September 2022

Reviews

House of Darkness

A night of flirting and drinking leads up to House of Darkness’ initial scene, featuring a coy couple exchanging smiles as Hap (Justin Long) anticipates more canoodling with Mina (Kate Bosworth) at her place.  She invites him in and, immediately, he can’t believe her house which resembles a castle-style mansion.  For some reason, he shrugs off the peculiar detail that it’s lit by several candlesticks and that Mina is dressed for a long-ago period, but…

Reviews

True Things

While far from perfect, director Harry Wootliff’s (Only You) drama True Things is an excellent showcase for actor Ruth Wilson, as well as a challenging portrait of a woman caught between societal expectations and her own desire.

Reviews

Eternal Spring

Representing Canada in the competition to be selected for the Best International Feature Film category is Jason Loftus’ semi-animated doc Eternal Spring, and I’m honoured to have such a strong movie in our corner.  But while we wait for confirmation that the movie made the cut, audiences can check out this Hot Docs award-winning masterpiece during its current, exclusive theatrical run – I urge you to seek it out and see it on the biggest…

Reviews

Bandit

Brief stylistic choices in the comical caper Bandit reminded me of 2013’s Pain & Gain. And while I shuddered remembering how nasty Michael Bay’s true-crime comedy was, those feelings were soon followed by a sigh of relief as Bandit’s charm washed over me.

Reviews

Blonde

Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ fictional novel of the same name, written and directed by Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) and earning a rare adults-only NC-17 rating, Blonde is a disturbing examination of Marilyn Monroe (aka. Norma Jeane Mortenson) and the cruel behaviour she experienced on her search for a companion.

Festival Coverage

TIFF 2022: ‘Triangle of Sadness’

Triangle of Sadness pitches itself as a sophisticated comedy with “biting” satire about elitist attitudes during class wars.  However, the jabs made by writer/director Ruben Östlund are nothing more than the filmmaker taking hackneyed swings at low-hanging fruit for a really, really long time.

Reviews

Moonage Daydream

Brett Morgen is a brilliant documentarian as seen in The Kid Stays in the Picture, Jane, and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck – the last flick mentioned being, what I believe, is one of the best movies ever made about a musician.  His latest endeavour Moonage Daydream, a documentary about enigmatic artist David Bowie, is cut from the same cloth as Montage of Heck with the movie resembling a mixture of mediums but, this time,…

Reviews

See How They Run

Set in the theatre district of London’s West End in 1953, a production of Agatha Christie’s whodunit The Mousetrap seems to be cursed after the body of flagrant director Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody) turns up dead after the show.  The jaded Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and rookie investigator Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) are assigned to the case, and it seems as if everyone’s a suspect: the actors, the crew, the waiting staff and, to Stalker’s…