[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: Nothing is easy in 'Easy Land'

The real gem is Nina, both her performance and transformation. She yearns to escape and return to Belgrade. She's juggling a difficult time at school, no thanks to constant teasing about her mother's sexual promiscuity and mental breakdown. She's tough and impatient and longing for something bigger and better, counting the days until she can purchase a ticket out of town from selling stolen cell phones.

Read More
REVIEW: ‘Joker’ finds narrative freedom amid disturbing psychology

Messy psychology aside, Joker behaves in the Batman film universe very much like The Killing Joke does for comics: it doesn’t need to connect to any other stories or characters, and captures just one possible timeline for how the Joker came to be, much like the several different threads that Heath Ledger’s Joker references in The Dark Knight.

Read More
[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: I am a willing host for 'Parasite'

For the second straight year, following Lee Chang-dong’s Burning, a Korean film is going to dominate top-10 lists, including yours truly. It is the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes and just the second to win by unanimous vote since Blue Is the Warmest Colour. It would be remiss to say that Korean cinema is on the rise -- if anything, it has already arrived and Parasite is just the new high water mark.

Read More
[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: 'A Hidden Life' is so pretty you forget there's a story

The main criticism – like all the other Malick films -- is its length. In the right mood A Hidden Life can be a truly enjoyable watch, but it’s about a half-hour to one hour too long to hold your attention span with such a thin narrative, though it will certainly be Malick’s most well-received since The Tree of Life.

Read More
REVIEW: ‘Ad Astra’ rockets us into a remarkable but flawed future

In a context where space travel is this much more attainable, the story of a hero astronaut pursuing his father, a rogue scientist, to the edge of human experience is entirely logical. As some of the dangers and technological hurdles inherent in deep space travel are removed, it opens the door to a deeply affecting narrative that weighs commitment to a mission against the responsibilities to a family.

Read More
[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: 'Just Mercy' is just good enough

That’s about the extent Just Mercy is willing to go as far as a critique of America’s justice system, otherwise it’s a fine legal drama that plays like so many other of them do. Based on a true story, Michael B. Jordan plays Bryan, a young black lawyer who studied at Harvard and has started his own practice, the Equal Justice Initiative, in 1980’s Alabama.

Read More
[VIFF 2019] REVIEW: An unwelcome 'Guest of Honour'

The audience is forced to sit through this convoluted tale and half-baked ideas about loss and revenge, conveyed by a multitude of characters with baffling motivations. It’s difficult to encapsulate what each of the characters represent because they spin in all sorts of directions and their motivations seemingly change from scene to scene.

Read More
[TIFF 2019] REVIEW: ‘Lucy in the Sky’ blows up on the launch pad

But in Hawley’s hands, the proceedings are a little bit too experimental to help us develop compassion for Lucy (Natalie Portman). By the time the movie wraps up, Lucy has fallen incredibly far - blasting her former lover in the eyes with insect spray and fleeing the cops in an airport parking garage - but her story is only unintentionally funny, instead of moving.

Read More
[TIFF 2019] REVIEW: 'A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood', or Episode 913 of the beloved show

It's charming, but at the end of it all we know nothing more about Pittsburgh, Mr. Rogers or his show that we don't already know. (I had a similar critique of Won't You Be My Neighbor?). In this regard the film feels disappointing, because it's only after the credits roll that we realize we sat through a 107-minute episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Read More
[TIFF 2019] REVIEW: No real feeling to 'Saturday Fiction'

Exposition is generally frowned upon, but in a film featuring double agents, double crosses and a multitude of characters and languages, it lacks a scene that explains everything to the viewer. Perhaps we've been dumbed down by clear struggles between good vs. bad in the superhero genre, but Lou Ye's black-and-white film noir fails to really tie a neat ribbon around its convoluted plot and too-mysterious femme fatale

Read More
[TIFF 2019] REVIEW: ‘Uncut Gems’ unleashes cosmic chaos in the Diamond District

Everywhere Howard goes is a riot of emotion and crosstalk: boasts and deals are made, and (less frequently) apologies are offered. Just as you need a lot of pressure and energy to ignite a star, or to form a gemstone, it’s clear that you need something similar (albeit on a more human scale) to survive in Howard’s world.

Read More
[TIFF 2019] REVIEW: ‘Black Conflux’ zooms in on loneliness

Few emerging filmmakers are quite as confident as Dorsey with how she isolates visuals and sounds, like an insect crawling along the ground while high-school-aged girls chat about boys, or the almost unsettling amplification of the sounds of people chewing or drinking. It’s a technique that suggests the film wants to take a detailed, magnified look at hard-to-spot details in everyday life; a method that echoes the feeling that drives the two main characters: pervasive, almost crippling loneliness.

Read More