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What Keeps You Alive

Ok, slightly better than your average captivity/stalking in the back woods movie, but I don't know how much of that to chalk up to quality (usually totally lacking in this sort of movie) and how much to me being personally suckered by having a the psycho captor/stalker be a hot lesbian instead of a grungy redneck. Still, the acting is decent, the minimal cast (4 characters in the whole movie, two of whom are only seen for a few minutes) is good. It's Canadian, surprise. Also, at one point, one of the characters plays a strangely good single-note blues song. I've really got to look it up and see if it's a real song, or just written for the movie, or what. [Edit: Found it. Bloodlet by Munroe.]

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Movie Reviews » Canadian

American Hangman

Another thoughtful Canadian thriller that starts off looking like it's going to be torture porn but in fact turns out to be low-key and, after some initial grisliness, largely nonviolent, more talk than action, and that's in a good way. A lunatic abducts a judge and subjects him to a trial for a bad verdict, in front of a jury of the entire internet. Plays like one of the better (if not necessarily one of the best) episodes of Black Mirror, with its examination of the role of technology and the media in justice and morality. Plus, Donald Sutherland as the staid judge, and an intense performance from an unrecognizable Vincent Kartheiser to boot, just to elevate things that much more. Those Canadians, I don't know how they do it. (Looked online afterwards and this movie seems to have been pretty broadly panned. I'm not sure why.)

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Movie Reviews

Haunter

Not sure why this movie isn't better known. The ghost of a murdered girl, trapped in the day of her death in the 80s, learns to travel backwards and forward in time meeting other eras' residents. Donnie Darko meets The Lovely Bones meets A Nightmare On Elm Street. Enjoyable film, well done, and, especially memorable for, a freaky "futuristic" take on current real-life 2015, during a flashforward into the present-day "future" which shows no technology that doesn't actually exist today, yet, by comparison to the 1980s context of the film, all suddenly appears to the viewer to be advanced and futuristic. This should probably be a cult favorite.

Another effective Canadian film. How do they do it?

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