TIFF Review: “The Whale”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Special Presentations North American Premiere There’s a parallel to be found in Brendan Fraser’s recent career trajectory and the life of the character he plays in “The Whale,” Charlie, albeit a tangential one. After stepping away from Hollywood after being a top box office draw in the 1990s and early […]

Review: “Don’t Worry Darling”

Olivia Wilde’s 2019 directorial debut “Booksmart” was a genuinely warm and humorous look at female friendship. With her sophomore feature, Wilde broadens her scope in favor of a narrative that’s much more ambitious. But that’s about the best thing I can say about “Don’t Worry Darling,” a repetitive thriller whose feminist themes are too broad, […]

TIFF Review: “Corsage”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 North American Premiere Romy Schneider made such an indelible impact playing Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the “Sissi” trilogy as a teenager in the mid-1950s that not only did the success of the films launch her into the celebrity stratosphere, but they have become a tradition in Austria and other […]

TIFF Review: “Pearl”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Midnight Madness North American Premiere It was perhaps about a minute into the end credits for “Pearl”—Ti West’s prequel to his film from earlier this year, “X”—that the audience at TIFF’s packed midnight madness premiere erupted into applause and cheers. The image that plays over those credits—an extended, live-action freeze […]

TIFF Review: “Moonage Daydream”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Special Presentations North American Premiere After its over-stimulating opening, a barrage of sound and color, “Moonage Daydream” takes a pause, cutting to a clip of a young woman sitting on the steps outside of a stage door, sobbing, a button with David Bowie’s face on it pinned to her lapel. […]

TIFF Review: “Susie Searches”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 World Premiere It’s exciting when movies take ambitious swings, but sometimes the final product is too messy to be even admired. At the beginning of Sophie Kargman’s feature debut “Susie Searches” (based on her 2020 short of the same name), the story appears to be moving in a predictable direction, […]

TIFF Review: “Prisoner’s Daughter”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Gala Presentation World Premiere Max (Brian Cox) has just been freed from a long prison sentence. But that’s about as good as the good news gets. The reason for him being granted the opportunity to spend the rest of his sentence on house arrest is because he’s been diagnosed with […]

TIFF Review: “Empire of Light”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Special Presentations Perched on an English seaside, it’s glowing marquee towering above its surroundings, sits the Empire Theatre. It’s the early 1980s, and the Empire has seen better days, although vestiges of its former glory as a former movie palace are evident in its elegant lobby, two red-curtained screens, and […]

TIFF Review: “The Fabelmans”

Toronto International Film Festival Special Presentations World Premiere When we first meet Sammy Fabelman, he’s a little boy petrified of attending his first movie. It’s not exactly the image we’d expect to see of a character based on Steven Spielberg, one of America’s most acclaimed and prolific filmmakers. Sandwiched between his mother (Michelle Williams) and […]

TIFF Review: “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”

Toronto International Film Festival Special Presentations World Premiere From the dreary coziness of autumn in New England to the sun-dappled shores of a Grecian island, writer and director Rian Johnson takes detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to the other side of the world on a new case in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.” But […]