#TIFF23: “SISTERHOOD” REVIEW
By David Baldwin
Middle schoolers Amina (Léah Aubert), Djeneba (Médina Diarra) and Zineb (Salma Takaline) have been best friends since childhood, despite their difference in economic, racial and social backgrounds. At a birthday party, Zineb tells her friends that her older brother’s friend Zak (Oscar Al Hafiane) has been sexually harassing her. The girls get an instance on camera and when Amina decides to post it online without letting her friends know, it sets off a world of trouble ...
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#TIFF23: “THE CRITIC” REVIEW
The Critic
By Amanda Gilmore
Set in 1934 London, The Critic follows Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen) who’s a ruthless Drama Theatre Critic for the Chronicle. When the main editor of the paper dies, his son David Brooke (Mark Strong) takes over the company. Brooke isn’t a fan of Jimmy’s recurring written cruelty of theatre star Nina Land (Gemma Arterton). Thus, giving him a month's notice before he’s let go. But Jimmy will stop at nothing to save his ...
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#TIFF23: “AMERICAN FICTION” REVIEW
By David Baldwin
Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) is a professor and published Author who cannot seem to catch a break with his new book. After a few failed attempts and bitterness over the state of writing about the African-American experience, he composes a novel using every Black cliché he can think of. He makes up a fake author with a fake backstory, and though his agent thinks it will not sell, the book is sent out to publishers. And despite Monk thinking he wrote a ...
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#TIFF23: “NEXT GOAL WINS” REVIEW
By David Baldwin
In 2001, the American Samoa soccer team set the record for the worst loss in international football history, losing 31-0. Fast forward to over a decade later where the team (still the worst in the world) is trying to make a run for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers, this time with the help of disgraced coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender).
What follows is your standard underdog crowd pleasing story of the coach who helps the team realize their potential and the team ...
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#TIFF23: “SING SING” REVIEW
By George Kozera
SING SING opens with Colman Domingo performing a Shakesperean soliloquy directly to the camera with force and magnitude. It is a stunning achievement. We then see the actors leave to theatre to return to the notorious Sing Sing Penitentiary where we learn they are all part of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) programme whose mandate is to put on plays as a part of their rehab. After choosing a prison yard bully (Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, playing himself) on ...
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#TIFF23: “THE BOY AND THE HERON” REVIEW
By David Baldwin
World War II has broken out and a young boy has moved with his family to the Japanese countryside. He encounters a heron, who is more persistent and radically different than other birds in terms of getting attention. After the heron leads the boy to an abandoned tower, it becomes clear that everything is not as it seems.
THE BOY AND THE HERON, Writer/Director Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in ten years, is a monumental achievement. Much like the beloved Studio Ghibli ...
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#TIFF23: “DREAM SCENARIO” REVIEW
Review by David Baldwin
Paul Matthews (Oscar winner Nicolas Cage) is a tenured professor longing to sell his idea for a book that he just has not found the time to write. He wants to be seen as someone important, yet typically shuffles around in the background anonymously. All of that changes when Paul starts randomly showing up in people’s dreams – at first in a totally innocuous way, and then something slightly more provocative.
Saying anything else would ruin the wild, certifiably ...
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#TIFF23: “MONSTER” REVIEW
By George Kozera
MONSTER opens very straightforwardly as we see single mother, Saori (Sakura Ando) and her pre-teen son Minato (Soya Kurasawa) watch a raging fire from their balcony as the building collapses. It is rumoured that the building housed a sleazy hostess-bar and a teacher from Minato’s school Mr. Hori (Eita Nagayama) was spotted leaving the establishment. In explaining his recent bout of sullenness, Minato tells his mother that Mr. Hori not only physically assaulted him but ...
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#TIFF23: DAY FOUR SIGHTINGS – DAKOTA JOHNSON, SEAN PENN, COLMAN DOMINGO, ETHAN HAWKE, MAYA HAWKE, SIMON BAKER, BILLY BRYK, ELLIOT PAGE AND MORE
Day Four of TIFF '23 was epic! Though the excitement begins to reach a simmer in a day or two - when we actually will have time to start watching some more Films - we revel in the delight of all this starpower. I'll be honest, I started off having lowered expectations, but I have yet to feel there's been any lulls or dull moments yet this year. Still plenty enough to keep us busy.
Today started amazing, spotting Elliot Page and Hillary Baack out and about early with CLOSE TO YOU, a story ...
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#TIFF23: “THE ZONE OF INTEREST” REVIEW
By Nicholas Porteous
In Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, we experience domestic life through the eyes of a wealthy Nazi family located just outside the perimeter of the Auschwitz concentration camp. This is a revelatory new entry into the already crowded field of agonizingly great movies about the holocaust, but the thing that pushes Zone past the line of excellent storytelling and into the realm of real profundity is not so much what Glazer shows us. It's what he ...
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