Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World
By: Jessica Goddard Barry Avrich’s Blurred Lines: Inside the Art World is a well-paced, informative documentary about the otherwise largely inaccessible world of producing, marketing, and selling high end art.
September 2017
TIFF 2017: ‘Luk’Luk’I’
Let’s assume that bad things are always happening. While someone finds enjoyment in life, someone else may be barely hanging on to their reality. That’s basically the gist of Wayne Wapeemukwa’s debut feature Luk’Luk’I, an obvious stream of consciousness that doesn’t expand beyond that idea.
Hunting Pignut
Written, directed, and produced by Martine Blue, Hunting Pignut is the story of Bernice, played by Taylor Hickson (Aftermath, Deadpool), a teenager in a rural Newfoundland community. She is a typical teenage misfit: lonely, bullied at school for no obvious reason, and picked last at sports. When Bernice’s estranged father dies of a drug overdose, his wake is crashed by a gang of gutter punks claiming to have been his closest friends – one of…
TIFF 2017: ‘Meditation Park’
By: Jessica Goddard Mina Shum’s Meditation Park is an engaging, quirky, and empowering film about the overdue self-actualization of a Vancouver woman (Cheng Pei-pei) in light of the discovery of her husband’s affair. This thoroughly modern film also expertly highlights the immigrant experience in multicultural Canada, while making clear that the narrative is culturally universal. There is an exquisite balance of humour and poignancy in the writing, strengthened by an excellent cast.
TIFF 2017: ‘Novitiate’
By: Jessica Goddard This detailed and thoroughly layered period drama intertwines two stories against the backdrop of the Catholic Church’s controversial reforms in the 1960s, known as Vatican II.
TIFF 2017: ‘Porcupine Lake’
It’s not healthy to compare movies, but I have a feeling I would’ve had greater appreciation for Ingrid Veninger’s Porcupine Lake if I hadn’t already seen Andrew Cividino’s Sleeping Giant. Both are of Canadian origin, they take place over the course of a Summer away from home, and they follow a coming-of-age narrative with kids.
TIFF 2017: ‘Mary Shelley’
By: Jessica Goddard Mary Shelley is an appropriately dramatic and sentimental depiction of the early life of 19th century writer Mary Shelley (Elle Fanning), as well as a satisfying exploration of Shelley’s influences in writing her now-classic novel, Frankenstein. The film focuses heavily on the arc(s) of Mary’s relationship with her eventual husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Douglas Booth); always emphasizing the ways in which Mary’s famous Gothic novel is affected by the various traumas of…
Home Again
By: Jessica Goddard Home Again is for Hollywood, by Hollywood, about Hollywood. If you can deal with that, you might enjoy this safe and well-meaning romantic comedy. Hallie Meyers-Shyer’s Home Again (a title which never ends up making any sense) is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s often endearing in a snort-and-smile kind of way.
TIFF 2017: ‘Gutland’
Short film director Govinda Van Maele encounters pacing issues with his feature-length debut Gutland.
Pilgrimage
Pilgrimage will be known as “that movie where the Punisher fights alongside monk Spider-Man”. By that, I mean Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Homecoming) and Jon Bernthal (Netflix’s Daredevil and The Punisher) have starring roles in Brendan Muldowney’s action/drama about a monastery’s dangerous mission.