In Grandma, Lily Tomlin plays misanthropic widow Elle who embarks on a whirlwind tour of the past in a single day when her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) arrives on her doorstep pregnant, broke, and in need of an abortion.
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Review: Stewart and Eisenberg elevate the shit out of American Ultra
The best thing about American Ultra, a movie about two stoners who find out the CIA is trying to kill them, is how incredibly real, lived in, and sweet their relationship is. Without the reuniting Adventureland pair Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg as the leads, the film could have easily been just another dumb stoner action film with moderate laughs.
Review: Sicario is a good but not great thriller
There’s a lot of skill and talent on display in Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario, which makes it a thoroughly enjoyable if entirely forgettable heart-pounding studio thriller. Emily Blunt stars as Kate, an FBI agent working in a kidnap recovery team who finds herself recruited for a special unit to track down and kill drug lords using unconventional […]
Love 3D is mediocre event cinema
When Love 3D premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, it was a major event. Everyone was there, from Benicio del Toro to Joachim Trier. I was in line behind Sony Pictures Classics co-president Michael Barker discussing whether or not The Assassin is boring. It’s an event film though not a very good one, and its […]
TIFF15 Review: Philippe Garrel’s In the Shadow of Women
In a radical departure (just kidding) from his usual subject matter, writer-director Philippe Garrel’s In the Shadow of Women tackles marital infidelity. Pierre (Stanislaus Merhar) and Manon (Clothilde, Princess of Venice and Piedmont) are a reasonably happy married couple who produce documentary films together when Pierre’s eye starts to wander to the young archivist Elizabeth […]
TIFF15 Review: The Assassin is gorgeous but tiresome
Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin (Best Director Winner, Cannes 2015) was certainly the most beautiful film to screen at Cannes this year, though that’s not the same as saying it was the best shot. The production design is impeccable, and the colours and compositions are gorgeous, but to what end? The film is about waiting for the […]