By Amanda Gilmore

This exceptional Thriller follows a group of Environmental Activists, who band together on a daring mission to blow up a pipeline in West Texas.

Co-Writers Ariela Barer (who also stars as Xochitl), Jordan Sjol, and Daniel Goldhaber (who also serves as Director and Editor) have adapted the controversial book by Andreas Malm of the same name. It’s a non-fiction Novel that claims sabotage is an effective solution in fighting climate change. The Co-Writers have used this theory and created one of the most enthralling heist Thrillers of the year.

We watch as the group of activists plan, prepare and carry out their audacious mission. Goldhaber’s expert Direction and Editing cut back in time, giving each character a reason for carrying out this dangerous act. The connection between each character is that they’ve all been impacted by climate change. For instance, Xochitl’s mother died due to an abnormal heat wave and Theo (Sasha Lane) has been diagnosed with a rare Blood Cancer that has been linked to people who grew up near chemical factories.

Some characters question what they’re doing and the ramifications of their actions. Such as gas prices being raised, making life harder on the poor. Or them committing what is considered a terrorist act. These open conversations, along with the layered, heartrending backstories show a balanced look at the climate debate. There aren’t any right answers given, instead, How To Blow Up A Pipeline allows a space to explore facts, opinions and calls to action.

Overall, How To Blow Up A Pipeline is a remarkable suspenseful heist thriller, with an intense Score from Gavin Brivik. The entire cast (Barer, Lane, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, and Jake Weary) are exceptional. And the Cinematography by Tehillah De Castro dazzles. Most importantly it’s a brilliant Film that will provoke essential conversation about climate change.

How To Blow Up A Pipeline screens as follows at TIFF ’22:

Sat, Sep 10 IN-PERSON at TIFF Bell Lightbox at 9:00 pm

Sun, Sep 11 IN-PERSON at Scotiabank Theatre at 3:15 pm

Sun, Sep 18 IN-PERSON at Scotiabank Theatre at 5:45 pm

We’ve made it to the finish! What a Festival this was! We’re still reeling literally from all the excitement, and have really been doing as much as we can before the curtain drops Sunday. Though I love the stars so much, I love cozying-up with a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte in a dark theatre and just escaping with the Movies. The Team and I have shared our thoughts on everything we saw at the Festival here and there are a few more Reviews coming.

By the way, we will soon be drawing our $25 Starbucks Canada Gift Card winners! More below and a few chances across our Social channels.

We were so delighted finally to get to participate in a Press Line. Believe me, we’ve been putting-in our requests but with so many outlets being here earlier in the Festival, it didn’t leave a lot of room for smaller outlets like ours to get on. Either way, we get it and made our moments happen either way! We adore SQUID GAME and can’t wait for Season Two. Such an honour chatting with star-turned-Director Lee Jung-jae and also Korean Action Star Jung Woo-sung. HUNT is an Action-Thriller which has Lee starring as Park, a Central Intelligence Chief uncovering a plot assassinate the South Korean President, but learns there also is a mole in the agency.

Lee tells us this actually isn’t his first time in Toronto – he actually came here about ten years back. We ask him about one important lesson he took away from the character he crafted in this Film, Park.

Lee: I didn’t learn much from the character because I wrote, directed and acted it myself. What I learned from this experience is working harmoniously with the other Actors and trying to communicate well with the staff.

We also ask Jung to tell us a bit about his character Kim and what he took away from the experience.

Jung: This is a character based on actual historical events that took place. When I created the character, I reflected on the victims of the incident and the perpetrators, and the ethical issues. I was able to reflect on these things.

(Photo/video credit: Mr. Will Wong)

By Mr. Will Wong

Shot in secret during the Pandemic in Wales, Joanna Hogg continues the story of Julie, which began in 2019’s The Souvenir. Looking to make a Film about her mother, Julie (Tilda Swinton) takes her mother Rosalind (also played by Tilda Swinton) to a home she grew-up in, now a hotel. The vacation is meant as bonding time between mother and daughter, culminating in Rosalind‘s birthday, all the while avoiding family.

Julie hopes to get a bit of work done on this working vacation, but is struggling to focus. She hears howling noises at night that keep her up. She then learns that the house holds also some sad memories in addition to happy ones, and this is a turning point for Julie as she faces her mother’s mortality, and realizes she doesn’t have much time.

