This week at The Bloor: the powerful and distressing Call Me Kuchu looks at LGBT human rights abuses in Uganda (now more timely than ever given the current landscape in Russia that's eerily similar), and Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp takes a look at how a "street poisoned" criminal found catharsis in confessional writing to become one of the most vital African American literary voices in history.
Misguidedly choosing incredibly lame jokes instead of maintaining Mark Millar's (sometimes) misguided edginess, Kick Ass 2 is a dreadful mess of hedged bets that somehow becomes more offensive to watch than if the film had been actively going for the shock value Millar's work often courts in the first place.
Despite a rough start and some rougher edges, the Toronto set mumblecore dramedy Everyday Is Like Sunday still has plenty of emotionally rewarding and amusing sequences to make it worthwhile.
While most likely faithful to the hardship face by African immigrants attempting to escape to Europe on dangerous fishing boats, La Pirogue suffers from a lack of character that it can't quite overcome.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with the music documentary The Scene: An Exploration of Music in Toronto, but it’s doubtful that anyone outside of the bands being profiled and their friends and followers will get too excited by the prospect of rushing out to see it.
Lee Daniels' The Butler is a strange kind of film that tries to avoid the standard pitfalls of the biopic by being somewhat irreverent, and it nearly succeeds.
A Band Called Death tells a heck of a story (that towards the end gets a bit long winded) about one of punk rock's most unrecognized early bands. Possibly even the first one ever.
Dork Shelf talks to filmmakers Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malika Zouhali-Worrall about their work on the documentary Call Me Kuchu where they look at efforts in Uganda tried to make homosexuality punishable by imprisonment and death and those who stood in opposition to the government. It's an incredibly story with a lot of parallels to what's currently happening in Russia.
James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now is the most authentic depiction of what it means to be a teenager since Cameron Crowe's landmark Say Anything. It's so adept at conveying youthful awkwardness, petulance, and regret, and how every moment in a teenagers life could signify the end of their comfortable world that it could practically incite post traumatic stress memories in those who watch it. The aching and longing at the heart of this bracing work is the kind that informs the rest of a young person's life for better or worse, and it's all done entirely free of cliche or artifice.
Hilarious, spunky, and incredibly human, In a World is the rare kind of rewarding comedy that audiences rarely get. A triumph for first time feature writer, director, and star Lake Bell.
Good news: Cars 2 is still the worst Pixar movie. That's because the spin off Planes only comes out under the Disney name. Unfortunately it's so unbelievably bad that it's not only the worst animated film the studio has ever produced, but maybe also the worst film to ever feature aircraft in prominent roles.
Despite a clever, non-linear structure the biopic Lovelace narrows its focus too much to be an interesting or even all that original look at its subject.
Although it has a lot of ground to cover before getting to its actual story, the absorbing documentary Informant takes a refreshing character based approach to its look at a former cultural advocate turned government snitch.
Just as illogical and bearing an intensely preachy, somewhat botched political message this Neil Blomkamp's previous outing District 9 suffered from, Elysium might just be slightly better since it doesn't hinge on a gimmick it can abandon as soon as possible once the filmmaker decides he just wants to start blowing things up and stop making any sense.
Only a week after topping the box office with the US made action flick 2 Guns, there's no better time to revisit the other film Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur made last year (no, not Contraband): the gripping real life survival drama The Deep.
