Foxcatcher, the latest film from director Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball), is a true crime story set in the world of wrestling. A cauliflower-eared Channing Tatum plays 1984 Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz, who several years after his win finds himself depressed, broke, and unsure of where to go next. His brother, Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo), is a fellow 1984 gold medalist, and Mark continues to train in his brother’s gym but doesn’t seem destined to compete professionally again at the upcoming 1988 Seoul games.

Enter multi-millionaire John Du Pont — played by an eerily unrecognizable Steve Carrell — a wrestling enthusiast who recruits Mark to train at his luxurious, huge Foxcatcher estate. Du Pont begins a mentoring relationship with Mark, attempting to train him to win gold at the upcoming world championship and the 1988 Olympic games.

What begins as a typical coach-sportsman relationship slowly evolves into something more sinister, as Du Pont’s obsession with winning grows and his strange motives are explored.

There is a lot going on in the film. It’s incredibly ambitious, using the frame story of Du Pont and Mark’s relationship to explore incredibly lofty themes of patriotism, power, privileg,e legacy, capitalism, and pride. The script, by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman, examines all of these themes to essentially paint a critique of the 1980s, and in a sense, modern America. These ideologies and themes, emblematic of a certain vision of America, are a lot to explore in one film.

This leads to plenty of overwrought, clumsy imagery. An American flag is seen in almost every scene. Du Pont refers to himself as “The Golden Eagle,” and his home is adorned with grandiose portraits of famous American leaders of the 19th and 20th century. The film fades to black with a chanting of “USA, USA” by an enraptured crowd.

With an exploration of themes as broad and unwieldy as patriotism and legacy, the film does not find enough time to focus on its characters. Surely, the film is character-driven, but they exist only to clumsily outline the story’s themes, from Du Pont’s constant monologues on America, power, and honour to Schultz’s obsession with competition and victory.

We do not get full portraits of the characters’ real personalities or psyches, which becomes crucial as the film progresses. Any potential tension that could have been built is lost, because it’s difficult to really connect to or care for the characters.

However, the actors certainly try their best. Steve Carrell is captivating as the wealthy, powerful Du Pont. His hushed delivery, and nervous stuttering brings a welcome sense of subtlety to a film that is lacking in this area.

Channing Tatum is also shockingly good, convincingly playing an athlete who seems to be past his personal and professional peak — the relationship between the two is the film’s most interesting aspect. There is a truly captivating story there, one that the film should have focused on, rather than clumsily framing it as symptomatic of America as a whole.

Quidditch is a sport that had its beginnings in a fantasy world, but it is now played by hundreds of teams around the world. Directed by Farzad Sangari, Mudbloods: A Film about Quidditch is a documentary centred around the UCLA quidditch team and their journey to qualifying and playing in the Fifth Annual Quidditch World Cup in New York City.

Providing a window into the world of quidditch as a college sport, and as a space where athletic prowess meets a passion for the books, it not only captures days in the life of quidditch players, but also highlights the struggles they face in trying to be accepted as real athletes.

As a sport where players run with a broom between their legs, and the snitch is a tennis ball tucked into a sock and attached to the snitch runner’s waist, quidditch may be easily misconceived as child’s play, something fun but not serious enough to be a collegiate-level sport.

But quidditch is a full-contact sport, and the fact that players have to run with a broom between their legs means that they must play the game effectively with only one hand. That takes skill.

Ironically, the people who misunderstand the sport are generally other athletes. While it’s easy to see players as nerds and geeks when you’ve never played, as one UCLA quidditch player puts it, “Once you interact with it on an athletic level, you understand.” That is the main goal of the documentary, to spread awareness about the sport and to encourage its acceptance.

On a stylistic level, the documentary symbolically and smartly incorporates graphic art, reducing and inflating real three-dimensional, colourful characters into two-dimensional, black-and-white figures. Not only does this add a fun, artistic edge to the film, but more importantly, it represents the adaptation of an idea on a page into a real sport, as Sangari intended.

I think the film sends across a brilliant message: the end of a good book should not mean merely closing it, but lifting ideas right out of its pages and adopting them in your life.

The documentary is inspiring because it follows the struggle of the underdog. At the time of filming, quidditch players were a pretty marginalized group, on the fringe enough to have people video-taping them on the field as if they were doing something completely foreign and weird.

Incorporating the perspectives of the Commissioner of the International Quidditch Association, Alex Benepe, and Katie Aiani, the #1 Harry Potter fan as voted by Box Office Magazine in 2010, the documentary sheds light on the game of quidditch from a variety of angles, and captures the hard work and hopes of people who are passionate and driven enough to achieve their dreams.

It is a very uplifting film, the kind that makes you want to get up and found your own club, take your life into your own hands, and not let yourself be defined by people who don’t understand you.

At the end of the movie, the viewer discovers that Benepe brought quidditch to the London Olympic Games — I let out my own little cheer because, by then, I had come to think of quidditch as something worth fighting for, for all the things it represents.

I recommend checking out Mudbloods, and if you’re looking for something closer to home, consider joining SFU’s very own quidditch team.

As the only gas station for 40 kilometres around in any direction, Corner Gas is the hub of life in the small fictional town of Dog River, Saskatchewan. Besides being a place that all of Dog River’s residents pass through at some point, it is a necessary pit stop for people low on gas passing through the badlands of rural Saskatchewan.

Corner Gas began as a highly successful Canadian sitcom created by Brent Butt (who also stars at the main character, Leroy), and the movie is due to hit the big screens in early December.

Corner Gas: The Movie follows the same characters as the television series. It is a feel-good film about the importance of community that can definitely be appreciated by everyone, but will be especially funny and exciting for people who have already seen the original television series.

The last episode of Corner Gas aired in 2009, so this movie is a nice extra tidbit wherein viewers get to revisit their favourite characters five years later, as they face their biggest crisis yet. Even if you never followed the series, this movie stands well on its own two feet; never wasting a minute, Corner Gas is propelled by riveting, well-developed characters and well-paced humour.

The movie features a cast of mostly loveable, very distinct characters, from sarcastic, deadpan Leroy (the owner of Corner Gas) to his best friend Yarbo, the unemployed perpetual dreamer often heralded as the village idiot, to Wanda, an incredibly intelligent — and brilliantly brazen — single mom who is always up to some crazy shenanigans.

The interactions between these very authentic characters are not only super fun to watch, but also provide a commentary, however light-hearted and comedic, about the struggle between community and the self.

This 90-minute feature explores the importance of duty to one’s community, even if it goes against one’s self-interest; through a tug-of-war perspective, it demonstrates both the good and bad consequences as its characters walk that line.

What I especially liked about the film was its location, and the fact that it focused on slow, small-town life. The fact that the main characters were not just friends but neighbours, and that much more intertwined, increased the sense of community.

I personally like the atmosphere of the prairie landscape that was the backdrop throughout the film — the sprawling, open plains, the electric powerhouse in the middle of nowhere, the tall blades of grass drifting in the wind.

Corner Gas displayed the breadbasket of Canada in an enthralling way; I would be very proud to call this a uniquely, distinctly Canadian film.