Category Archives: Films

La La Land review

25 Saturday Feb 2017

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Surprise!  It’s a musical review!

by Thom Yee and a special guest

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La La Land images courtesy of Summit Entertainment

I’ve never outright announced, proclaimed or demanded that GOO Reviews will not be reviewing musicals, in fact it’s something we’ve done a few times in the past, but more recently, under my editorship (i.e., I’m the only one left who writes our full-length reviews on a regular basis), it’s something I thought would at least be implied going forward.  And yet here we are.

The release of La La Land was something that had been causing me actual apprehension for most of last year.  I was conflicted about the movie because while it was going to be a musical, and thus something I could probably ignore, it was also likely to be a headline-grabbing, award-nominated movie that I’d most likely have to pay some attention to.   Continue reading →

Manchester by the Sea review

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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And then you die

by Thom Yee

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Manchester by the Sea images courtesy of Roadside Attractions and Amazon Studios

“Life isn’t fair.” Odds are you’re going to hear that on at least a few occasions in your time on Earth, and if your life goes a certain way or if you too often find yourself in the company of a particular sort of person, it’s a saying that could echo and repeat and may even start to form a pattern around your entire existence. Really, the only people who like to say “life isn’t fair” are those who don’t care, especially not about your sh*t. Another saying that’s become nearly as popular is “It gets better”, and there’s a certain type of person you’re likely to hear that from too — someone who does care but who doesn’t have as firm a grasp on things as they’d like you to believe. And, if we’re being honest, they probably don’t care that much about your sh*t either. If they did, they’d realize how ignorant, manipulative, and galling saying “it gets better” can be. Continue reading →

The Founder review

04 Saturday Feb 2017

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Who’s up for Shamrock Shakes?

by Thom Yee

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The Founder images courtesy of The Weinstein Company

I remember this one time when I was a kid and McDonald’s was selling their hamburgers on promotion for something like 25 cents a piece. This was the ‘90s mind you, well before the days of McCafé or McDonald’s salads, well after the days of the McDLT, and probably around if not just before the all-too-brief age of McDonald’s’ pizzas, so it was right in the heart of when we knew how bad fast food was for us, but hey, where else were we gonna eat (plus we always ordered the Diet Coke, so whatevs)? And the place was just packed. People were buying the maximum number of hamburgers, ten at a time, and getting their friends to come in with them to order more, as if there were some kind of hamburger shortage, as if they were struggling to feed their tired, hungry, huddled-mass families, as if their very lives depended on it. But who am I to talk; after all, I was there too. I got a McChicken. Man, I miss how good those used to be. Continue reading →

Split review

28 Saturday Jan 2017

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They say this one has a surprise ending

by Thom Yee

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Split images courtesy of Universal Pictures

I’ve been a big fan of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan ever since his first movie. Well, actually, that’s not true, I’ve never seen Wide Awake, the Rosie-O’Donnel-led comedy he wrote and directed from 1998, nor did I even know about his 1992-released Praying with Anger until I bothered to look up his film credits. No, the M. Night Shyamalan I’m speaking of, the one we’re probably all thinking of when we dig into the rosier side of our movie memories, is the storyteller, the wunderkind, “The Next Spielberg”, the man who brought us The Sixth Sense. And… actually, I never saw The Sixth Sense either. ‘Cause somebody told me how it ends. I still look back on those early Shyamalan movies fondly, however, because even if I was never able to experience what it was like to sit in one of those theatres in 1999 — without any expectations as I beheld a gritty, suspenseful, unexpectedly well-told movie about seeing dead people with a monumental twist ending that would change everything — I had a pretty similar experience when I did see his follow-up, Unbreakable, the year after. Without anyone spoiling it. Continue reading →

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story review

14 Saturday Jan 2017

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There were Asian people a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away? 

by Thom Yee

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story images courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

