This critic sometimes finds it impossible to believe the sort of films that premiere at film festivals. As I have warned you before, the Toronto After Dark Film Festival is particularly guilty of this cinematic crime when it comes to their world premieres. I would love to be proven wrong, but the streak continues.
Whatever happened to that weird kid from high school? In My Friend Dahmer, the weird kid grew up to be one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. This film adaptation of Derf Backderf’s graphic novel of the same name looks at the life of Jeffrey Dahmer in his last few years of high school, where he acts like a fool to get attention and drinks heavily to keep the voices at bay. This…
Filmmakers seem eager to work with Robert Nolan – I don’t blame them. Nolan is, undoubtably, one of the best character actors working in the industry. He’s respected because of his ability to morph into a role, and because of how professional he is. I’ve seen him play an embarrassing parent, an insane clown, a teacher on the brink of destruction, and I’ve even seen him pull disgusting “things” out of his body. He can…
Throughout my years of attending the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, I have come to learn a few truisms: 1) if a film is a world premiere, steer clear, 2) the international shorts program usually contains some of the best work at the festival, and 3) the Canadian shorts usually contain a handful of brilliant selections surrounded by others that are…less so. Being unable to speak to the first (as of now), I am glad…
The ReelAbilities Film Festival returns to Toronto on Wednesday, May 10 after a successful debut. The festival, centring around noble stories of disability cultures, will screen feature films and shorts around the city until Thursday, May 18.
The strengths in Streamer are very subtle and camouflaged by deliberate monotony.
Engineers (DIR. Tyler Williams) In a worn-down warehouse, three individuals tempt an experiment on a corpse. The result may be not exactly what they intended.
A murderer whose calling card is a scratched-down horror story; a couple goes trick or treating and it quickly gets out of hand; a family brings home a witch to burn at the stake; a group of gutter punks find an easier way to come by food; a pair of police officers have a shady side business.
Capture Kill Release begins in the middle of a devious plot: young lovers Jenn and Farhang (played by Jennifer Fraser and Farhang Ghajar) are toying with the idea of murdering a random person. Their intentions and motives are deliberately foggy, which makes the film’s fly-on-the-wall experience more unsettling, disturbing, and impossible to look away – this is not for the faint of heart.
Alexander Skarsgård (The Legend of Tarzan) and Michael Peña (Ant-Man) are two of New Mexico’s worst cops, yet they’re the kings of their castle in War on Everyone. Their delusion intimidates pedestrians and perps, and their shallowness makes their supervisor Lt. Gerry Stanton (Paul Reiser) confused and ultimately indifferent. However, their false royalty is disrupted when they’re overshadowed by a more diabolical threat, Lord James Mangan (Theo James of The Benefactor and the Divergent series).