Hogg strikes a unique tonal balance here in THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER. It is dark, mysterious and eery, but also incredibly heartfelt and affecting. This very much falls in my own personal Top Five of the Festival this year entirely on the tremendous and exact work from incomparable Swinton. It’s just mindblowing how she is able to play two characters who are bantering through most of the Film, so seamlessly. Quite the feat.

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER screens at TIFF ’22 as follows:

Sun, Sep 11 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 6:15pm

Mon, Sep 12 IN-PERSON Scotiabank Theatre TorontoClosed captioning, Descriptive sound 3:00pm

Thu, Sep 15 IN-PERSON Scotiabank Theatre TorontoClosed captioning, Descriptive sound 5:30pm

Sun, Sep 18 IN-PERSON Scotiabank Theatre TorontoClosed captioning, Descriptive sound 1:00pm

By Mr. Will Wong

Jennifer Lawrence doesn’t miss a beat in this return to the screen after a hiatus. In addition to starring in the Drama as Lynsey, a soldier suffering injuries to her brain and body after some time in Afghanistan, she also produces.

The story centers on Lynsey as she returns home to New Orleans and she meets James (Brian Tyree Henry) after she brings her truck in to get repaired. The two form a complicated, unlikely friendship and layers are unravelled the more they get to know eachother. We learn of their past traumas which in ways have stunted their lives, though they cross each other’s paths in a fortune timing, forming a deep and intense connection.

This is Lila Neugebauer’s Feature directorial debut and she already is starting at the top with talent in this tight-knit Ensemble. Lawrence‘s Lynsey feels lived-in and is nuanced, really taking the character on a journey of self re-discovery. Henry’s performance however is a real revelation, suppressing James‘ pain under his good-guy exterior, while navigating his feelings for Lynsey at once. They pair play off each other perfectly. Who would’ve known?

CAUSEWAY is a slice of life which explores a very special friendship, while also exposing some of battle wounds a soldier carries for life.

CAUSEWAY screens as follows at TIFF ’22:

Sat, Sep 10 IN-PERSON Royal Alexandra Theatre 5:30pm

Sun, Sep 11 IN-PERSON Scotiabank Theatre Toronto 1:00pm

Thu, Sep 15 IN-PERSON Visa Screening Room at the Princess of Wales Theatre 3:00pm

By Nicholas Porteous

Florence Pugh, as a solemn English nurse, visits a hyper-religious Irish village to watch over a child who claims to have survived four months without food–worshipped as a miracle. Pugh‘s rational approach clashes with the deep-seated beliefs of the community, and the life of the child hangs in the balance.

Left, right and center, people were checking their phones throughout this Movie. While I find that behaviour super lame–ESPECIALLY during a Festival film, it is indicative of just how restless my audience was. To be fair, this is a pretty dry, dreary period piece with minimal dialogue and lots of long walks through vast fields. Visually, it has a lot of nice texture to it. The strange choral score is as refreshing as it is haunting. The performances are good across the board, but they’re also not particularly demanding–mostly requiring a lot of restraint.

The Wonder is all about belief, and how a collective, communal belief can seem as real as any fact. It establishes this theme by opening with a fourth wall-breaking view of the soundstage the Movie is being filmed on, and an extremely meta voiceover explaining we’re watching a movie filled with Actors who deeply believe in the story they’re telling. I think the Movie is trying to say we all believe in things that aren’t necessarily proveable or scientific, and this movie is one of those things. It’s a flimsy metaphor, because I don’t know anyone who literally believes movies are real to the same extent that these people believe a child can survive without food. Moreover, without spoiling anything, I found the ending of this particular Movie preposterous. And the more I think about it, the more toxic I find its message as it relates to the present. I also don’t find these ideas narratively or cinematically satisfying at all, particularly as a means of justifying an absurd ending.

THE WONDER screens at TIFF ’22 as follows:

Tues, Sep 13 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 6:45pm

Wed, Sep 14 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 2:00pm

Thu, Sep 15 IN-PERSONRoyal Alexandra Theatre 8:30pm

By David Baldwin

Ensign Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors, the future big bad of the MCU) is an outsanding pilot and the US Navy’s first black Aviator in history. Sadly, the racist troops around him do not think much of this incredible achievement. Enter Lieutenant Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) who joins Brown’s squadron just before they are deployed to fight in the Korean War. Hudner wants to get close to his new Wingman, but Brown is suspicious of his motivations.

