This absolutely gorgeous film is one of those epic films which attempts to tell the history of a place or country though the experiences of a family. It’s the kind of high concept we might associate with classic Hollywood. But it is not a classical film in terms of the content.
Tag: TIFF
Lyrebird (2019, Dan Friedkin)
Do you ever watch a film with high production values and, from the opening scenes, you’re thinking, ‘this is is not going to be good’? Well, Lyrebird is such a movie. It’s the kind of movie you spend wondering if it’s the director’s first film (it is) because nothing works like it’s supposed to. SPOILERS …
Mano de obra [aka Workforce] (2019, David Zonana)
This a very well-made, fascinating drama about manual labourers in Mexico City which threatens to become a thriller but consistently subverts your expectations and ends up having more in common with classical tragedy. It’s a debut, so I was very wary of choosing to see it, but this is a remarkably self-assured film. I strongly …
Heroic Losers (2019, Sebastián Borensztein)
This is an enjoyable, albeit flawed, heist comedy about a group of townspeople whose dreams of resurrecting their town’s granary are devastated by the “Corralito”, a reaction to a run on the banks during the Argentine Great Depression. It’s hits the standard heist movie beats, but it is refreshing both because of how funny it …
The Standoff at Sparrow Creek (2018, Henry Dunham)
This is a very stagey film – so stagey you’d think it was a play – that overcomes that limitation by being expertly made, even though it is Dunham’s first time directing a feature. (It’s a miraculous debut, in terms of Dunham’s ability to film and edit – I would sworn this was not a …
Museo (2018, Alonso Ruizpalacios)
This is a super hyper stylized, completely fantastical depiction of what is apparently the most notorious “art” heist in Mexican history. The movie makes no bones about how inaccurate it is – stating multiple times that it is not the true story – so do not go into this movie expecting a docudrama.
The Realm aka El reino (2018, Rodrigo Sorogoyen)
This is a deeply flawed but otherwise pretty incredible thriller about white collar political corruption in Spain. The good aspects of it are so good that I really want to overlook the massive problems – such as the run-time – but I don’t think I can. Let’s put it this way: for 2/3rds of this …
Toronto International Film Festival 2017
This year, I saw the fewest movies at TIFF that I have seen since I first started attending the festival around a decade ago. The reason for seeing so few films will become apparent in about a month. Here is my round up of the films I saw at the 2017 edition of The Toronto …
TIFF 2017: One of Us (2017, Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady)
I have seen a few Ewing-Grady documentaries so far and I have always found they tackle fascinating subjects but I have never loved the way in which they tackle them. Though I appreciate their attempts at breaking outside of documentary norms and customs (to a degree) I also sometimes find their attempts to do so …
TIFF 2017 Racer and the Jailbird (2017, Michaël R. Roskam)
This is an entertaining, albeit slight, amalgam of the bank heist genre with one of those romances where the two alpha leads, who do risky things in their professional lives, fall in love with each other, but which is pretty much entirely ruined by an absolutely bonkers left turn (well, a series of left turns) …
TIFF 2017: Omerta (2017, Hansal Mehta)
What a mess. Where do I begin?
TIFF 2017: Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (2017, Matt Trynauer)
This is a very conventional documentary about a man who claims to have been a pimp and a prostitute in Hollywood for 3-4 decades.
Tiff 2017: The Death of Stalin (2017, Armando Iannucci)
Iannucci’s new film is, as I understand it, a bit of a left turn for him: it’s an adaptation of a graphic novel based upon the real event of the title. Though I had no such fears, one could be understandably trepidacious about Iannucci turning his satirical eye to something historically accurate.
