Sentimental without being drippy, rollicking and rousing without being over-the-top, Pride (directed by Matthew Warchus) is the epitome of a feel good movie. With its bopping soundtrack of 1980s pop hits, sweeping camera, and bright colours – there’s even a fabulous dance number – the film remains buoyant throughout even as it tackles tough issues and […]
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Best of TIFF14: The Tribe is beyond words
Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s Ukrainian crime film The Tribe is told entirely in sign language, no translation, no subtitles.
Best of TIFF14: Lone Scherfig’s The Riot Club explores the darker side of privilege
The lads of The Riot Club – an exclusive club for 10 of Oxford University’s richest and brightest young men – make “Gossip Girl”’s Chuck Bass, at his rapiest, look like a prince. And this is a guy who traded the love of his life for a hotel before sleeping with his barely consenting step-sister. Like Chuck Bass, these boys were raised in the lap of luxury and privilege. As they say in Britain, they’re posh, which comes with special customs, accents, and terminology.
Best of TIFF 2014: Dome Karukoski’s The Grump is a hilarious delight
Writer-Director Dome Karukoski’s new comedy, The Grump, about an aging parent feeling out of step with the modern age, is sweet, funny, and emotional.
Top 10 Reasons TIFF is better than Cannes and Sundance
This year marks my 12th time attending the Toronto International Film Festival, meaning I’ve been coming here for nearly half my life. After making the rounds on the film festival circuit this year – first at Sundance, then at Cannes – I’m still a firm believer that TIFF is the best film festival of them […]
People with dementia are more Alive Inside than you might expect
“Alive Inside” opens on a ninety-year-old woman, sitting in a chair set against a black background, explaining that she can’t remember anything. The setting is very deliberate: she suffers from dementia, and as the film will argue repeatedly throughout, people with dementia in nursing homes live in a world devoid of meaning. We watch her start listening to Louis Armstrong’s “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and she lights up, telling us it reminds her of her school days. Then, the film cuts to an old black-and-white film strip, a stand-in for the kinds of memories the music must be evoking. The stories of her life start pouring out. What the social worker Dan Cohen discovered is that music seems to unlock a previously inaccessible world of memories for people with dementia, and “Alive Inside” follows his journey to bring this joy to more people.