Posts Tagged ‘TIFF 2024 reviews’
 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Shrouds” & “Bird”

  THE SHROUDS (no distrib):  At age 81, David Cronenberg’s fascination with the malignant possibilities of the human body, and with the fiendish manipulation of same, still knows no bounds.  The Shrouds begins wi...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Heretic” & “Emilia Perez”

  HERETIC (A24 – Nov. 15):  A nifty piece of philosophical horror from Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the writers of the original A Quiet Place.  The set-up is almost fairy tale in its simplicity.  A pair of young wo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Substance” & “Nutcrackers”

THE SUBSTANCE (MUBI – Sept. 20):  It’s quite a feat to take the body horror crown at a film festival that also features a contribution from David Cronenberg, but Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance uses its revo...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Queer” & “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life”

  QUEER (A24 – TBD):  Luca Guadagnino has unearthed glamour in the blood-soaked dance troupe/witches’ coven of Suspiria and the cannibal romance of Bones and All, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that his s...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Brutalist” & “The Last Showgirl”

  THE BRUTALIST (A24 – TBD):  The most remarkable thing about Brady Corbet’s epic may be that it’s so enjoyable to watch.  The notion of a 197-minute saga (not including intermission) about Holocaust s...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Megalopolis” & “Millers In Marriage”

  MEGALOPOLIS (American Zoetrope/Lionsgate – Sept. 27):  Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited, much-discussed return to epic filmmaking, self-financed to the tune of $125M+ (he’s paying for the marketing...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “William Tell” & “The Cut”

  WILLIAM TELL (Goldwyn – 2025):  If it requires a certain amount of audacity to take a short children’s story and expand it into a violent adult action epic, that gall has to rise by several orders of magnit...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Saturday Night” & “Conclave”

  SATURDAY NIGHT (Columbia/Sony – Sept 27):  It’s easy to imagine a film about Saturday Night Live making a statement about the cultural, political and financial impact of the show, or recounting its long jou...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Life of Chuck” & “We Live In Time”

  THE LIFE OF CHUCK (no distrib):  Although Mike Flanagan first gained attention as a director of low-budget feature films, he may be the first horror filmmaker to become an acknowledged master of the genre largely throu...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Review: “Babygirl”

  BABYGIRL (A24 – Dec. 25):  We’ve reached the point where Nicole Kidman’s work ethic has become something of a running gag.  In the past 5 years alone, she’s appeared in an incredible eight feat...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Anora” & “All Of You”

ANORA (Neon – Oct. 17):  Sean Baker has been making quirky, captivating character studies for some time now, starting with Starlet in 2012 and following it with Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket.  The ro...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “On Swift Horses” & “Hard Truths”

  ON SWIFT HORSES (no distrib):  In the years after World War II, Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) marries Lee (Will Poulter), who’s hardworking and in love with her but not exciting, and they move into the Kansas house ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Room Next Door” & “Eden”

  THE ROOM NEXT DOOR (Sony Classics – Dec. 20):  Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language feature is in keeping with his recent, more contemplative films (Pain and Glory, Parallel Mothers), but it’s eve...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “Nightbitch” & “The Order”

  NIGHTBITCH (Searchlight/Disney – Dec. 6):  Writer/director Marielle Heller tries to move outside her comfort zone with Nightbitch, following the small-scale character studies Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Can You Ever ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

Toronto Film Festival 2024 Reviews: “The Assessment” & “Road Diary”

  THE ASSESSMENT (no distrib);  It seems initially as though Fleur Fortune’s feature directing debut The Assessment will be easy to peg.  The script, by John Donnelly and the duo credited as “Mrs and Mr Thoma...
by Mitch Salem