Brad Wheeler

Cabot's meticulously and ambitiously designed Les Quatre Vents in bucolic Quebec is the star attraction, but Luc St. Pierre's score is magical and the interviewees are in their best chatty grooves.

Douglas Tirola’s doc does the era and National Lampoon justice. The tone is sharp and freewheeling, the craziness is infectious and the pace is cocaine-quick.

There's a certain nostalgia at work here, but where the film really clicks is on the subject of the creative process and as a meditation on the human-machine dynamic.

Listen to Me Marlon is an offer so intimate that no film fan should refuse.

The accurately titled EPiC is the greatest concert documentary ever made.

Tense, immersive and excellently assaulting, Good Time is hella time.

Raw and electrically presented, Civil War is an ugly odyssey and an audacious premonition.

It’s quite a film Stephens has made.

The film’s calm brutality is effective. Plot-wise, some punches are telegraphed, while others are not. The satire is a spinning wheel kick I didn’t see coming. Black belts all around.

The film is surprisingly timely: Today's fierce, revitalized misogyny makes the 1970s male chauvinism droll and quaint in comparison.

Filmmaker Erlingsson has an eye for detail, a flair for the absurd – a sousaphone-based trio pops up here and there – and a deft touch with social commentary and political satire.

The latest film from sports documentarian Gabe Polsky (In Search of Greatness, Red Army) is a doozy.

The cast is solid; Everett’s acting in particular is deep, indelible and award-worthy. We smell Oscar, one might say.

Sublime documentary.

If you see only one movie this summer, see the movie about the movie it took seven summers to make. Hype? You bet. But the hard sell is warranted when it comes to a documentary with a high-flying title and an action-adventure blockbuster legacy attached.

What we have with Barry Avrich’s inspiring and eloquent documentary Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz is the American Dream meeting humankind’s nightmare.

A fantastical adventure, dandy ode to weirdos, and accessible anti-war allegory for all ages, especially 10-year-old boys.

A great doc from Polsky; one more assist from Gretzky.

This dandy foreign feature from Anders Thomas Jensen is only posing as a revenge film – clickbait for the violence junkies and the popcorn crowd. Yes, leading man Mads Mikkelsen plays a brooding killing machine out to avenge the loss of a loved one. But Riders of Justice, in Danish with English subtitles, is actually a pitch-black comedy about questions, coincidences and ideas that pile up faster than the body count.

A magical and often bleak parable about societal clashes.

Civilization has the wealth and the technology to start dealing with the threat, but does it have the wisdom?

The picture sings and inspires.

Film critic Roger Ebert described movies as “empathy machines,” in that they allowed people to understand the lives and stories of others. Empathy was a big part of what Fred Rogers taught. In this film and with others, Neville, who grew up in the entertainer’s neighbourhood, has demonstrated himself to be an A-plus student.

Scenic, well-paced and rich in dialogue and character, the film is Coen brothers for the squares, and maybe the best middle-of-the-seat drama of the summer.

The Big Short has a reckless, off-balance energy, with an ending that doesn’t really end the uncertainty: The collapse could happen again, no joke.

The pace is leisurely; this is no amped-up police procedural. I love what savvy director David Lowery does with the camera, panning here and there, picking up stray sights and happenings. Top-rate stuff.

The comedy is clever; the study of family dynamics is sharper still. Sandler's performance is superb, his character limping through the movie psychically as well as physically.