We talk to British director Ben Wheatlely: the man behind Kill List, Sightseers, and this weekend's A Field in England (Oh, and a couple of upcoming Doctor Who episodes) about how he never makes the same film twice, his film’s sense of language, how he directs actors, working with his writer as a co-editor, and his thoughts on his own special kind of genre filmmaking.
We talk to actor and writer Maxwell McCabe-Lokos and notable Canadian director Bruce McDonald about their collaboration on the dark comedy The Husband (opening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox this Friday) and about the film’s sense of brevity, their collaboration, what shooting the film digitally brought to the production, avoiding melodrama, trying to find the right tone for the film, and why the film’s most pivotal scene is also the most universally relatable one.
Alex Gibney’s firsthand look into the rise and fall of cyclist Lance Armstrong, The Armstrong Lie, becomes even more increasingly interesting as a result of how flawed the film is overall. It’s not that Gibney’s points about the tarnished seven time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor’s deceptions and lies about doping allegations aren’t perceptive or valid, but with a bloated and unwarranted running time north of two hours it’s not only about its subject’s inability to come clean. In many ways it’s an almost overly emotional document of Gibney’s own inability to let go of his own film.
As our film editor continues to play catch up after a crazy couple of weeks for new releases, he takes a look at the Canadian drama All the Wrong Reasons (co-starring the late Cory Monteith) and the heavily talked about French romance Blue is the Warmest Color. The movies might be vastly different, but his opinion is the same on both: They're just okay.
This week at The Bloor, urban sprawl goes under the microscope in The Human Scale, and Toronto's own Alan Zweig looks back on When Jews Were Funny.
Dork Shelf talks to Kill Your Darlings director John Krokidas about humbling your idols, the Beat Generation, youthful ambitions, working with Daniel Radcliffe, and wondering aloud about Glen Danzig’s past
Famed First Nations filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin takes a look at one Northern Ontario community's decade long fight for a new school in the documentary Hi-Ho Mistahey!, a suitably rabble-rousing and eye opening look at how the Canadian government has turned a blind eye to a community in need of something that should be seen as a basic human right.
A definite high point in the still rising career Matthew McConaughey, and a very good, but lesser film in the career of Canadian director Jean-MarcVallee, Dallas Buyers Club runs a bit overlong, but it delivers a firm emotional punch at the hands of an unrepentant and initially reprehensible protagonist.
Although heavily westernized, Keanu Reeves’ fictional directorial debut Man of Tai Chi will hold some thrills and excitement for those who aren’t too picky about their martial arts epics.
Although it gets off to a pretty rough start and is a bit overstuffed, Bill Condon’s somewhat fictionalized “inside WikiLeaks” drama The Fifth Estate manages to generate some thrills once it gets the dynamics of the larger than life characters out of the way.
Recently restored and cut by 20 minutes at late director Chris Marker's request, the 1963 documentary Le Joli Mai helps to solidify Marker's standing as one of the greatest cinematic artists and philosophers to ever pick up a camera.
There’s no doubt in my mind that 12 Years a Slave will go down in history as a landmark film. Never before, and quite possibly never again, has the issue of African American slavery and the still present pain and anguish been this viscerally and brilliantly realized. Its effect is provocative, much like gazing into an unattended open wound that never quite heals itself, but rather reaches a point of stasis beyond which things couldn’t possibly get any worse no matter how awful a situation may be.
Dork Shelf talk to director Steve McQueen, writer John Ridley, and historical consultant Henry Louis Gates about their work on the powerful drama 12 Years a Slave, the history behind free African American turned forced slave Solomon Northup’s life, how the story came to the filmmakers, if they thought the truth of slavery being depicted on screen would be too much for audiences to handle, what Ridley found most painful about the writing process, and why McQueen believes cinema is the greatest of all art forms.
One of the best anthologies in years, Jia Zhang-ke’s A Touch of Sin offers a thrilling, multilayered, and delightfully bitter look at a Chinese economy told from a viewpoint sick of rampant arrogance and greed and openly asks about what an acceptable response to such indifference towards the working class would be.
The indigenous and aboriginal devoted film festival imagineNATIVE kicks off its 14th year in Toronto this coming Wednesday (October 16th through the 20th), and we take a look at several of the high profile features playing in what's shaping up to be a banner year for the festival.
