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Solo Speaks: A One-On-One with Annie Clark
By: Addison Wylie
After being featured at Toronto After Dark, the indie Canadian thriller named Solo is making a more public appearance with a theatrical run at Toronto’s Carlton Cinema.
Carlton Cinema is a very appropriate venue seeing as the theatre and the film both share a level of independence. Carlton Cinema is a quaint theatre that feels as if you step into another world of movie watching, and Solo’s lead is left in her own world to try surviving camp initiation.
Solo serves as a debut for writer/director Isaac Cravit, marking the flick as his first feature length film. The spooky movie is also actress Annie Clark’s first foray into theatrical films. It’s a big move for Clark who is often on screen by herself and having to support the eeriness Cravit has materialized.
I wasn’t too hot on Solo as a whole. It started off strong, and progressively meandered its way into a final product that lacks punch or chills. However, Clark does a commendable job at holding her own. She turns in a promising performance that makes the audience eager to see what else she’ll do with her budding career.
Wylie Writes correspondant Sky Wylie sat down one-on-one with Clark to talk shop about Solo. The two also discuss Clark’s departure from Degrassi: The Next Generation, how a real life camp experience inspired her hopes of becoming an actress, and whether she sees a future for Isaac Cravit directing tense fare.
Listen to the free-form interview here:
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Solo is now playing at Toronto’s Carlton Cinema. Click here for showtimes!
Read my review here!
Do You Tweet? Follow These Tweeple:
Solo: @SoloTheMovie
Annie Clark: @AnnieJClark
Sky Wylie: @SkyBaby5
Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie
Wylie Writes’ Ten Worst Movies of 2013
By: Addison Wylie
As the Oscars approach this Sunday, the time is finally here to reflect on 2013 through a pair of lists – my picks of the best and the worst. Let’s get the duds out of the way to make way for the flicks that’ll be remembered for years to come.
2013 introduced me to a new type of “bad”. It was a sub-version spawning off of the type of hatefulness I only save for my bottom three choices. These films treated its audience like imbeciles and expected us to lap up what they were serving and laugh our faces off – no questions asked. Instead, they were either smug or flat-out negative. You can expect to see those soiled diapers at the end of this role call.
Even though I have a main “bottom ten”, I made sure I included some dishonourable mentions in order to cover those who thought they were saved by the odd late entry. However, there were plenty of stinkers that fell off that additional listing as well. So, let’s talk about them.
I appreciate filmmakers wanting to be brave with how to tell their film’s story, but some approaches left me befuddled. In The Wagner Files, someone thought it was a good idea to portray composer Richard Wagner’s life through a broody soap opera with CSI inspired cutaways. With Thursday Till Sunday, the idea of realistically showing a crumbling family through a mundane road trip backfired immensely because, well, it made the film a bore as well.
Mainstream films took weird chances too, thinking the audience would applaud their efforts to connect to movie goers. “Audiences loved Wedding Crashers and adore the Internet, so let’s make a movie called The Internship and have Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson work at Google. Hilarity is bound to ensue, right?”
This logic also applied to smart aleck genre bending films. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters flopped because it wanted to have its cake and eat it too by offering audiences a parody of what movie goers would expect and balancing it out with Resident Evil inspired action sequences.
Funny or Die’s iSteve, an attempt to make a satirical biopic about Steve Jobs, was amusing for the first few minutes, but soon ran out of steam as each joke was pounded into submission.
Children weren’t safe either. Disney’s haphazard cash-in on the Cars franchise Planes was a wreck without a single sign of creativity in sight. From Up on Poppy Hill had the visual zest of a vibrant family film, but managed to lull it’s audience into a nap with miscast dubbing and laboured storytelling.
I won’t lie. I kind of wished my list would have a Lindsay Lohan triple play. It would just make matters a bit more interesting with an added novelty. Unfortunately, I saw worse things than Paul Schrader’s confused drama The Canyons. Lohan does, however, make two appearances on my bottom ten.
So, without further wait, let’s take a look at the worst of the worst. Just remember filmmakers, this was a year where James Nguyen made a sequel to his unintentional cult hit Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Notice how I haven’t mentioned Birdemic 2: The Resurrection until now? Nguyen made a better movie than all of you. Think about that for a moment.
Overrated Movies:
The Broken Circle Breakdown
The Conjuring
Fast & Furious 6
Frozen
When Jews Were Funny
Dishonourable Mentions:
#15. Pain & Gain
#14. The Great Chameleon
#13. Jack the Giant Slayer
#12. The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology
#11. InRealLife
Wylie Writes’ Ten Worst Movies of 2013
Trying to piece together the film after watching it is a mission in itself. Trying to follow it as it unfolds on screen is damn near frustrating.
Nikola Curcin’s romance is unjustifiably cruddy and a cross between a travelogue and a family vacation home video circa 1992.
#8. Peeples
Peeples is an atom bomb of a comedy and one of the worst Tyler Perry productions movie goers have seen yet.
#7. Scary Movie 5
Scary Movie 5 is not a funny movie. I have a hard time justifying this rush job as “a movie”.
Getting a deservedly short theatrical run, The Frankenstein Theory is an uninspired and stupefyingly obvious play-by-play of 1999′s The Blair Witch Project.
#5. Fondi ’91
I feel embarrassed for Fondi ’91 and for all who were involved with its ill-fated production. This is a prime example of a movie that needed more rehearsals and more pre-production planning before heading into its slapdash shooting.
#4. After Earth
Hollow and wooden, with very little to latch on to. I can’t comprehend After Earth and I’ll never understand it.
#3. Grown Ups 2
Grown Ups 2 has a neanderthal brian. It’s another one of these movies where it eventually turns into the cinematic equivalent of Sandler looking at himself in the mirror and winking.
#2. Identity Thief
Identity Thief is a recipe for disaster – and the movie has no idea. Who thought it would be a good idea to generate laughs from an irksome, hoarding, annoying, selfish sociopath?
Infomercial spokesperson Vince Offer has somehow managed to weasel his racist tirade into cinemas for the world to endure. Or, for those masochists who boldly seek ways to stress out their patience. It’s a movie that makes you angry at everyone involved. It’s not bold or audacious- just terribly crass and stupid.
If Movie 43 is the worst movie you’ve seen all year, then you’re not ready for InAPPropriate Comedy. And, I say that because I care about you.
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‘Ten Worst Movies of 2013 ‘ Artwork by: Sonya Padovani
Wylie Writes 