The true story of Brown and what happened to him before, during and after Korea is incredible. That story is the beating heart of DEVOTION, and is the exact reason why the Film feels so disappointing and uninteresting. It merely goes through the motions telling the story and embellishing facts along the way, never really stopping for any moments of introspection or even reactions to some of the tragic things that happen. It is not given the love and attention it needs, and feels so callously put together rather than being a powerful story of Heroism and the strength of the human spirit. This is a story that deserves to be told, yet feels like it could and should have been done better. The flight scenes are great (even if they will unfavourably be compared to the ones in Top Gun: Maverick), the sound is top-notch as is the look of the Film. But if we are not really caring about the characters or the story, then why do any of these technical achievements matter?

All of that said, Majors is very good in the role of Brown. He feels a little stifled in some scenes, yet still manages to do an admirable job carrying the film under the weight of the lackluster script. Powell is wonderful as always, and supporting turns from Thomas Sadoski, Joseph Cross, Joe Jonas and especially Christina Jackson (playing Brown’s firecracker of a wife Daisy) are all well-done. I just wish they were all in a better movie.

DEVOTION screens as follows at TIFF ’22:

Mon, Sep 12 IN-PERSON Cinesphere IMAX Theatre 6:00pm

Wed, Sep 14 IN-PERSON Cinesphere IMAX Theatre 9:00pm

Thu, Sep 15 IN-PERSON Cinesphere IMAX Theatre 5:30pm

By David Baldwin

Al Yankovic’s (Daniel Radcliffe – yes, him) ambition in life is to make parody songs scored to the beat and style of existing hits. Fame will not come easy for Al though, and neither will the drugs, alcohol and excess that come with it.

If you know anything about Yankovic’s history as a performer, forget all of it before you sit down to watch WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY. Rather than being a conventional biopic that goes through the tumultuous ups and downs of a performer’s career, Co-Writer/Director Eric Appel and Yankovic himself turn the entire genre upside down and inject as much ridiculousness and timeline perversion into the Film as they could. It sends up every convention we know and understand from decades of biopics and exposes them for the by-the-numbers, stereotypically fluffy nonsense that we all know them to be. Others have already favourly compared the Film to the cult classic Walk Hard, yet WEIRD feels more disjointed, more outrageous and more weird than it does anything else.

How else to explain Al needing to rescue his girlfriend Madonna (an uproarious Evan Rachel Wood) from Pablo Escobar (Arturo Castro)? Or Michael Jackson copying the beat from Yankovic’s “Eat It” when he wrote and recorded “Beat It”, rather than the other way around? Or well, just about anything else that happens in this outrageous movie?

I laughed as hard as I could throughout WEIRD, even if the seams of the Film being based off a three-minute fake trailer sketch start showing far too early. There are some incredible cameos and sight gags littered throughout, and this is easily (though you might not believe me) Radcliffe’s best performance this side of Harry Potter. He commits willingly to every outlandish thing Appel and Yankovic throw at him, commands the screen at every turn and does an incredible job depicting the Hard Rock lifestyle the Film purports actually happened to the real Weird Al. Hysterical stuff. And God willing, Yankovic himself will be nominated for an Oscar for that end credits song that is…brilliant?

WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY screens as follows at TIFF ’22:

Thu, Sep 8 IN-PERSON Royal Alexandra Theatre 11:59pm

Fri, Sep 9 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 12:15pm

Sun, Sep 18 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 9:00am

By David Baldwin

Peter (Hugh Jackman) has it all. He is a big shot attorney being courted by D.C. for a Senator’s election bid and his new wife Beth (Vanessa Kirby) has just given birth to a beautiful baby boy. Peter’s older son Nicholas (Zen McGrath) is not doing great though – he is not getting along with his Mom, Peter’s ex Kate (Laura Dern), is not going to school and is suffering from severe depression and anxiety. Hearing this, Peter agrees to let Nicholas live with him and his new family in the hopes that his mental health will improve. Except it does not, it just gets worse.

THE SON is easily the most divisive movie I have seen at TIFF ’22. The discourse, anger and debate this Movie has already sparked is not quite at the level of The Whale, but it is going to get so much more heated after its theatrical release this Fall. Your “enjoyment” (I used the term loosely because THE SON is not very fun to watch) will entirely hinge on your feelings around Mental Health, specifically when it involves a child. I do not want to spoil where the Film goes – the foreshadowing motifs sprinkled throughout are about as subtle as a fire alarm – rather, I want to note that it careens into bleak and unsettling territory.

