TIFF Journal: Bad Education (2019)
Director Cory Finley takes the good will from his 2017 debut Thoroughbreds and ups the ante even further. Bad Education is a bleak, comical, and surprisingly effective film about a high school finance scandal.
Director Cory Finley takes the good will from his 2017 debut Thoroughbreds and ups the ante even further. Bad Education is a bleak, comical, and surprisingly effective film about a high school finance scandal.
In 1979, Robert Benton directed Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in a film about the disintegration of a marriage and the ramifications it had on their young kid. Kramer vs. Kramer was groundbreaking stuff, became an enormous finan...
The most obnoxious thing I can say about Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is that I prefer its mix of genre tropes and social commentary to Jordan Peele’s Get Out. Frankly, the mix of Clue with an acerbic and biting look at r...
Fred Rogers is an extraordinary subject for a movie, as proven by Morgan Neville’s phenomenal 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood takes a different ta...
If the only thing that Uncut Gems contributed to cinematic history was a blisteringly excellent scene during a Passover seder, then, in the parlance of “Dayenu” that’s sung during the meal by Jews around the worl...
When the film ended at the festival premiere of Ford v. Ferrari, director James Mangold and stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale took the stage and proudly declared that they didn’t know (or care) anything about racing. I tho...
Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers is based on a 2015 New York Magazine article about a group of exotic dancers who essentially roofied a bunch of finance men and stole their money via credit card fraud. On first blush, it sounds li...
Trey Edward Shults’ third feature, Waves, is about actions and reactions, how different circumstances cause emotions to ebb and flow. This story of family disintegration speaks to uncomfortable issues and is sure to generate...
Midway through Joker, Joaquin Phoenix dances as he traipses down a New York staircase, and the soundtrack pounds to “Rock and Roll Part 2,” an anthem played at almost every sports arena for decades. The song’s pe...
At one level, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit is a fable about horror and redemption. On the other, it’s a coming-of-age story, where tales of monsters and villains, the basis of most literature aimed at children, are twis...
Dolemite Is My Name is a delightful deep dive into the world of indie film production and the Blaxploitation genre. The movie feels like a spiritual sequel to Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (also scripted by screenwriters Scott Alexan...
A gentle drama about a hapless art dealer looking to make one last score before retirement, Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö’s One Last Deal provides a satisfying if not exceptional melodrama about aging, paintings, and the thri...