Johnnie To borrows from the conventions of theatre, especially in his set design, to craft a satirical corporate musical.
Film Reviews
Here you will find every film review we've written. These include: festival films, new releases, and older films.
Breathe explores toxic female friendship
There’s a fine line between close friendships and toxic ones, and for teenage girls, there’s perhaps an even finer one between sapphic love and best friends. Melanie Laurent’s Breathe joins the ranks of such female-centric and female-directed films as Ginger and Rosa and Me Without You, which explore when two female best friends can become poisonous to […]
TIFF15: Unearthing the dead past in Demon
There’s a troubling absence in Marcin Wrona’s Demon: there are very few Jews in this adaptation of a Jewish story. Protagonist Piotr (Itay Tiran) is a gentile, his intended bride (Agnieszka Zulewska) is a gentile, and all the people in their nameless Polish town are gentiles, too. There are only two Jews in the entire […]
TIFF15: Young love and dying tradition in Song of Songs
Eva Neymann imbues ordinary moments and domestic tasks with a magical quality. Yet this sense of wonder is as fragile as shtetl life itself. Read our coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival.
TIFF15: Legend delivers exactly what it promises ***
Legend delivers exactly what it promises: a glitzy gangster flick starring Tom Hardy opposite Tom Hardy (doppelgangland!). Director Brian Helgeland lays everything on with a trowel, but subtlety isn’t why we’re here. The flash, the violence, and Tom Hardy’s twin performances make Legend a fun ride. Tom Hardy plays both of the Kray twins, the gangster […]
TIFF15: Jack manages to be a boring serial-killer movie
It should be difficult to make Jack Unterweger’s story dull: Austrian prostitute-murderer turned prison poet, he became a literary cause-celèbre. He achieved early release from prison in 1990, only to kill himself four years later after being convicted of nine subsequent murders. Yet Elisabeth Scharang’s Jack manages to make a clock-watcher out of this dramatic material […]