TIFF Review: “Leonor Will Never Die”

Toronto International Film Festival Canadian premiere and Midnight Madness closing night film. There’s an indelible charm to 80s action movies, whether they’re good, bad, or as is often the case, so bad they’re good. Beyond the glorification of violence and celebration of masculinity at its most macho, the action is frequently creatively realized (particularly in […]

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: “Coyote”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 World Premiere The clatter of dishes and murmur of voices populate the background of the opening scene of Katherine Jerkovic’s sophomore feature “Coyote.” Framed in a medium close-up against a plain wall, Camilo (Jorge Martinez Colorado) speaks to someone off-screen. As he describes his past experience, it’s quickly clear that […]

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 […]

TIFF Review: “The Lost King”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 World Premiere, Special Presentations Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins) is adrift. Recently denied a big assignment at work—she’s good at what she’s already doing, her boss says— and suffering from ME, a chronic fatigue illness that especially flares up in times of stress, she’s in need of something to rejuvenate her. […]

TIFF Review: “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Midnight Madness World Premiere Weird Al Yankovic is no typical music artist. The shaggy-haired, Hawaiian shirt connoisseur musician/comedian built a career out of a niche area of the industry: parodies of existing songs and polka covers. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a movie about his life would be no […]