The most pleasant surprise so far at this Toronto International Film Festival's first three days has to be George Tillman Jr's "The Hate U Give," an exemplary adaptation of Angie Thomas' popular YA novel, which centers around the Black Lives Matter movement. The film follows Starr, a promising student and cherished daughter whose life is upended, then galvanized, when a friend is senselessly shot dead by police.
Read moreBarry Jenkins' 'If Beale Street Could Talk' Disappoints [TIFF]
Barry Jenkins' "Moonlight" was such a universally praised film that you knew whatever he made next would be met with tremendously high expectations. His decision to adapt James Baldwin's masterful 1974 novel "If Beale Street Could Talk" was unexpected but much welcome, as that novel's themes of social injustice, poverty, and racial disillusionment still very much resonate to this day.
Read more‘The Wedding Guest’: Dev Patel Stars In Michael Winterbottom’s Patchy Drama [TIFF Review]
Michael Winterbottom is a fascinating, genre-defying director but his latest continues his recent losing streak of duds. Where's the director of "24 Hour Party People" and "A Mighty Heart"? My review.
‘Ben Is Back’: Julia Roberts Delivers A Stunning Performance In An Uneven Rehab Drama [TIFF Review]
My review of Julia Roberts' return to form in "Ben is Back." Her best performance since? Who knows! The script may be a bit all over the place, but her performance deserves to be praised, ditto Lucas Hedges as her drug-addicted son struggling between recovery and relapse.
‘Widows’: Steve McQueen takes genre conventions and twists them inside out to messy glorious effect
Steve McQueen's first three films were all accomplishments. With "Hunger," "Shame" and "12 Years A Slave," the British-born director proved to be a master at his craft. Not only were his films visually groundbreaking, after all, his background does come from being a prize-winning photographer, but his films seem to be grounded in a humanism that expands on the highly-stylized nature of his films.
Read moreTIFF: Pedantic ‘Beautiful Boy' is saved by two strong lead performances
"Beautiful Boy" is a film that means well and that may be its biggest problem. It was a little too on-the-nose for my tastes and its emotions felt hardly earned in its tackling of the way drug addiction can affect a family's inner workings.
Director Felix Van Groeningen (Broken Circle Breakdown) adapts two memoirs (from real-life father and son David and Nic Sheff) into his first American film, which is bogged down by a lackluster screenplay filled with cliches and melodramatic moments.
David (Steve Carell) lives with son Nic (an excellent Timothee Chalamet), and second wife Karen (Maura Tierney) in their comfortable San Francisco home. Major problems arise when Nic becomes addicted to Methamphetamine. The movie then, for the duration of its 112 or so minutes, goes back and forth between Nic's continuous cycle of relapse and recovery.For a movie with considerable talents involved, "Beautiful Boy" lacks the dramatic fireworks needed to break through the genre conventions at hand. However, Groeningen isn't a risky enough visualist to achieve his take on this all-too-familiar story. Even worse, his penchant for using music to amp up the tears feels maudlin and unearned, safe for a rare, successful musical montage comes when at the tail-end of this never-ending film as the director uses Perry Como's version of “Sunrise, Sunset," to showcase a touching little montage of father and son's happier moments.On a more positive note, any doubts that Chalamet's breakthrough performance in "Call Me By Your Name" would be a one-time deal are easily vanquished by his passionate take here of Nic. If anything, he deserves more screentime in this film, which has a few stretches where he completely disappears from the story. Carrel, a comedic actor that has proven over time to be a solid dramatic one, also makes the best of a rather underdeveloped role. [C]
"Fahrenheit 11/9" is a scathing indictment of the American establishment
I had hesitations going into Michael Moore's latest one-sided opus "Fahrenheit 11/9." After all, this is a documentary that was supposed to be mostly about the Donald Trump presidency and how his ascension led to his becoming the 45th president on November 9th, 2016. What I didn't expect was a scathing indictment of the whole establishment, Democratic and Republican, which makes the film feel more fully conceived and surprisingly unbiased. It's his best movie since 2004's Palme D'or winning George W. Bush indictment "Fahrenheit 9/11."
Read moreTIFF Review: 'The Old Man and the Gun' is a slight, weightless but endearing ode to Robert Redford
As far as acting send-offs go, you could do much worse than David Lowery‘s "The Old Man & The Gun," (Fox Searchlight, 9/28), a slight, a tad too-gentle, ode to Robert Redford, who has stated that this would be his last acting performance before retiring into the sunset.
The film, clocking in at just 93 minutes, is not a tough sit by any stretch of the imagination but rather a harmless excuse to pay tribute to a Hollywood legend.
Read moreReview: 'Operation Finale' disappoints despite Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley's roaring performances
How can I actually explain what is wrong with Chris Weitz' "Operation Finale"? That's the question that I pondered as I exited the screening of this post-WWII Jewish hunt for Nazis, and was reminded, oddly enough, of the equally dull "Argo." What both films oddly share in common is a rather pedantic, oddly mediocre look at what is, in essence, an extraordinary true story. Suffice to say, this is not the invigoratingly authentic, no-frills cinema of Jews chasing Nazis that I had in mind. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: "Operation Finale" is no "Munich."
Read moreReview: All hail Regina Hall and Haley Lu Richardson in “Support the Girls"
Andrew Bujalski’s brash comedy “Support the Girls” was warmly received at this March's latest edition of the South by Southwest Film Festival. Bujalski - whose “Funny Ha Ha,” and "Computer Chess" have built a strong cult following among hipster cinephiles— loves to make movies that are minimalist in ambition and are more concerned in nailing the smaller, but nevertheless absurdist, details of everyday life.
Read moreReview: Why even remake "Papillon" to begin with? This new version doesn't answer that question.
When Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman tried to escape Devil’s Island back in 1973, the result was the messy, passionate, and watchable "Papillon."
The decision to remake "Papillon" in this day and age is a rather odd one, especially given the fact that a) these sort of prison escape flicks are a dime a dozen and are steeped in common genre clichés, and b) well, the original "Papillon" wasn't that great.
Read moreReview: ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Is a Cultural Groundbreaker Steeped With Familiarity and Cliches
Despite the expected weekly barrage of summer blockbusters, it’s fairly hard for film writers to resist the culturally significant "Crazy Rich Asians." The film, directed by John Chu (“Step Up: 3D“) is the first Hollywood studio film with an all-Asian cast since 1993’s ‘The Joy Luck Club.” That’s 25 years of major studios shunning the Asian-American experience for the bottom line. Enter critically-acclaimed novelist Kevin Kwan.
Read moreReview: "Madeline's Madeline" is too pretentious in its ambitions to fully work
"Madeline's Madeline" is the third feature written and directed by Josephine Decker (after “Butter on the Latch” and “Thou Wast Mild and Lovely”). Just like its predecessors this one tries to break more rules than it can chew on. The result is messy. There's a strange absurdity to 'Madeline" that sometimes renders it as a brilliant exercise and other times makes it feel rather pretentious and "off."
Read moreSam Elliott Can’t Save ‘The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then Bigfoot’ [Fantasia Review]
I wrote about the peculiarly titled "The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then Bigfoot," as part of my coverage for Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival for The Playlist. I wasn't too keen on the film, even with the always welcome Sam Elliot in the lead role. Suffice to say, it wasn't as crazy as its title suggests. My next review from Fantasia will be much more positive, it'll be about the best surprise thus far at the fest, a film that was even bought by Netflix here last week. Stay tuned ...
Review: “Mission: Impossible - Fallout"
You can always count on the "Mission: Impossible" franchise to deliver much-needed thrills during the summer movie season. It helps that Tom Cruise, playing IMF agent Ethan Hunt, does his own stunts, which brings an authentic feel to the set pieces that most summer blockbusters would lack due to overreliance with CGI. "Ghost Protocol" had Tom Cruise hanging on for dear life on the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. In "Rogue Nation," the Vienna State Opera House sequence, a blend of nastily rendered Hitchcockian suspense, stunned us with its risk-taking acrobatics.
Read more“Blindspotting" is politically relevant but an ambitious mess [Review]
Written by co-star Rafael Casal and real-life friend Daveed Diggs, Tony award-winner for portraying both Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in Broadway’s "Hamilton," "Blindspotting" is a film with so much on its mind, maybe too much, that it threatens to spin out of control and, eventually, it does.
Read moreReview: "The Equalizer 2" is Denzel Washington's Worst Movie
Denzel Washington and Tony Scott had a special working relationship that was built up and founded with 1995's "Crimson Tide." Their creative teaming would unearth a slew of Denzel/Scott film during the aughts: with 2004's "Man on Fire," 2006's "Deja Vu," 2009''s "The Taking of Pelham 123," and, finally, 2010's "Unstoppable." Scott died in 2012 as he and Tom Cruise were scouting locations for a "Top Gun" sequel.
Read more‘Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot’ Review: Tragedy, and Familiar Tropes
Gus Van Sant's "Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot" comes to us as the 65 year-old writer-director is struggling with his own artistic footing. His last trio of missteps ("The Sea of Trees," "Promised Land," "Restless") were rather discouraging and hinted at a possible artistic well running dry.
Read moreReview: “Sorry to Bother You"
Boots Riley. What a name. What a director. No, really. I didn't have the chance to review "Sorry to Bother You" at Sundance, but its upcoming release this coming Friday has me thinking this ambitious, wild movie deserves some praise on print.
This being Riley's first feature, an outrageous vision of political and societal resonance, "Sorry to Bother You" can be quite a mess at times, but that's part of its brilliance. Riley has his young, unemployed Oakland protagonist Cassius ("Atlanta" scene-sealer Lakeith Stanfield), living with his girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), an artist, political activist, in his uncle’s minimalist garage. There literally is no room in there for more than two people. Cassius' luck changes when he gets a job as telemarketer for a company that wants him to be white on the phone, or at lest that's what his cubicle neighbor (Danny Glover) tells him. Use your “white voice” Glover exclaims in a small but hilariously on-point performance. And then, suddenly, Cassius becomes successful. the white voice works. He is promoted to the higher ranks of the company, a higher-echelon-ed firm that represents it, where he sells contracts for hire. His success is so pronounced that he is given a high-level condo, but not without alienating his activist girlfriend in the process, especially after Cassius is introduced to A controversial tech billionaire (Armie Hammer having the time of his life here).
Trust me, whatever the plot description I have given may sound like, the film gets crazier as Riley pushes it much further, piling subplot after subplot until the film damn-near collapses in its final frame. Activism, art, the media and the country's racism are front and center here as the director has a lot to say, maybe too much, but subsequently succeeds in giving us a movie that will most likely last. Riley invents his own kind of genre, one I truly haven't seen before or as Richard Brody recently called it "social-science fiction." In other words, "Sorry to Bother You" is Boots Riley's own brand of resistance. Bless his rebellious heart. [B+]
Trailer: “We the Animals" Goes For Malick Naturalism
I remember rushing with Jeffrey Wells to an early morning screening of “We The Animals” at Sundance. Why? Because Eric Kohn's IndieWire rave from the previous day's screening, in which he graded the film a rare A, had mentioned that it was "this year's ‘Moonlight.’” Of course, that wasn't the case. The film barely shares any similarities to Barry Jenkins's film. No, what director Justin Torres' film actually steals from is Malick naturalism, or maybe even Benh Zeitlin's "Beasts of the Southern Wild."
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