Posts Tagged ‘Toronto Film Festival reviews’
 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Breathe” & “3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”

  BREATHE (Bleecker Street – Oct 13):  BREATHE wasn’t the favored Triumph of the Human Spirit drama at Toronto this year; that title went to Stronger, with Jake Gyllanhaal as a survivor of the Boston Marathon ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Downsizing” & “The Shape of Water”

  DOWNSIZING (Paramount – Dec 22):  Alexander Payne’s latest film (written with his usual partner Jim Taylor) is a delight–and a bit of a mess.  On its face, Downsizing is a leap out of Payne and Taylor...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “mother!” & “Unicorn Store”

  mother! (Paramount – Sept 15):  It may come as a shock to people who have been following the marketing for Darren Aronofsky’s mother! to find out that it isn’t a horror movie at all.  It uses thriller...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Disobedience” & “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”

  DISOBEDIENCE (no distrib):  Sebastian Lelio’s adaptation (with Rebecca Landiewicz) of Naomi Alderman’s novel is one of the surprises of the festival.  It would be perfectly reasonable for the idea of Rachel...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Children Act,” “Suburbicon” & “Chappaquiddick”

  THE CHILDREN ACT (no distrib):  It’s not intended as disparagement to Ian McEwan’s novel and screenplay adaptation, or to Richard Eyre’s film, that THE CHILDREN ACT feels much of the time like it could...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Molly’s Game” & “I Love You, Daddy”

  MOLLY’S GAME (STX):  Aaron Sorkin is a celebrated (or notorious, depending on your point of view) control freak, so it’s surprising that it’s taken him this long to decide to direct his own work.  His...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Death of Stalin,” “I, Tonya” & “Kodachrome”

  KODACHROME (no distrib):  AKA that page of the indie movie playbook marked “Dysfunctional Family Road Trip To Redemption.”  Jonathan Tropper (This Is Where I Leave You) wrote the script, and it has his nove...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 7 Capsule Reviews: “Paterson” & “The Salesman”

  Note:  this will be our final installment of Toronto reviews, although the festival runs on until Sunday. It’s been a good if not classic festival, with a trio of legitimately great presentations in La La Land, Ja...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 6 Capsule Reviews: “La La Land,” “Deepwater Horizon, “Brimstone” & “Wakefield”

  LA LA LAND (Summit/Lionsgate – December 2):  No film arrived at Toronto this year with more hype to live up to than Damien Chazelle’s La La Land, the follow-up to the filmmakers’s Oscar-winning Whiplas...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 5 Capsule Reviews: “Jackie,” “Arrival,” “Loving,” “Blue Jay,” & “Black Mirror”

  JACKIE (Fox Searchlight – December 9):  The most impressive film of the festival thus far is director Pablo Larrain’s jewel-like examination of the realities and artifices behind our perceptions of history, ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 4 Capsule Reviews: “Sing,” “Denial,” “Nocturnal Animals,” “Moonlight” & “Queen of Katwe”

  For this audience member, it was the day Toronto moved into high gear. MOONLIGHT (A24 – October 21):  Barry Jenkins’s second film, after his little-seen but much-praised Medicine For Melancholy, is a validat...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 3 Capsule Reviews: A Monster Calls, Lion, The Bleeder, Colossal & Elle

  COLOSSAL (no distrib):  Well, you haven’t seen this take on sci-fi spectacles before.  In Nacho Vigalondo’s whatzit, party girl Gloria (Anne Hathaway) and her hometown friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis) discover...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Day 2 Capsule Reviews: “Snowden,” “American Pastoral” & “Carrie Pilby”

  SNOWDEN (Open Road – Sept 16):  Oliver Stone’s return to politically-charged biography is subdued by the standards of his Nixon or W.  It’s a hagiography that follows the character arc of his Born of ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Capsule Reviews

  A week at the Toronto Film Festival added up to 24 screenings–a decent pace, but not an outstanding one.  Blame some vagaries of the festival’s scheduling, and a baseline decision that Midnight Madness was t...
by Mitch Salem