TIFF 2016
With the decision not to see the People’s Choice Award today (a musical), I ended up seeing 11 movies this year, a little bit lower than my average. As usual, I saw more good films than bad ones. Somewhat surprising was that there was no clear “great” film – I usually see at least one …
City of Tiny Lights (2016, Pete Travis)
City of Tiny Lights takes a really traditional noir story (some might say tired) and ingeniously transplants it to contemporary London, in particular a multi-ethnic, predominantly Muslim neighbourhood. All the classic noir tropes are here but in a completely new form. SPOILERS
ABACUS: Small Enough to Jail (2016, Steve James)
This film is about the only bank – the only bank! – to be indicted for mortgage fraud in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. It tells the story of a bank in New York City’s Chinatown which detected loan fraud, fired the employee responsible, reported the fraud to their regulator, fired additional employees …
The Unknown Girl (2016, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)
This is one of those European “social realist” dramas that are extremely deliberately paced, feature no score and alienate a lot of North Americans because it feels like “nothing happens.” (Par for the course: there were plenty of walk-outs.) It’s unfortunate that so many of us over here feel like a film about a death …
93 Days (2016, Steve Gukas)
After watching an absolute mess of a film the night before, my expectations about Nigerian films had perhaps been lowered so much that I was kind of astounded by this film. I think it’s safe to say that, had I seen this movie before Just Not Married, I might have liked both less.
Just Not Married (2016, Uduak-Obong Patrick)
This film means well. It tells the age-old story of an elder (an older brother in this case) trying to prevent a younger family member following him into a life of crime. Many of the elements from these stories are present, and some of them are handled well. And it’s funny, at times.
Catfight (2016, Onur Tukel)
Catfight is a confused, tonally inconsistent film built around the idea of an ongoing feud between two women without weapons. At some level, I guess the premise is interesting, given that these movies nearly almost always feature men (or families, or gangs). But the execution is so inconsistent that it feels as though this was …
TIFF 2015: Demon (2015, Marcin Wrona)
This is the most unique horror comedy I’ve seen in some time. Whereas most horror comedies are ready to notify their intention to get you to laugh early on (and usually to laugh instead of scream or to laugh and only occasionally scream) this movie’s humour is rooted in the absurd dramedy of a cast …
TIFF 2015: The Clan (2015, Pablo Trapero)
Though I see a lot of movies – and I mean a lot of movies – and I can usually articulate what I like and don’t like in a particular film, there are always one or two where I feel like there is something wrong but I can’t articulate it, I just feel it. This …
TIFF 2015: The Return of the Atom (2015, Jussi Eerola, Mika Taanila)
This is an episodic and pretentious documentary about Finland’s newest nuclear power plant that manages to somehow both be hysterical – not “hysterical” as in “funny” but hysterical as in “insane” – and, somehow, extremely boring.
The 50 Year Argument (2014, Martin Scorsese, David Tedeschi)
Scorsese and Tedeschi’s film about the New York Review of Books is not a documentary about the magazine so much as it is a love letter to it. (To be fair, in the subsequent conversation, Scorsese said he wasn’t interested in “conventional” documentaries – that is documentaries as journalism. Rather he wants to make Cinema.) …
Natural Resistance (2014, Jonathan Nossiter)
I thoroughly enjoyed Mondo Vino and so I guess I was looking for more of the same. Well this is a very different film (as well it should be).
TIFF 2013 Wrap Up
This year I managed to see only 10 films. I say ‘only’ because usually I see at least 12 and because next year I would like to say more. Alas. What follows are the ten movies I have seen this year, ranked by how good I thought they were.
The Police Officer’s Wife (2013, Philip Gronning)
There are perhaps few movies I have seen more in need of a little common-sense editing than this film. The filmmakers made a bizarre choice which may have made some kind of artistic sense in post-production but which pretty much punishes the audience for watching this film in reality.
12 Years a Slave (2013, Steve McQueen)
This may seem a weird thing to say but I think this is McQueen’s least difficult material to date. Obviously, slavery is a difficult subject – this is not an easy film to watch – but it is not morally difficult subject, at least for most of us. Hunger may not have been morally difficult …
A Field in England (2013, Ben Wheatley)
I don’t really know where to begin with this film. Experimental or avant garde cinema – whether that cinema forsakes narrative or not – rarely has a sense of humour.
Almost Human (2013, Joe Begos)
So Jen, I’m trying to decide if this was the worst movie I have ever seen at TIFF. Really, Seth? That seem’s a little harsh. But Jen, the opening 5-10 minutes of it were painful. Seth, you’re right, that was bad. As was that scene in the diner, Seth. Jen, it was like we were …