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 […]

Review: “Mothering Sunday”

Mother’s Day, 1924. Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young) is a maid in the rural English home of Mr. and Mrs. Niven (Colin Firth and Olivia Colman), and she’s been given the Sunday off work. The Nivens are off to have lunch with their friends and neighbors, the Hobdays and the Sheringhams, the latter family having also […]

Review: “The Father”

One of the hardest yet most inevitable things in life is for the child become the parent. Most stories portray this challenge through the eyes of the child, but in “The Father,” the titular figure is the focus. Writer and director Florian Zeller bends and shapes reality around Anthony (Anthony Hopkins), an elderly man suffering […]

Review: “The Favourite”

3.5 out of 5 stars. Everything about “The Favourite” defies expectations, which really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise for a film from Yorgos Lanthimos, the director behind such bizarre works as 2015’s “The Lobster” and 2017’s “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” It looks like a pretty period piece set in the royal […]