Tag: tiff2013
TIFF 2013 Review: ENOUGH SAID Simply Falls Flat
I saw Enough Said at a festival screening surrounded by several of my colleagues. They laughed at the jokes (there are many), they fell for the characters, and they left the film happy and content with this presumably insightful and...
TIFF 2013 Review: STARRED UP, A Gritty And Intense Morality Play
Starred Up is a gritty, intense, and shockingly unique take on the prison drama genre. Yes, there are echoes of the likes of HBO's OZ, but David MacKenzie's take on the family dynamics in jail is executed in a fresh...
TIFF 2013 Music Doc Dispatch: 12.12.12 And MADE IN AMERICA
There are loads of ways to do a concert documentary. One is to simply shoot the goings on that take place on stage - set up a bunch of cameras and be done with it. Given that the majority of...
TIFF 2013 Review: SUNSHINE ON LEITH Supplies Musical Warmth
What would happen if Ken Loach or Mike Leigh made a musical? You know, cast a bunch of hardscrabble Brits in a family drama, add a bit of grit and friction, and set it all within the context of a...
TIFF 2013 Review: In THE F WORD, F Is For Fresh
Ah, the 20-something romantic comedy. A genre usually filled with twee Emo-soundtrack tunes, magical or manic pixie dreamgirls, and the shuffling boys who win their love through good heartedness. Some are decent, some utterly wretched, but most follow a pretty...
TIFF 2013 Review: BAD WORDS, Jason Bateman's Dark And Funny Debut
The career of Jason Batemen is rather fascinating. Rising from a sidekick on Silver Spoons early in his career, he stumbled through a number of films that his sister's sit-com sibling would pass on (including the truly egregious Teen Wolf Too)....
TIFF 2013 Review: ENEMY Explores Villeneuve's More Unique Side
With film, things often come in pairs. Sometimes the doubles are explicit; some studio vying with another for a given plot, be it a tale of animated insects or impending asteroid impacts. Sometimes, the twinning takes the form of accidental...
AnarchyVision: Jason Gorber Wraps Up TIFF 2013
Despite barely being able to string two sentences together with any kind of coherence, yet wearing a R100 shirt for good measure, I managed to not sound like a complete idiot last night chatting with Scott Laurie about TIFF 2013....
TIFF 2013 Review: THE STAG Works Its Comedy Formula To Perfection
There is a commonly stated belief among film fans - particularly the sort of fans who frequent film festivals - that formula is bad. That everyone should strive for originality, should tell a story that has never been told before....
TIFF 2013 Review: A TOUCH OF SIN Is A Touch Too Slight
Almost a week after I screened A Touch Of Sin, I'm still trying to come to grips with my reaction to it. There's plenty to admire about Jia Zhangke's film, from its stark violence through its sweeping scope, but I...
TIFF 2013 Review: THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS Will Break Your Brain
Already well loved on the festival circuit for a string of stellar, giallo infused short films, Belgium based directing duo Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattet burst on to the international scene is spectacular fashion with their 2009 debut feature Amer....
Destroy All Monsters: Can You Like The Film If The Filmmaker's A Dick?
Steve McQueen's a dick. At least, he seems to be. I don't know the man personally and I've never spent any time with him one-on-one, but here at the Toronto International Film Festival, in Q&As and at press conferences, he...
TIFF 2013 Review: MAN OF TAI CHI Plays It Down The Middle
It's not entirely simply a matter of being snarky to refer to Keanu Reeve's directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, as a vanity project through and through. Constructed as a showcase for martial artist Tiger Hu Chen, this is hardly...
TIFF 2013 Review: OCULUS Isn't Just A Great Midnight Film, It's A Great Film, Period
The Midnight Madness slate usually has a few rules - keep things snappy, keep them gory, and you'll do well to keep the denizens of the dark with you for a running time that stretches well into the very early...
TIFF 2013 Review: KILL YOUR DARLINGS Presents A Woefully Clumsy And Shallow Hagiography Of The Beat Generation
Seldom, if ever, has a film taken such potent source material as does John Krokidas' Kill Your Darlings and proven itself so completely and utterly clueless as to what to do with it. Krokidas here tackles the rise of the...
TIFF 2013 Review: SIDDHARTH Is A Beautifully Tragic Portrait Of India
It is every parents worst nightmare: You entrust your child to the care of another and when the allotted time for their return arrives they simply do not. They're just gone and you're left not knowing where or how or...
TIFF 2013 Review: R100 Is Another Mind Bending Trip From Japan's Savant Of The Strange
By the time Matsumoto Hitoshi made the move into feature films with his 2007 effort Big Man Japan, he was already a massive star in his native Japan, his television comedy work having firmly established Matsumoto as one of the...
TIFF 2013 Review: MCCANICK Brings Old-School Grit To Screen
Once upon a time, our screens were littered with one-name cops - Serpico, Canon, Columbo, Kojak, all with hard C-sounding consonant names that bespoke of a grittiness or hard hardheadedness. It's no surprise that McCanick borrows both the power of...
TIFF 2013 Review: THE SACRAMENT Will Make You Want To Drink The Kool-Aid
Sometimes we are frankly limited by our terminology. What do you call a film that uses in-world video? That is to say, what do you call a film where the camera used to exclusively record the footage is incorporated...
AnarchyVision: Jason Gorber Talks TIFF13, GRAVITY, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, And THE SQUARE
Already quite a year, and we're only four days into this 11-day fest! Something kind of unique for me, my first "stand up" in front of a boisterous crowd, talking TIFF off the top of my head. Chatted about Cuarón's...
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