What also works against the Film is the inevitable comparisons to The Father. That film, like THE SON, was adapted by Zeller and Christopher Hampton from Zeller’s play and both feature tremendously intricate Production Design and a tortured character at its centre. Whereas that film focused on Anthony Hopkins’ towering, extraordinary performance, this Film spends more time with Jackman than it does McGrath’s titular character. And when McGrath does show up, he is whiny, annoying, cold, distant, melodramatic and unrefined. Some have punched down and have suggested it as being laughably bad. While I myself did not think it is a great performance, I would caution before saying it was bad. McGrath plays Nicholas as a scared, anxious and confused teenager who does not understand the feelings he is experiencing nor the ability to process them, so it makes perfect sense why he is so melodramatic and all over the place.

Elsewhere, both Dern and Kirby are sidelined through far too much of the Film (though the latter still slays every time she appears) and an explosive two-scene cameo from Hopkins is so incendiary that the Film is never able to match its energy afterwards. Which is all to say, Jackman has a lot of heavy lifting to do. He is up to the task and delivers a very good, albeit aggravating performance. You will just want to reach out and shake him violently for his character’s arrogance and callousness towards his son’s precarious situation. Worse, his spectacular “Oscar” scene comes in the form of a 10-minute epilogue that does not really need to be there. Which is a hell of a shame.

THE SON screens as follows at TIFF ’22:

Mon, Sep 12 IN-PERSON Roy Thomson Hall 9:00pm

Tue, Sep 13 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 12:00pm

By David Baldwin

A serial killer believes he is cleansing the streets of corruption in the Iranian holy city Mashhad. His victims? Female sex workers and drug addicts who are all too willing to jump on the back of his motorbike when they see the cash he is carrying. Enter female Journalist Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi), who is determined to investigate and uncover the identity of the killer before he has a chance to kill again. At the same time, we follow Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a blue-collar worker and war vet who is trying to do right by his family. Saeed also happens to be the killer.

That hook is what instantly drew me into the sordid web of HOLY SPIDER. Director/Co-Writer Ali Abbasi (who previously directed the Oscar-nominated Border) has crafted a film that takes no prisoners with its unrelenting intensity and is absolutely fearless when it comes to its depiction of misogyny and sexual violence (all inspired by a true story from the early 2000s). There are some genuinely disturbing and unsettling moments in this film that continue to sit with me – most related to the brutal ways Saeed murders his victims. If that sounds like a lot, that is because it is. Abbasi knows exactly how to get under the audience’s skin, and he revels in how vicious and unsettling he can make each scene more than the last.

Speaking of unsettling, we need to talk about Bajestani. The Actor is pure evil incarnate, reprehensibly twisting his cadence, vocabulary and body language at will. He delicately balances both of Saeed’s personas and watching him let loose in anger is more than enough reason for your bones to shake. Amir-Ebrahimi is just as terrific, precisely portraying the Journalist who will go to truly unconventional means in order to take this monster down. She reminded me a lot of Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs in how the male characters treat, dehumanize and underestimate her. It is brilliant, unfiltered work that was rightfully awarded the Best Actress award at Cannes back in May. She captures your gaze right from the start and it is incredibly difficult to look away from her afterwards.

And without getting too far into spoiler territory, I will note how revolting the ending is. In a film filled to the brim with disgusting, deplorable imagery, this extended bit is certainly going to sear into your brain.

HOLY SPIDER screens as follows at TIFF ’22:

Tue, Sep 13 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 9:45pm

Wed, Sep 14 IN-PERSON TIFF Bell Lightbox 3:00pm

It’s hard to believe the end is near of TIFF ’22 and that kicked-off a week ago already! We had some big stars in the City tonight including celebrated Thespian Brian Cox who is experiencing a career resurgence with his outstanding work as Logan Roy in HBO‘s Succession. Cox is here for The Prisoner’s Daughter, starring alongside Kate Beckinsale. Catherine Hardwicke directs this Drama about a father looking to reconnect with his daughter, though his violent past comes back to haunt them.

THE PRISONER’S DAUGHTER

BLACK ICE

ELEVATION PICTURES MAIN CHARACTER BASH

Elevation Pictures dominated the Festival this year withs ome amazing titles like Brother, The Son, Broker and The Whale (!!). So kind of them to invite us to their Main Character Bash! The Director, Producer and some Cast from BLACK ICE even visited.

(Photo credit: Mr. Will Wong)