film
The tepid potboiler Runner Runner is so dull and hopelessly cliched the only reaction one can really give it is a raised eyebrow and a facial expression that says "Really? That's it?"
La Camioneta Review
A surprisingly poignant documentary, La Camioneta takes a sprawling, multiple arc look at the life of a decommissioned US school bus being reborn as public transportation in a violent section of Guatemala City.
Haute Cuisine Review
Attempting to be both a female empowerment drama and food porn at the same time, the French import Haute Cuisine fails staggeringly on both counts thanks to a messy, arbitrary narrative told with absolutely no imagination, likeable (or even believable) characters, and a grating insistence to be as crowd pleasing as possible.
Muscle Shoals Review
The sleepy Alabama hamlet of Muscle Shoals has produced more hit records than any other sleepy town in the world. This entertaining (if slightly overlong) documentary looks at how this town along the Tennessee became a hotbed of R&B and Southern Rock culture.
This Week at the Bloor: 10/4/13
This week at The Bloor, a heartwrenching look at the select group of people capable of performing controversial late term abortions in After Tiller and Toronto's favourite curmudgeon Alan Zweig gives viewers 15 Reasons to Live.
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane Review
It only took seven years since it's debut at TIFF to get released in North America, but the teen slasher All the Boys Love Mandy Lane has aged quite well.
The Dirties Review
Comedies don’t get much darker, thought provoking, and ultimately harrowing than Toronto director Matt Johnson’s The Dirties.
Parkland Review
As a depiction of the events on the day of American President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22nd 1963 – as well as the three days in the immediate wake of the killing – Parkland doesn’t cover any historical or narrative ground that hasn’t been touched on before, nor does it go out of its way to create melodrama.
Wadjda Review
It’s so rare to come across a film that’s genuinely important. Wadjda is one such film. In fact, it’s a film that manages to be important simply by existing at all. Haifaa al-Mansour’s film about a young girl who desperately wants to buy a bicycle is the first ever to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia. What’s more, it’s a film addressing womanhood in Saudi society, directed by a woman.
Beauty In Hardship: The Works of Kevin Jerome Everson
This Thursday and Friday, the TIFF Bell Lightbox offers free screenings of shorts and features from filmmaker and artist Kevin Jerome Everson, someone incredibly adept at looking at the beauty and hardship in being a part of the modern working class.
Gravity Review
Best viewed on the largest screen humanly possible to capture the scope and grandeur of every frame, Gravity is exactly the kind of blockbuster filmmaking mainstream audiences deserve but never get. It could very well over time gain the same kind of cultish notoriety as King Kong or Jaws in terms of delivering the goods to the viewer and giving audiences just enough to chew on to analyze it afterwards and view it again and again.
Girl Most Likely Review
Lazy, unfunny, and unfocused even by 1980s made-for-TV movie standards, Girl Most Likely is the rare example of a near perfect disaster.
CONTEST: See an Advance Screening of MACHETE KILLS in Halifax, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, or Vancouver!
Enter for a chance to win one of ten pairs of passes to an advance screening of Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills in Ottawa or Halifax on Wednesday, October 9th or in Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, or Vancouver on Thursday, October 10th, courtesy of Dork Shelf and VVS Films!
Contest: Attend a Screening of 15 REASONS TO LIVE!
Enter for a chance to win one of four pairs of passes to a screening of filmmaker Alan Zweig's 15 Reasons to Live at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Saturday, October 5th at 6:45pm.
Contest: Win a Run-of-Engagement Pass to See RUSH!
Enter for a chance to win one of ten pairs of run-of-engagement passes to see Ron Howard's Rush - in theatres TODAY - courtesy of Dork Shelf and eOne Films!