Wild Gala Wild is a stunningly shot, exceptionally written film from Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée, with a great leading performance from Reese Witherspoon as a woman trying to find herself by any means necessary. After an emotional tragedy, Cheryl Strayed (Witherspoon) sets off on a relentlessly self destructive path that nearly kills her. In order […]
The Forger Gala John Travolta stars as an art forger and single dad about to embark on one last gig so he can spend some quality time with his dying son in this passable potboiler that’s more of a character study than a thriller or a heist film. Ray Cutter (Travolta) is a convicted felon […]
The Good Lie Special Presentations Nothing at all like its extemely misleading marketing campaign, the refugee and immigration drama The Good Lie proves that Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau (the Oscar nominated Monsieur Lazhar) can make the leap to Hollywood without sacrificing his voice or artistic integrity. Following the Sudanese civil war that began in the […]
Tales of the Grim Sleeper TIFF Docs By now, the Nick Broomfield documentary formula is set in stone. He picks a subject, heads to where it happened with minimal research, shoots everything, and ends up with a movie that is about his discoveries where even the failures are part of the story. Tales of the […]
Featuring gorgeous backdrops and exquisitely framed cityscapes, the final program in the Short Cuts International series is filled with cinematic treats of film and animation, and also includes a unique use of 3D. The 3D technique is used by director Matthu Placek in his sprawling crane shot examination of the then abandoned future home of […]
The fourth program of TIFF’s International Short Cuts programming brings a focus on some individual narratives that use colorful and inventive techniques to examine such age old motivations as vengeance, humor and isolation. (Null) is a hyper stylized look at the day and evening of a female, all taken from the narrow focus of a […]
Short Cuts Canada Programme 5 seems to be where they put all the shorts that would show in front of the Midnight Madness features if TIFF programmed them that way. These are the genre shorts, the crude comedies, and the freaky deaky. The little bit of animated goodness that is Sol Friendman’s Day 40 posits what it […]
If there’s a unifying theme in programme 4, it’s the dichotomy of human experience. You can have the same job as somebody, the same parents, or even be in love with someone, and yet still experience the world in a completely different way. In Broken Face, a war veteran is “reintegrated into society” with a job […]
In fourth and final program of the Wavelengths short films series, entitled Night Noon, we enter the psyche and delve deep into the human experience. We begin with Malena Szlam’s Lunar Almanac, a four minute piece compiled together from still photographs of the moon over various nights. The moon becomes moons as the photographs are […]
Tu Dors Nicole Contemporary World Cinema Believe it or not, sometimes something as simple as the ennui of a hot lazy summer in the suburban rural landscape can be a touch too understated to genuinely work. Tu Dors Nicole is a stylishly interesting, but unarratively dull affair that leaves too much unsaid with too characters […]
The Vanished Elephant Discovery Dripping with intrigue and style, the classic film noir inspired Vanished Elephant sees first time feature director Javier Fuentes-León deliver the audience a mind bending mystery that will have audiences guessing up to the very end. Crime novelist and former policeman Edo Celeste (Salvador del Solar) has been mourning his beloved […]
I Am Here TIFF Docs Though intended as a dissection of fame and the idol worshiping youth culture of China, I Am Here fails to elevate its subject matter by coming across as dull and lifeless, packing only a handful of real emotion. Millions clamour to their television sets every week for the staggeringly popular […]
Men Who Save the World Contemporary World Cinema Vibrant and funny, Men Who Save the World could just be a story about a village trying to move a house, but its layers of dry wit, superstition and mistaken identity make for a great ride. Pak Awang (Wan Hanafi Su) wants to move an abandoned house […]
We Were Wolves Discovery Brothers Nick and Danny work through both their deceased father’s possessions and their own issues in the scenic Kawartha Lakes in a solid feature debut from director Jordan Canning Estranged for years and with very different memories of their father and their childhood, particularly summers at the cottage they’re cleaning out, […]
Enter for a chance to attend the World Premiere of [REC] 4: Apocalypse at TIFF's Midnight Madness, courtesy of Dork Shelf and eOne Films!
