This documentary profiles the history of VHS and examines how this revolutionary format changed the world. Rewind This! combines interviews with directors, producers, film critics, archivists, VHS collectors and video store owners to study the the impact of video tape on movie culture. No longer dependent on the neighbourhood theatre or drive-in, the proliferation of […]
Film + TV
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Ride Along
From the moment James Payton (Ice Cube) emerges from a shadowy wall of flame in a tricked-out truck—about two minutes in—you know exactly what you’re going to get sitting shotgun on the enjoyable but completely predictable Ride Along. Ice Cube is a gruff cop toiling away at an impossible case—taking down Atlanta king pin Omar […]
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I, Frankenstein
Aaron Eckhart is one of those guys Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with, the kind of person often attached to the sentence “A fine actor, but….” He’s handsome but not quirky, not quite Clooney-level charismatic but leaps and bounds above a Bradley Cooper. Somebody took a chance on making him an action hero and […]
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August: Osage County
Every generation gets the Julia Roberts it deserves—in the ’90s it was the big-haired, commitment-phobic Julia, who defected to Ireland for two goddamn years and came back still a star. (That would never happen now. None of it.) In the ’00s it was Capital-A Actor Julia, working with Soderbergh and Nichols and winning awards. Here […]
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Her
Woe is the sad sack with too much technology on his hands! In the distant-ish future—considering all the high-waisted pants and mustaches, it seems the hipsters have won—Joaquin Phoenix is a guy named Theodore going through a divorce and finding himself very far away from humans. (In Spike Jonze’s LA, everyone seems to be far […]
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Nebraska
There’s always time for a simple story, well told. Alexander Payne grew up in Nebraska, and this is less a love letter than an old photo album. Bruce Dern is Woody Grant, who has dementia and believes he’s won a million dollars in a Publishers Clearing House-style scam. He can no longer drive so he’s […]
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Behind the Candelabra
Though it opened in cinemas in Europe, Hollywood’s fear of marketing a “gay” movie meant Soderbergh’s film was first delivered to a cable TV audience on HBO. A biopic of famed Las Vegas entertainer Liberace—Lee to his friends—the temptation to make him and his lifestyle seem fabulous must have been huge. Soderbergh resists. Not to […]
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The Wolf of Wall Street
It’s the 1980s and Jordan Belfort is a self-made millionaire New York stock guy—you know, the ones who ruined the world recently. He loves sex workers, illegal drugs, throwing money around and having zero inner life or outside interests. The perfect person to play him is someone who has lived like this, so move outta […]
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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is a quiet, careful man who works in the negative assets department of Life magazine, down in the basement. He supports his mother (Shirley MacLaine), picks up the slack from his free-spirit sister (Kathryn Hahn) and balances his chequebook by hand. He’s in love with a girl at work (Kristen Wiig). […]
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Inside Llewyn Davis
Like everyone else this holiday season, Llewyn Davis is a total dick—the chief difference being he’s got a guitar and no fixed address. He’s knocked up Jean (Carey Mulligan, in a delightful, swears-laden appearance), he doesn’t have any money, he’s a burden on all of his friends and he can’t even scrounge up a winter […]
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August: Osage County’s family lies
“You spend a lot of time as a playwright wondering why the hell all these people are in one location and why they’re not leaving it,” says Tracy Letts, author of August: Osage County. “When you write a screenplay, suddenly they’re free to go.” Most of those people running around sweaty Oklahoma in the film […]
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American Hustle
A 1970s con artist jam that runs in equal measures thrilling and tedious, David O. Russell’s American Hustle fails at greatness but lands squarely at good. The centrepiece performance is Amy Adams as Sydney, girlfriend to Christian Bale’s Irving, with whom she runs a number of scams, including art forgery and financial shakedowns. When Bradley […]
