★★★ The newest film from Amazon Studios comes in the form of sci-fi tinged Encounter, from director Michael Pearce. Plucking three lead performances all of Pakistani background, Encounter gets more right than wrong in general. However, I could not help feeling let down by certain elements of the storyline as they unfolded. The potential brimming … Continue reading TIFF 2021: Encounter
TIFF 2021: You Are Not My Mother
★★★★ Weird behavior is one thing, but what course of action would you take if your mother quite literally was someone else? Perhaps the most appropriately-named movie of the year, You Are Not My Mother is an eerie Irish horror film from debut feature writer/director Kate Dolan. The flavor of horror is difficult to pinpoint—occasionally … Continue reading TIFF 2021: You Are Not My Mother
TIFF 2021: The Mad Women’s Ball
★★★★ The Mad Women’s Ball, set in 1885, is a French thriller whose closest thematic bond is 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Based on the book by Victoria Mas, the film is a fictional account of wronged women and unjust horrors, as they are placed in asylums against their will. In this case, … Continue reading TIFF 2021: The Mad Women’s Ball
TIFF 2021: All My Puny Sorrows
★★★★ All My Puny Sorrows is so much deeper than just Suicide: The Movie. While this topic has been explored before by filmmakers, something about this story feels gripping and personal in a way that others before it have not. Based on the acclaimed novel by Miriam Toews, writer/director Michael McGowan adapts the material with … Continue reading TIFF 2021: All My Puny Sorrows
TIFF 2021: Montana Story
★★★★ Montana Story tells an intimate and emotional tale of two siblings, using the gorgeous mountainous backdrop of Montana state. I enjoyed Haley Lu Richardson in 2019’s Five Feet Apart, and I found Owen Teague to be impressive in Stephen King remakes of It and The Stand, but both young actors have never been this … Continue reading TIFF 2021: Montana Story
TIFF 2021: A Banquet
★★★ A Banquet, Ruth Paxton’s bizarre new TIFF horror film, will certainly make you think twice before you eat. Strange, gory visuals, food close-ups, potential exorcisms, and… anorexia? Paxton takes several pages from the horror handbook for her feature directorial debut. While the plot may be practically threadbare, I was pulled in by the striking … Continue reading TIFF 2021: A Banquet
TIFF 2021: Kicking Blood
★★★ Kicking Blood, my first film viewed for 2021’s Toronto International Film Festival, acts as a surprisingly great start to round off the festivities. Vampires have never been one of my favorite subgenres of horror (I tend to think they work better on the page or in television format to properly expand the mythology), but … Continue reading TIFF 2021: Kicking Blood
TIFF 2021: Scarborough
★★★★ Though it carried with it a content warning (child abuse and neglect, racist language, off-screen domestic violence, references to drug use), even this was not enough to mentally and emotionally prepare me for what Scarborough had in store. The only still released ahead of 2021’s version of TIFF seemed to suggest a light familial-tinged … Continue reading TIFF 2021: Scarborough
TIFF 2021: Dug Dug
★★★ Judging by the TIFF description, which promised a “striking and musically infectious satire,” as well as my expectation for extravagant Bollywood musicals, I certainly had an inkling what Dug Dug would deliver well before starting the film. The reality is that Dug Dug is void of characterization and narrative, focusing its multi-colored laser-pointer instead … Continue reading TIFF 2021: Dug Dug
TIFF 2021: 7 Prisoners
★★★ 7 Prisoners deals with an incredibly traumatic and upsetting facet of society: human trafficking. The fact that those preyed upon are trying to better their financial situations (often to help their families) makes it altogether more depressing. I found the methods of torment to be absolutely abhorrent and appalling, which I suppose is exactly … Continue reading TIFF 2021: 7 Prisoners