I’m Thinking of Ending Things
I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a melancholic psychodrama with spurts of deliberate awkwardness, but should you expect anything else from writer/director Charlie Kaufman?
Dark Comedy
Guns Akimbo
Guns Akimbo is a great example of how talented people can turn guilty pleasure entertainment on its ear.
Blush
Wendi McLendon-Covey is experiencing a really unique resurgence as an actor. After establishing herself as a quick-witted commedienne on Comedy Central’s Reno 911!, a longstanding role on ABC’s The Goldbergs has propelled her towards more endearing roles. While it’s a different change in pace for McLendon-Covey’s repertoire, she still knows how to bring the laughs. Blush is another career tilt for the actor but, this time, the tone is much darker and stranger than anyone…
Vivarium
Vivarium works as jet-black satire about the pressures of fulfilling roles that have been imposed by a seemingly unanimous understanding of tradition. It’s existentially dour, but these dissatisfied emotions from director Lorcan Finnegan and screenwriter Garret Shanley are supposed to identify how normalized expectations are not so much a failsafe plan for people, but actually a suffocating framework.
Come to Daddy
Most movies build towards a crescendo, yet the first act of Ant Timpson’s Come to Daddy is the climax. But then, instead of gradually hitting new heights, Timpson’s film simmers to a tepid temperature. Despite the outrageous feedback you may have heard about the movie’s wild qualities, Come to Daddy is actually family tame (if you’re used to off-the-wall genre pieces).
Come to Daddy
A film can sometimes take so many risks, twists, and turns that the movie itself becomes borderline indescribable. Ant Timpson’s Come to Daddy falls in this camp, so how do I even begin to discuss it?
Corporate Animals
Corporate Animals is aggressively heartless, as if it’s in a competition to be the cruelest dark comedy. But in doing so, the film sacrifices itself and proves to audiences just how two-dimensional it really is.
Toronto After Dark 2019: A One-On-One with Precious Chong
At this year’s Toronto After Dark Film Festival (which is currently in full swing at the city’s Scotiabank Theatre), you won’t be able to shake Precious Chong’s wild performance in Zach Gayne’s Homewrecker. As Linda, Chong channels mousey and maniacal characteristics after she haphazardly kidnaps a new “friend” Michelle (Starry Eyes’ Alex Essoe). Chong is funny, but she’s careful not to exploit the character; allowing Essoe’s character to show empathy towards Linda under nerve-racking circumstances.
Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back)
When a film’s only flaw is its title, it’s safe to say that audiences are in the clear. Such is the case for Dead in a Week (Or Your Money Back), an edgy British comedy starring two-time Oscar nominee Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom, Michael Clayton) and Aneurin Barnard (Bigger).
Room For Rent
Room For Rent isn’t quite the dark comedy it strives to be. Instead, in the same hunky-dory spirit as The Birder or Big News from Grand Rock, it’s another sample of funny people trapped within a flavourless Canadian comedy.