TIFF Journal: Halloween (2018)
It may be heresy to say, but David Gordon Green’s version of Halloween isn’t just better than the (overpraised) original, it’d work perfectly well if it were a standalone film that toyed with general slasher movi...
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TIFF Journal: Shadow
Zhang Yimou has lost favor of late with international audiences. His latest film, Shadow, manages to reclaim a bit of that luster.
TIFF Journal: Beautiful Boy (2018)
Beautiful Boy is a powerful true story about the effects of addiction that never quite settles into the film it tries to be. On the one hand, it’s commendable that it never devolves into histrionics where the melodrama of th...
TIFF Journal: Mid90s
Ten years ago, if you’d pointed at the poster for Superbad and had to guess which of the two actors sporting dazed faces would go on to direct, Jonah Hill likely wouldn’t have been the top choice. Then again, whoever w...
TIFF Journal: Assassination Nation
Sam “Son of Barry” Levinson’s second feature, Assassination Nation, is a big, bold and insane satire that’s angry about most of the things going on in internet-obsessed culture. One of the many obvious refe...
TIFF Journal: Climax
Le bad boy du French cinema is back. Gaspar Noé (Irreversible) has long made a name for himself with technically ambitious and stunningly crafted works rooted in cinematic sleaze. The provocateur is known for assaulting the senses...
TIFF Journal: If Beale Street Could Talk
Moonlight may have been an impossible act for writer/director Barry Jenkins to follow. Few films have hit the culture at just the right time and in just the right way like that one. The success guaranteed that he could do whatever...
TIFF Journal: First Man
Following the success of La La Land, Damien Chazelle essentially guaranteed that he could make whatever the hell he wanted next. A film chronicling Neil Armstrong’s personal journey along the race to the moon certainly didn&...
TIFF Journal: American Dharma
A lot of people are furious at legendary documentarian Errol Morris for having the gall to make a documentary about contemporary Prince of Darkness Steve Bannon. That’s understandable. Why give this guy a platform if you con...
TIFF Journal: 22 July
Paul Greengrass might have made his mark on blockbuster cinema with the jittery, politicized uneasiness that he brought to the spy genre via the Jason Bourne franchise, but thankfully he used those successes as a means of continui...
TIFF Journal: In Fabric
Three movies into his career, writer/director Peter Strickland has already established a weird niche for himself as a filmmaker. Each of his features could be boiled down to a premise that describes a 1970s Eurotrash exploitation ...
TIFF Journal: Destroyer
Destroyer is a hardboiled bit of crime pulp that you’ve seen a thousand times before. Of course, the filmmakers know that and hope that the ingenuity comes in the telling and the details. Unfortunately, director Karyn Kusama...