This is a fairly typical coming of age story set in unique place. Though I have (almost) been to this part of Quebec – I’ve driven from Baie-Comeau to Labrador – I don’t think I’ve seen a film set here. Or, at the very least, one set at a Reserve in this part of Quebec. …
Tag: Coming of Age
The 2022 Toronto International Film Festival
This was my first time attending TIFF in person in 3 years. It was a little exhausting, given how far out of downtown we now live but, once I got the hang of it, I fell back into the rhythm of it and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It also helped that, after a few movies that …
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (2022, Aitch Alberto)
This is a coming of age drama about two teenage boys in El Paso in the late 1980s. Jenn and I were not warned it was based on a YA novel and so we did not know what we were getting into. (To clarify: we knew it was based on a novel, we just didn’t …
All That Matters (2004) by Wayson Choy
This is an excellent and affecting portrait of growing up Chinese in Vancouver in the 1920s, through the Great Depression and into World War II. It’s one of those books I didn’t know I wanted to read until I read it, having only picked it up because I was aware he won the Order of …
Booksmart (2019, Olivia Wilde)
The “high school graduation party” movie has been done more than a few times. So has the “trying to find the big high school party” movie. And they’ve been combined, as they are in this film. But this movie has a new twist to the format: it’s girls, instead of guys, and they’re smart, and …
Cinema Paradiso (1988, Giuseppe Tornatore)
There is a genre of film that is basically someone remembering their life growing up in a small town. (As opposed to the genre of going home to a small town.) For reasons beyond me, most of the movies I’ve seen in this genre have been Italian -maybe they are better reviewed? – so it’s …
The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938, Mark Donskoy)
This is the first part of a three part adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s autobiographies, released in the years after his death. I don’t believe I have ever read any Gorky, but I know he’s considered one of the greats of his era.
C’est pas moi, je le jure! (2008, directed by Philippe Falardeau)
I have never enjoyed stories about little boy hellions. I remember watching Problem Child and its sequel and the Denis the Menace movie as a child and being bothered by them, even while I believe I did laugh at the slapstick. (I have always been a sucker for slapstick.) As an adult, these types of …
Blockers (2018, Kay Cannon)
This combination of a female American Pie and female Superbad, with an entirely different, “adults being stupid” film, is pretty funny but has some moments where the Liberal Hollywood propaganda about diversity and female equality are put centre stage, instead.
Gifted (2017, Marc Webb)
This is a film about one of those precocious child geniuses that only exist in Hollywood movies (and independent movies that wish they were Hollywood movies – I’m looking at your Good Will Hunting) and how such geniuses should be nurtured. In real life, nobody is quite as smart (or quite as high functioning if they …
The Dilettantes (2013) by Michael Hingston
Full Disclosure: This novel was written by a friend of my brother’s. When I was younger, I reviewed everything without regard to who created it and so wrote some reviews of music made by friends that I didn’t love, though I couldn’t tell them this to their faces because I’m a coward. As I’ve gotten …
The Prodigy aka Beneath the Wheel (1906) by Hermann Hesse
This coming of age story is quite affecting and feels like a much better glimpse into the youth of a German male of the era than I am used to, either from Hesse himself or from someone like Thomas Mann.
Less than Zero (1985) by Bret Easton Ellis
On some level, this feels like an ’80s LA Catcher in the Rye, albeit with richer and older kids, and drugs and prostitution. I feel like this may have been Ellis’ intent, I also think that the acclaim that greeted it upon its release likely was due, in part to that comparison, however misguided.
Blue is the Warmest Color aka La vie d’Adele (2013, Abdellatif Kechiche)
This is an affecting, if long, coming of age story that contains perhaps the most graphic sex scenes I’ve ever seen in a coming of age movie (i.e. a movie involving “teens”). The film goes places other films don’t with the passion of “first love” thing, i.e. explicit sex. But there’s a lot more to …
America, America (1963, Elia Kazan)
This film – which is about the journey of Kazan’s uncle from Anatolia to the US – is the kind of film which is quite common now but which was quite rare back then, even in the early ‘60s, pre-Renaissance. I honestly don’t know how many other (American) films like this existed at the time. …
Whiplash (2014, Damien Chazelle)
I need to see hyped movies either right away or years later when I’ve forgotten about them. Inevitably, whenever I see a hyped movie after I’ve been inundated by hype but before I’ve forgotten the hype, I am disappointed.
Call it Sleep (1934) by Henry Roth
I have finally finished Call it Sleep by Henry Roth, but it isn’t just the book’s fault – at least some of the responsibility lies with our new puppy who, especially in November, did not leave me with enough energy to read. Anyway, I’m finally done and I’m glad I read it.
Dick Clark is Dead
Dick Clark died the other day. I woke up to a CTV news feature which included a CTV employee saying that Clark had “real talent” and was very nice… unlike all those other “middling talents” who weren’t so nice. If Clark had real talent, I wonder what all those musicians he showcased had? Extra-real talent?