MC
Suburban Roulette
Depending on your point of view, American culture either peaked or hit rock bottom in the era between the end of the war in Vietnam and the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. People felt a collective sense of power and liberation that spilled out all over the place. NYC in the 70′s was a true [...]
The Ties that Bind
I have to see at least one movie from New Zealand and Denmark at every TIFF. Apron Strings, a NZ entry, filled one of those slots very nicely. It’s a multi-character drama about two families (one Sikh, the other White) who have some stuff to work through. Films like this are not plot-driven. They suceed [...]
In Hot Water
It’s day 8 of TIFF. It’s 12:02 a.m. I’ve done 9 other posts today. Ocean Flame is not good enough to keep me typing much longer. Wang Yao is a real badass – he’s the head of a low-level Hong Kong prostitution and blackmail ring. One day he meets a beautiful waitress named Li Chuan, [...]
Pretty Damn Large
Brian (Paul Dano) is a nice, quiet guy who works in a Manhattan mattress store. His father and older brothers are all successful, but Brian doesn’t have lofty career aspirations. All he’s wanted his whole life is to adopt a baby from China, and he’s finally on the waiting list at an agency. One day [...]
The Play’s the Thing
I’m a Charlie Kaufman devotee, so I will let him off the hook for giving his directorial debut a title that will send most folks scrambling for a dictionary. And, this review will be brief, because there is little that I can say to sum the movie up. It’s plot is ingenious and bizarre and [...]
World’s Most Convoluted Title
Shakespeare and Victor Hugo’s Intimacies (gag) is a documentary from first-time Mexican filmmaker Yulene Olaizola. The pretentious title is explained thusly: the director’s grandmother owns a boarding house in Mexico City at the intersection of streets named after Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. So, it could have just as easily been called Main and Oak’s Intimacies, [...]
A Cure for What Ails
Just let me say at the top that this is one of the best films I’ve seen at TIFF this year, and one that gets better the more I think about it. Medicine for Melancholy was shot guerrilla-style in San Fransisco on a tiny budget and without shooting permits. In more ways than one, it [...]
Who Wants to be a Slumdog Millionaire?
The audience that I saw Slumdog Millionaire with applauded rapturously when it ended, so I’m afraid I’m in the minority on this one. Danny Boyle’s latest is a crime/love story set in India. Early in the movie, young Jamal and Salim are orphaned and forced to work as part of a ring of child beggars [...]
Where was Orlando?
Wunderkind Rian Johnson follows-up his debut Brick with another piece of anachronistic filmaking. Steven (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody) are brothers and con men who dress and live like it’s the 1920′s. Steven is the brains of the outfit and Bloom is the heart. Their wheelman and explosives expert is the appropriately named Bang [...]
Guy Love
Butch and Sundance. Turk and JD. LeBron and his boys. These are some examples of unabashed hetero boy-on-boy love. More Than a Game – director Kristopher Belman’s emotional and engaging documentary – began as a 10 minute student film, but turned into a feature because he was so captured by the camaraderie of the guys [...]
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