By: Trevor Jeffery The Toronto Youth Shorts Film Festival screens at the Innis College Cinema on Saturday, August 8, and I’ll be co-judging the event along with other selected online journalists. However, I was lucky enough to be given a sneak peek at some of the submissions.
By: Addison Wylie Horror masterminds Richard Powell and Zach Green will always pull the best performances out of character actor Robert Nolan. This has been the case with their vividly gruesome short films Worm and Familiar, and while their third collaboration HEIR may be their weakest entry, Nolan unstoppably beams as Gordon – a man suppressing a secret. Powell is back in the director’s chair with HEIR, as well as holding the pen that writes the…
By: Trevor Jeffery Horror works best in extremes: if you can’t make a film that is legitimately bone-chilling, then you better make it so over-the-top that the value comes from its absurdity rather than its potential to fear. Unfortunately, non-camp horror is a hard beast to tame: you need a plot and a cast that can effectively scare people. Bite is a campy horror film at heart that tried to go full-out scare mode, and…
By: Shannon Page One of the great things about film festivals is their potential to showcase and foster emerging talent. The Toronto Inside Out LGBT Film Festival’s Local Heroes short film screening is aimed at drawing attention and giving space to local filmmakers. It’s a space where audiences can see what is being created in their own back yards, and where beginning filmmakers have the opportunity to see their work screened alongside more established artists….
Sand Dollars (DIR. Israel Cárdenas, Laura Amelia Guzmán) By: Shannon Page Like the Dominican Republic of its setting, Sand Dollars is both ugly and beautiful; it is complex and often overwhelming in its starkness, yet showcases a landscape that most would equate with paradise. Written and directed by Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, Sand Dollars stars Geraldine Chaplin (daughter of the legendary Charlie Chaplin) as an aging European woman who falls in love with a much…
Game Face (DIR. Michiel Thomas) By: Addison Wylie Game Face presents honest opinions and interviews from athletes who feel weighted by blanketed discrimination about their performance based on their personal lifestyle and sexuality. Determined, the jocks rise against the odds, and show their peers and LGBTQ audiences that they’re worthy contenders – not just in their sport, but in society. Michiel Thomas’ film follows two underdogs: transgener MMA fighter Fallon Fox and Terrence Clemens, an openly…
By: Shannon Page The 25th annual Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film Festival began May 21 with a screening of Paul Weitz’s film Grandma starring Lily Tomlin, Judy Greer, and Laverne Cox. The screening and opening gala kick off 11 days of film by and about members of the LGBT community. Grandma, which was featured at the closing gala of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is the obvious choice to open Inside Out. Writer and director…
Limited Partnership (DIR. Thomas G. Miller) By: Addison Wylie With Limited Partnership, documentarian Thomas G. Miller shows the audience the lengthy struggle Richard Adams and Tony Sullivan faced when trying to validate their relationship through marriage. Love conquers all, but the feeling of outsider confusion and neglect suggested a hopeless future for the gay couple. Limited Partnership is the first film in a while that has really shown how raw and ill-advised the opposing side to homosexuality…
Fourth Man Out (DIR. Andrew Nackman) By: Shannon Page In many ways, director Andrew Nackman’s first feature length film is a typical “bro comedy”. The central characters are a group of blue-collar men who have been friends since childhood it, and the film emphasizes the value of male friendships. Fourth Man Out focuses on a small-town car mechanic named Adam (Evan Todd) who decides on his twenty-fourth birthday to come out as gay to his three…
Everlasting Love (DIR. Marçal Forés) By: Addison Wylie Everlasting Love is a depressing time at the movies. It’s not scary, all the characters are unlikable, and it slowly shuffles to its grisly finale. With its familiar theme of cruising in an eerie world, I’m reminded of Stranger by the Lake. Though I didn’t particularly like Alain Guiraudie’s slow burn, his film has an edge on Everlasting Love. Stranger by the Lake had elements of conviction in a faceless…