Tag: 2014 Toronto Int. Film Festival
Dukhtar | Review
Not Without My Dukhtar: Nathaniel’s Debut a Sobering Drama
On paper, the premise of director Afia Nathaniel’s debut, Dukhtar (Daughter), sounds like it has the...
99 Homes | Review
Housing Complex: Bahrani Extends Capitalism Criticism to Housing Market
Though his 2012 farming melodrama At Any Price found director Ramin Bahrani gaining wider visibility with...
The New Girlfriend | Review
The Skin I Live In: Ozon’s Exquisite New Exploration of Gender Subversion
For his most playful and delightfully creepy film in years, Francois Ozon adapts...
Goodnight Mommy | Review
Mom Without a Face: Fiala/Franz’s Fiction Debut a Mesmerizing Slice of Psychological Horror
Once you’re made aware that Goodnight Mommy is the fictional directorial debut...
Guidance | Review
Life Coach: Mills’ Debut a Showcase for Own Multi-talents
Toronto based filmmaker Pat Mills makes his directorial debut with Guidance, a dark hearted comedy that...
Video Interview: Christian Petzold (Phoenix)
I sat down with Christian Petzold after the premiere of his new film Phoenix at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. We discussed his...
Video Interview: Joshua Oppenheimer – The Look of Silence
No one saw The Act of Killing coming, which makes Joshua Oppenheimer's follow-up all the more remarkable and somewhat ironic, being that The Look of Silence is...
The Look of Silence | Review
Examining Eyes, Hearts & Minds: Oppenheimer Sees This Time From The Viewpoint of the Victims
Joshua Oppenheimer rocked the world of cinema with his groundbreaking...
Manglehorn | Review
Locks of Love: Pacino Engrosses in Slight Narrative from Green
David Gordon Green continues his examination of masculine relationships in Manglehorn, an adaptation from first...
Video Interview: Mia Hansen-Løve – Eden
The morning after the world premiere of Eden at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, I arrived at a bar not yet open, located just...
Eden | Review
In The Garden Of Garage: Hansen-Løve Recounts Brother's Coming of Age During the Rise of House Music
Thanks to her brother Sven’s involvement in the popularization...
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence | Review
Familiar Tune: Andersson Completes Trilogy With Enjoyable, Familiar Chapter
Prolific Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson tends to work infrequently, taking years, if not decades, between film...
Heaven Knows What | Review
Living Through Oblivion: Safdie Bros. Lens Devastating Tale of Desperation and Depravity on the Streets of NYC
The story of how the directorial brothers Benny...
Video Interview: Marah Strauch & Eric Bruggemann (Sunshine Superman)
Director Marah Strauch and producer Eric Bruggemann's first feature collaboration tells the exhilarating story of Carl Boenish, the father of the BASE jumping movement whose...
Good Kill | Review
Fatal Irony: Is There Anything Good About This Kill?
Nearly two decades after collaborating on the shrewd and subtly realized sci-fi allegory, Gattaca, Ethan Hawke...
Félix et Meira | Review
What’s Under the Hat?: Giroux Proposes Unorthodox Paradox
Confectioned with a what makes us different makes us the same counterargument, Maxime Giroux’s third feature is...
Ned Rifle | Review
Nobody’s Fool: Hartley Concludes His Grim Trilogy
While it may be wholly unnecessary to see the two preceding films in the loosely knit Grim trilogy...
While We’re Young | Review
Confessions of an Aging Artist: Baumbach Humorously Reflects on Filmmaking Ethics and Middle Age
In some ways the complimentary antithesis to his last work of...
La Sapienza | Review #1
Style-Over-Substance in a Fancy Baroque Package
French “artiste” Eugène Green’s latest work is further evidence that his overriding career trajectory of indulgent reminiscence, has a deliberately...
Video Interview: Lisandro Alonso & Viggo Mortensen (Jauja)
Lisandro Alonso and Viggo Mortensen are oddly like magnets - figures that on one side might resist one another, yet on the opposite sides...
3 Hearts | Review
Heart to Heart to Heart: Jacquot’s Romantic Drama Can’t Cover Every Angle
Despite sporting the likes of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Catherine Deneuve, 3 Hearts, the...
The Duke of Burgundy | Review
The Body and the Whip: Strickland’s Sublime Homage to Erotic Cinema
Beginning like something that should have been called Exploits of a Chambermaid, replete with...
Still Alice | Review
Red Queen’s Lost Her Head: Westmoreland & Glatzer’s Poetic Elegy of Familial Tragedy
It’s been a busy year for Julianne Moore, in between tent pole...
Song of the Sea | Review
Of Myth and Men: Moore Dons Skin of the Irish Selkies To Craft Stunning Children's Tale of Family Heritage
You can probably count the number...
Video Interview: Krzysztof Zanussi (Foreign Body) – 2014 Toronto Int. Film Festival
We sat down with Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival after the premiere of his new film, Foreign Body....
