Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writer:
Stars:
Kevin Janssens, Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Avant Strangel
REVENGE borrows from many classic films like MAD MAX, THE HUNTING PARTY and female stalker movies to provide another gore fest in which victim becomes hunter with a few more tricks on display. This is Carolie Fargeat’s debut feature and an impressive one at that.
A rich businessman, Steve takes his mistress )Italian model Matilda Lutz) on a getaway in a gorgeous mansion by a desert. His two hunting friends show up and abuse her while he goes off for two hours. Instead of being on her side, Steve takes his friends side. When she threatens to tell his wife, Steve’s pushes her off a cliff. She survives. They hunt her down while she, turns the table on them.
The film is the real BATTLE OF THE SEXES, not the one with the same title centred on tennis, also at this year’s TIFF. A few gory set-ups include one where a man extracts chards of glass from the base of his foot and another with her tending to her wounds with the metal of a red hot beer can.
The climatic scene is full of inventive cat-and house chasing complete with Steve applying Saran wrap around his wounds. REVENGE is perfect Midnight Madness fare and had the theatre howling during the screening.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: DARK RIVER (UK 2017) ***1/2
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writer:
Stars: Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean
Director of one of the best films five years ago, THE SELFISH GIANT, DARK RIVER is another drama set in the poor north of England. The setting here is a sheep farm in Yorkshire.
Slice (Ruth Wilson) returns to the farm after a 15 year absence. She left as she was abused by her father, as shown in flashback throughout the film. Her bother, as the neighbour says, is an idiot, and not only does he no listen to reason or Alice’s advice to improve the farm, which we assume does, he is abusive and at one point attacks her while drunk.
Things get worse when he wins tenancy of the land and orders Alice out. It is a tough life for anyone working a farm, made worse with rising working tensions. Barnard’s DARK RIVER shows the emotional anguish Alice goes through.
DARK RIVER is not as satisfying as THE SELFISH GIANT, as it has less story, but the film is no less dramatic. Ruth Wilson is really good as Alice and deserves the BFTA Award for Best Actress.
Clip from the sets: https://teaser-trailer.com/dark-river-movie/
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: ANGELS WEAR WHITE (China/France 2017) ***** Top 10
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writer:
Stars:
Le Geng, Mengnan Li, Weiwei Liu
A brilliantly told tale full of emotional angst that also reflects China’s unknown beach culture. The huge statue of Marilyn Monroe at the beach which is finally taken down for repair serves as a metaphor of the film’s broken characters in need for a better life.
It all begins when a seedy hotel worker witnesses on closed circuit camera a man trying to force himself into the room rented by schoolgirls. An assault occurs and the cops are trying to pin the crime on Commissioner Lu. Lu is rich and has connections with money and the local mob. Writer/director Qu weaves an engrossing tale involves multiple layers, all of whom have something to hide.
The truth of Chinese culture where what appears on the surface is always unclear is clearly reflected by the goings-on. Broken marriages, hotel fronts, the under-aged sex trade and illegal employment are just a few issues on display here.
The actress playing the attorney, the super-efficient, caring and brilliant mind steals the show. Top marks credited to all departments in this excellent and powerful debut by Vivian Qu, a film force now to be reckoned with.
Trailer: (unavailable)
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE (Finland 2017) ****
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writer:
Stars:
Dome Karukoski, Ville Virtanen, Tommi Korpela
The latest film by Master of deadpan comedy Aki Kuarismaki tackles the issue of the refugee crisis in Europe. As the film opens, the audience sees a Syrian refugee, Haji pull himself out of a coal dumpster in ship docked at a port in Finland. Khaled (Sherwan Haji) seeks refugee status but is ironically refused on the basis of peace in his region, just as news on the TV report multiple bombings in his town with dozens of casualties.
At the same time, a Finnish middle-aged man is seeking a new life for himself as he leaves his wife, wins money at poker and buys a restaurant business. The two meet after a fight and Haji is aided by the restaurant owner.
This is Kaurismaki’s most serious film to date and it sends an urgent message of the refugee status. Kaurismaki has still not lost his sense of humour as illustrated in an important scene in the film when Khaled says: “I love Finland like nothing you can imagine, but please get me out of here!”
For those familiar with Kaurismaki, there are familiar segments in this film that are found in his other films like the gambling, starting up a new restaurant business, the cute pet dog and the folk music.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtiFG6utst8
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: DISAPPEARANCE (Norway 2017) ***
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writer:
Stars: Jakob Oftebro, Rifka Lodeizen, Elsie de Brauw
A silent reconciliation or attempt at that anyway, between daughter and concert pianist mother will immediately draw comparison with Ingmar Bergman’s classic AUTUMN SONATA.
In DISAPPEARANCE, Norwegian photojournalist Roos (Rifka Lodeizen) makes her annual visit home. In the film, she stops her car in the middle of a snow field to smoke a fag.
While reaching the home, loud barking dogs greet her. These are signs that things are going to be rough with mother. Such is the enjoyment of DISAPPEARANCE, a slow moving but pensive tale where the mother, Louise (Elsie de Brauw), a celebrated former concert pianist, remains as cold and remote as the wintry alpine landscape she inhabits, while Roos’ precocious 13-year-old half-brother, Bengt (Marcus Hanssen), continues to conduct his experiments with sound recording and mixing.
