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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,…

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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…

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TIFF 2022: ‘Moonage Daydream’

Brett Morgen is a brilliant documentarian as seen in Jane and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck – the latter being 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 but, this time, it’s billed as more of a “cinematic experience”.  And, it appears that most of the production’s focus has been applied…

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The Class

Anthony Michael Hall (also serving as a producer) stars as an embittered school administrator in writer/director Nicholas Celozzi’s The Class, an update of the 1985 classic The Breakfast Club (in which Hall played the nerdy Brian Johnson).  Sadly, The Class never manages to grow beyond the shadow of its famous predecessor.

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Medieval

Filmed against the lush hills of the Czech Republic, writer/director Petr Jákl’s historical action-epic about the early life of Czech national hero Jan Zizka (Ben Foster of Hell or High Water and Hustle) is an intense sensory experience that stumbles on its intricate politics.

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Crimes of the Future

As much as I would love to compare David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future to his earlier horrors, I’m afraid I’m unqualified because I haven’t seen enough of that catalogue.  However, I can see a contrast between the Canadian’s long-awaited return to filmmaking and his other recent dramatic work such as A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and A Dangerous Method – all of which also star Viggo Mortensen.  Crimes of the Future, a gruesome…

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This Land

By: Jeff Ching While watching This Land, I was reminded of 2011’s experimental documentary Life in a Day.  For that movie (produced by Ridley Scott, directed by Kevin Macdonald), participants all over the world were asked to shoot a day in their lives (July 24, 2010) and the finished film would serve as a time capsule to capture a collective human experience, with the main theme of interconnectedness.  This Land (executive produced by Jim Cummings of Thunder Road…

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Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Just when you think disingenuous spiritual leaders have been satirized every which way, along comes Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. from filmmaking siblings Adamma and Adanne Ebo (the former wrote and directed, the latter produced).  The Ebos offer an original perspective with their feature film debut and, despite the familiar material, the film stands as a really strong dark dramedy about redefining redemption.

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Funny Pages

As rude and unappealing Funny Pages can be, it’s a brutally honest and funny character study of a young artist who channels trauma and grief into his aspirations to be a successful cartoonist.  A true tale of an unlikely opportunist.