Miss Julie | Review
Touch of Class: Ullmann’s Update of Classic Text Ultimately Lifeless
There are a scant few equals to the texts of playwright August Strindberg’s, his 1888...
Wild | Review
Peaks and Vallée: Witherspoon Eats, Prays, Hikes
When Cheryl Strayed's memoir was released in 2012, the climate for gender politics was different. The book's popularity soared...
Mirage | Review
Saving the Farm: Hajdu Offers Poor Man’s 12 Years A Slave
Set against sprawling plains and a dusty backdrop, Mirage (aka Délibáb) unravels as a...
Rosewater | Review
Solitary Confinement Is Boring: Stewart's Adaptation Of Bahari's Lengthy Detainment is a Slick, Tame Affair
Jon Stewart’s first foray into the fictional film arena is...
Interview: Frederick Wiseman – National Gallery
Frederick Wiseman could be called a lot of things, but amongst those would surely be the word legend. With his latest feature, National Gallery, the...
Nightcrawler | Review
While the City Sleeps: Gyllenhaal Gets His Money Shot in Gilroy’s Debut
You’ll be hard pressed to find a more enjoyably witty criticism of modern...
Corbo | 2014 TIFF Review
Vive la FLQ: Revolutionary Tactics as Performance of Identity
With Corbo, Mathieu Denis’ second feature-length film, the Quebecois director has established an auteur focus on...
2014 TIFF: Safdie Bros.’ Heaven Knows What
Following the premiere of their caustic new film, Heaven Knows What, at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival (it premiered in Venice and had...
The Equalizer | Review
Sequelizer: Fuqua Resurrects Vintage TV Series to Maudlin Effect
Upon the project’s official announcement, it may not have seemed a necessarily surprising or even awful...
Pasolini | 2014 TIFF Review
The Gospel According to Pier: Ferrara Poetically Captures an Auteur’s Last Day on Earth
It appears that 2014 marks a resounding return for auteur Abel...
Frailer | 2014 TIFF Review
A Peculiar Experiment in Content Guiding Form
Experimental director Mijke de Jong’s latest feature-length film, is a curious exercise in content guiding form. It’s ostensibly...
Tusk | 2014 TIFF Review
Another Tuskegee Experiment: Smith’s Latest Creation Odd But Not Audacious
Sure to garner all the WTF exclamatory delights that it’s had its grotesque little heart...
This is Where I Leave You | Review
This is Where I Judge You: In the Great Well of Family Drama, Levy Is Dry
Based on the acclaimed novel by Jonathan Tropper, who...
’71 | 2014 TIFF Review
Control: A Frenzied Look at the Early Days of the IRA
Yann Demange, whose resume consists of serviceable, albeit unexceptional, television fare, has achieved the...
Bang Bang Baby | 2014 TIFF Review
Campy Histrionics at Their Most Mediocre
Canadian director Jeffrey St. Jules has demonstrated an aptitude for experimenting with the cinematic form and creating hyper-realized, wildly...
In the Crosswind | 2014 TIFF Review
Capturing History Through the Art of Tableau
Despite only having a couple of short films under his belt, Estonian director Martti Helde’s feature film debut,...
They Have Escaped | 2014 TIFF Review
Running on Empty: Valkeapaa’s Vicious Road Trip
We may have seen similar iterations of outcast, adolescent misfits refusing to conform to the world’s expectations many...
High Society | 2014 TIFF Review
Is There More to this Coming-of-Age Parable Than Meets the Eye?
One of the key specificities about the production of Julie Lopes Curval’s latest exploration...
The Vanished Elephant | 2014 TIFF Review
A Puzzle within a Puzzle within a Puzzle
Initially, The Vanished Elephant, Javier Fuentes-León’s follow-up to the well-received ghost story, Undertow, has a surprisingly unpolished...
I Am Here | 2014 TIFF Review
Wherein We Learn that Both Money and Karaoke are the Real Roots of All Evil
Lixin Fan, director of the Chinese migrant worker doc, Last...
Red Rose | 2014 TIFF Review
Beware the Beauty of the Single Red Rose
Though she’s lived in France for more than three decades, Sepideh Farsi has carved out a career...
Waste Land | 2014 TIFF Review
Fear in a Handful of Dust: Van Hees Completes Trilogy with Dark Metaphor
Belgian director Pieter Van Hees completes his thematically connected "Anatomy of Love and...
Return to Ithaca | 2014 TIFF Review
Shared Tendencies: McGowan’s Debut an Understated Navigation
Palme d’Or winning director Laurent Cantet continues a tour outside of France with his latest feature, the carefully...
Out of Nature | 2014 TIFF Review
A Hollow World of Obligations
Ole Giæver’s sophomore feature, Out of Nature, very much resembles—in setting, structure and thematic preoccupation—his short film work and prior,...
Cut Snake | 2014 TIFF Review
Out of the Past: Ayres’ Neo-noir is a Pulpy Brood
With a little luck, Australian director Tony Ayres’ latest film, Cut Snake will evolve beyond...