If there’s one thing that’s rarely been central to (or at least pre-eminent in) the Star Wars movies, it’s an actual war. Star Wars has always involved its fair amount of physical conflict, but mostly it’s been about things like an individual hero’s journey, lightsabers, the Force, Gestapo-like imagery, whiny little protagonists, the tougher and smarter princesses they love, smooth-talking scoundrels, and funny mascot-type characters, and even the fall of the Empire (spoiler alert?) wound up being a battle where a bunch of adorable little bears were running around in the middle of the conflict zone, adding questionable value to the Rebel forces’ efforts. In fact, the only time I ever felt like there was a genuinely large-scale battle shown to us in the movies was in the opening scene of Revenge of the Sith when Anakin and Obi-Wan rescued Palpatine, the theretofore unrevealed would-be Emperor of the eventual Empire (spoiler alert again?), and that took place when the galaxy still had the Jedi Order around to keep the peace, clouded by the dark side though they and their Council may have been. Continue reading →

Theater of Life review

20 Tuesday Dec 2016

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by Thom Yee

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Theater of Life images courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada and Triplex Films International

You may think about homelessness on occasion, but, by and large, it’s not typically one of those things we usually consider on a regular basis. In a country like ours, Canada, most of us have the luxury of thinking about homelessness as a hypothetical rather than living it as a reality, contemplating it mostly at certain specific times of the year that encourage charity and caring for your fellow man [like now], but that doesn’t mean it just goes away or stops being a problem when you’re no longer paying attention to it. An extensive 2013 study from the Canadian Homelessness Research Network shows that at least 200,000 Canadians experience homelessness in a year, and at least 30,000 Canadians are homeless on any given night. Continue reading →

Nocturnal Animals review

17 Saturday Dec 2016

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Family unfriendly? Anti-romantic? Nihilistic? With disturbing nudity? Finally, the perfect Christmas movie!

by Thom Yee

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Nocturnal Animals images courtesy of Focus Features

Okay. It’s the 17th. Of December. It’s almost Christmas. So here’s a review about the effect a sadistic, cruel book has on a lonely, isolated, and unhappy woman. It also starts off with a deeply unsettling sequence of fairly explicit nudity. And it’s December 17th, almost Christmas. Man, we gotta plan these things better. I guess there’s always next year.

In a lot of ways I think December is actually the best time of year for new movies, with a mix of low-brow, seasonally oriented fare and critically acclaimed features being released in near equal measure. While Oscar season — that time of year when the studios pump out their most prestigious, most award-worthy material in a vain attempt to eke out a profit from films that might not have been otherwise noticed — unofficially starts in November, by the time we get to December, we finally have a real measure of what the overarching narrative will be of that year in movies. We’ve had or will soon have the chance to see most of the films we’ll ever see in that year, and we can begin to make out the shape of the Oscars to come. Continue reading →

Arrival review

19 Saturday Nov 2016

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The kangaroo did it

by Thom Yee

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Arrival images courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Most people don’t know this about me, but I didn’t grow up speaking English. That might not be a huge, shocking surprise given my Chinese surname and the… let’s go with “inward-looking nature” of my people, nor is it likely a huge stretch of the imagination to then conclude that my first language might have been Chinese. In my  case, it was a dialect of Chinese that you probably wouldn’t even recognize if I specified which (and I’m not going to), and looking back and thinking about my parents, both second-generation Canadians who were more comfortable speaking English (if at all?), it seems like a strange choice for them to have raised me in a Chinese-speaking environment. What I remember most of my first few years speaking Chinese was a great deal of isolation from all of the people I met who spoke English, then a brief a period of transition as I adapted to English and entirely forgot Chinese, followed by a great deal of isolation from the Chinese community of which I was allegedly a part (a feeling that continues to this day). I like to think sometimes that those early experiences with conflicting languages and incompatibilities gave me a unique perspective on grammar and the process with which I put sentences together, but really, I think it was mostly just an experience that made me hate everyone and the world around me. Continue reading →