Posts Tagged ‘Toronto Film Festival reviews’
 

 

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
 

 
 

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 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
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Power Of The Dog,” “Violet” & “The Story Of My Wife”

  THE POWER OF THE DOG (Netflix – theatrical release Nov 17, streaming Dec 1):  Jane Campion’s first feature in a dozen years is a powerhouse that won’t be to all tastes.  It’s a western that sets...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “If Beale Street Could Talk” & “Ben Is Back”

  IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK (Annapurna – November 30):  Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Moonlight received a rapturous standing ovation at its Toronto premiere, and it’s unquestionably a beautiful piece of ...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Knives Out” & “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood”

  KNIVES OUT (Lionsgate – November 27):  Rian Johnson’s delectable reinvention of the old-fashioned puzzle whodunnit wears its convoluted plotting on its sleeve, weaving and circling about so that when you thi...
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: “A Star Is Born” & “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

  A STAR IS BORN (Warners – October 5):  Bradley Cooper, making his directing debut, decided to do the equivalent of a first-time weightlifter starting out with a 400-pound barbell.  It isn’t just that A Star...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Mothering Sunday,” “Petite Maman” & “All My Puny Sorrows”

  MOTHERING SUNDAY (Sony Classics – Nov 19):  Eva Husson’s film, adapted by Alice Birch from a Graham Swift novel, has many of the rote trappings of prestige costume drama.  We’re back in the English co...
by Mitch Salem
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Jojo Rabbit” & “Seberg”

  JOJO RABBIT (Fox Searchlight – October 4):  The discourse about Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit has quickly become a debate between those who think its Nazi-era black comedy is authentically daring, and those wh...
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
 

 
 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Judy” & “Motherless Brooklyn”

  JUDY (Roadside – September 27):  Oscar bait in its fullest form, a showbiz celebrity biography built around the work of a performer making a comeback, requiring said performer to alter appearance and render servic...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

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: “Destroyer” & “Climax”

  DESTROYER (Annapurna – Dec. 25):  Another fractured-time thriller, this one trickier than most, because the script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi features a sort of time-loop within a loop.  All that structural fa...
by Mitch Salem
 

 

 

SHOWBUZZDAILY Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “The Guilty,” “Lakewood” & “The Starling”

  THE GUILTY (Netflix – Oct. 1):  One way to cope with the challenges and costs of movie production during Covid is to limit the number of actors who have to be in front of the camera.  That’s tough for a thr...
by Mitch Salem