Toronto 2023 Review: DADDIO, The Art of Good Conversation Is Alive and Kicking
Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn star in a new film by writer/director Christy Hall.
Toronto 2023 Review: THE TEACHERS LOUNGE, A Dazzling Lesson In How Society Crumbles
I took no notes while watching The Teachers’ Lounge. This is rare for me in a festival environment, where I am seeing a lot of films in a short period of time. Yea, I am *that guy* who brings a...
Toronto 2023 Review: SHAME ON DRY LAND, A Sweaty And Oblique Euro-Noir
Around midway through this unique Swedish-Maltese co-production, Shame On Dry Land, a question is asked of the main character, “Been a long day?” Dimman, the uncertain, never in control, anti-hero responds, “Yea, it never ends.” This is not a bug...
Toronto 2023 Review: WORKING CLASS GOES TO HELL, Serbian Justice Served Slow And Absurd
Early in Mladen Djordjevic’s tragicomic satire, Working Class Goes To Hell, a young girl eats her lunch in the husk of a dead factory. A faded mural “Long Live Labour Day” peels off the burnt out walls above her. She...
Friday One Sheet: LIMBO
The pull quotes filling the open sky here say as much about the film as they do about Australian Carnival Studio's design ethos for the film's key art. Ivan Sen's striking, monochrome new cold case, outback noir Limbo is a...
Toronto 2023 Review: THE BOY AND THE HERON, Sumptuous Miyazaki-San, Studio Ghibli Career Retrospective
From the opening air raid sirens and fiery infernos of World War II Tokyo bombings to the bucolic countryside house and its magical surroundings, Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli has come full circle in its 40 year history animated mastery....
Toronto 2023 Review: REPTILE Slowly and Deliberately Sheds Its Neo-Noir Skin
Finally, a pop crime procedural that leans into the frustration of dealing with real-estate agents and kitchen renovations. All jests aside (but seriously, the frustration is real) Grant Singer's debut film, a Netflix original, bucks the recent trend of the...
Toronto 2023 Review: SOLITUDE Quietly Pushes Back Against Our Too Busy World
Do you know that tentative, tiny hand wave that shows up (oh so gently) in the movies from time to time? A recent example of this is the final shot of Donnie Darko, where Jenna Malone offers a raised hand...
Friday One Sheet: RIDDLE OF FIRE
The "Coolest debut from Cannes," according to AnOther Magazine, the poster for American indie cult-film-to-be, Riddle Of Fire, exudes rural middleschool cool. The key art is awash in warm peachy tones and early 70s pre-Amblin 'latch-key kids' vibes. Note the mushrooms and...
Friday One Sheet: POOR THINGS
Welcome to the wonderful world of Vasilis Marmatakis, the Greek graphic designer and illustrator behind one of my favourite posters of the past decade, an earlier Yorgos Lanthimos film, The Killing of A Sacred Deer, with its immense verticality, and...
POLARIS Review: The Birth of Mythology Through the Eyes of a Resilient Savior
There is magic at play in Kirsten Carthew's Polaris. It is set the year 2144. Earth has been ravaged and sent back to another ice age, one where the fish bleed green blood. Pockets of survivors eke out...
Friday One Sheet: ROTTING IN THE SUN
Sex and death. Eros and Thanatos. A corpse with an erection being consumed on a beach. The latest queer comedy from Sebastián Silva (director of the criminally underrated Magic Magic) gets this lovely hand painted poster (if you zoom in...
Friday One Sheet: CREATURA
The 'polaroid' style one-sheet is a particular favourite of mine. As you can see below for Elena Martín's Cannes fêted Creatura, it allows room for pull quotes at the top, a well-kerned title below the image, and an ample credit block that...
SATAN WANTS YOU Interview: Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams Talk Moral Panics
Moral panics have been with us as a species since time immemorial. From the persecution of European pagans at the end of the Roman empire in the Fourth Century, to the Salem witch trials in New England in the 17th...
Friday One Sheet: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS
This Jack Davis-inspired poster for Hundreds of Beavers may or may not have the literal "hundreds" on display; you can count, if you like. Either way, it gives the sense of scale and tone of the film's climactic finale. Illustrated...
Fantasia 2023 Review: THE TASTER, Harbinger of a Bold New Voice
Some time in the near future, the climate crisis, and the resulting extreme water and food shortages, have put Europe into a state of war. What little healthy land that remains lies along Danube Delta in Romania which is hotly...
Fantasia 2023 Review: HOME INVASION, On the Tyranny of Technology and Surveillance
Greame Arnfield really, really does not like the Ring. No, not the infamous J-Horror film or its American remake, but rather the video doorbell company that turned the humble little button that goes ding-dong, into the “smart doorbell,” a cloud...
Fantasia 2023 Review: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, Triumph of Escalating Sight Gags
Hundreds of Beavers has been tearing up the festival circuit for months now, scooping prizes and rapidly building a rabid cult following. And with damn good reason. If you have even the slightest love for slap stick comedy and goofball...
Fantasia 2023 Review: APORIA Is Not Your Typical Time Traveller
Jared Moshé’s latest film, Aporia, is a fascinating paradox: A time travel story where the characters do not time travel. It is a sober, and quite emotional ‘what if’ and ‘if then’ take on parenting. The psychological cause and effect...
Friday One Sheet: LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
With its chunky font, matted border, and boxed head-shots, the Australian poster for Late Night With The Devil, has retro notes of period accuracy. This carries right down to the slightly larger type-setting of the actors' names hovering above the...
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