nod to the fights and fighters that (in the past) made hockey so AWESOME to watch.
Saturday at the Movies: Chernobyl Diaries
Chernobyl Diaries is the latest “found footage” style horror flick to hit the big screen. Released this week to theatres, it stars a cast not worth mentioning led by director Bradley Parker in a significantly forgettable debut. The only notable name in the movie is Oren Peli, the screenwriter behind the Paranormal Activity Movies – and from watching the flick, it’s painfully clear that this movie was sold based on Peli’s previous efforts.
Chernobyl Diaries tells the predictable story of a group of young American tourists who, desperate for adventure, place their trust in a foreign adventure tour guide who offers to take them to Pripyat. Pripyat gained notoriety when it was flagged as a ‘safe’ zone near the Chernobyl reactor; tourists began to come in just to see the town’s state of abandonment, since being evacuated suddenly during the disaster.
The allure of seeing this authentically creepy historical artifact sucked me in to this movie just as the hapless victims are sucked in to the contrived plot. I’ll keep the spoilers to a minimum but really, I think you already know exactly how Chernobyl Diaries plays out.
Saturday At The Movies: The Woman In Black
While I’m no actor (though I did play a brilliant Puck in an arts camp production of A Midsummers Night Dream when I was seven years old), I would imagine that the biggest fear for an actor is the idea of getting typecast. For instance, it was that fear that stopped Josh Hartnett from signing a multi-picture deal to star as Superman a little less than a decade ago. If you’re reading this and asking who is Josh Hartnett, we’re probably in agreement that it wasn’t the smartest move.
Then there’s the case of Daniel Radcliffe, known to us all as Harry Potter. Through eight films we watched Radcliffe grow into manhood, but how easy would it be for fans of the Boy Who Lived to see him as anybody else than Harry? How easy would it be for the actor to get cast in roles that wouldn’t simply try and mirror his most famous character?
With The Woman In Black, Daniel Radcliffe plays a part far removed from the wizarding world, and pulls it off fantastically well.
Like this:
Saturday At The Movies, The Food Porn Edition: Jiro Dreams of Sushi
For fans of food-focused movies, documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi deserves a spot at the top of the list. The film explores Sukijabashi Jiro, a tiny sushi restaurant in the basement of an office building and it’s nearly 90 year old chef Jiro, known as perhaps the best sushi chef in the world. Despite the unassuming appearance of the restaurant, it is strictly reservations-only, with an extremely long waiting list for a table. Each meal lasts approximately 30 minutes and prices start around $300 depending on the types of fish available that particular day.
Saturday At The Movies: Avengers Assemble – 16 Hours of Avenging
I think Joss Whedon owns a shawarma franchise. But I get ahead of myself.
There were a bunch of ways to watch The Avengers opening day. Okay, a bunch of legal ways. You could go see it during the normal evening hours on the Friday it opens. You can go to the Friday midnight screening. Or you could attend a marathon screening of all the films in the Avengers series, followed by a midnight premier.
The experience was definitely a unique one. I met with a group of friends at a local Denny’s for breakfast (it was convenient to the theatre as much as anything else).
Following that, it was fifteen hours of film madness.