The audience witnesses a dramatic transformation has transpired in Roos as she reconciles with Louise, in this stunningly photographed film.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToARBtyKts4
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: ALIAS GRACE (Canada 2017) ***
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Sarah Gadon, Edward Holcroft, Zachary Levi
ALIAS ALICE is a layered historical drama based on of Margaret Atwood’s Giller Prize–winning novel about a poor Irish servant accused and convicted of murder, from Canadians screenwriter Sarah Polley and director Mary Harron (AMERICAN PSYCHO).
This is a woman’s film all the way, and the female presence is felt – and in a good way. The story concerns the incident of Marks allegedly killing her wealthy employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his stern housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, in Upper Canada in 1843.
Years later, as the adult Grace relates her story (as the film begins) to an increasingly appalled and distracted doctor brought in to assess her sanity, it becomes clear there’s far more at work here than widely assumed. The ALIAS PROJECT is filmed as a TV miniseries.
The film shown at TIFF, well shot, well acted, written and directed and even more impressive being for TV, is comprised of the first two episodes.
The film ends with the audience wanting for more.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: DOWNSIZING (USA 2017) ****
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writers:
Stars:
Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau
DOWNSIZING, a film combining several genres offers the solution to the world’s problem of overpopulation.
If people can be reduced in size to a thousandth of their original, many of the world problems could be solved. People will only eat, use and dispose much, much less product. When science finally achieved the success of downsizing, many colonies were begun.
So, Matt Damon and wife opt to be reduced and live in their new reduced size colony for monetary benefit. Things never go as expected, as in a similar film long time back in Michael Crichton’s sci-fi WESTWORLD.
DOWNSIZING contains a script written by Payne and Jim Taylor that is occasionally brilliant with lots of attention to details. The film does not go into thriller territory but into more ambitious aims. Payne’s social satire does not fully work and ends up too ambitious for its own good.
Still, the film is engaging from start to finish to a large part to Damon’s performance with help from a host of impressive stars (Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Laura Dern, Jason Sudeikis, Alec Baldwin, and Neil Patrick Harris). Better a film that with high aims that falters that a minimalist film with no faults.
The special effects and cinematography are also amazing. Shot in Toronto and around the fiords of Norway.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: PLONGER (France 2017) ***
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
Director:
Writers:
Christophe Deslandes (screenplay), Julien Lambroschini(screenplay)
Stars:
Gilles Lellouche, María Valverde, Ibrahim Ahmed
PLONGER refers to scuba diving, the sport featured in the film and in the relationship between Paz (María Valverde) is a Spanish photographer seeking adventure and César (Gilles Lellouche), a French war correspondent, but he is now looking for a quieter life.
The two are very different people. They fall in love. Wen Paz is pregnant, their reactions are different. PLONGER looks at birth from a whole different perspective as well as the relationship of the couple.
Though the film centres on Paz, the story is related from the man Cesar’s point of view, which is interesting as this is a female director’s film. Pensive and full of insight despite, PLONGER is well worth a look.
The film is an adaptation of Christophe Ono-dit Biot’s novel of the same name. The film also contains stunning underwater photography.
Trailer: (unavailable at time of writing)
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: NUMERO UNE (NUMBER ONE) (France 2017) ***
Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2017. Go to TIFF 2017 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.
In this whip-smart drama about corporate sexism, top French star Emmanuelle Devos plays a high-ranking female executive who is forced to consider her options and marshal her forces when she realizes that the glass ceiling is fast approaching.
Director:
Writers:
Raphaëlle Bacqué (collaboration), Marion Doussot
Tonie Marshall’s corporate drama NUMERO UNE has high hopes for women, the director herself being one of the top French directors today. The story charts the climb to first place of a female business executive, Emmanuelle (Emmanuelle Devos) to head a top CAC 40 (French Stock Market) company.
She is very good at her current job, as seen in many sequences, even speaking and singing Chinese songs with Chinese executives in her environmental friendly wind turbine company. She is wooed by a feminist group to head Athena, though this comes at a cost of her husband (John Lynch) losing his job and other nasties.
The film itself has high hopes but gets bogged down by having one too many subplots which include, Emmanuelle’s sick father (veteran actor Sami Frey), her marriage problems, blackmail and other assortment of problems.
Still Devos (READ MY LIPS, KINGS AND QUEENS, UN PROPHET), as always is a pleasure to watch, and so is the film, despite its flaws.
Movie Review: IT (USA 2017) ***
Writers:
Chase Palmer (screenplay), Cary Fukunaga (screenplay) |
Stars:
Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard
IT is the much anticipated new horror film based on the 1986 Stephen King of the same name. Any novel by King turns out to be a box-office hit. IT expects to do the same and not only that, but to boost the 2017 box-office from its awful slump in recent months. IT was first adapted in a 1990 series, but many like myself have never see it.
The basic story involves seven children, with stuttering Bill being the main one, all terrorized by a killer dancing clown called Pennywise. Their town of Derry, Maine have experienced disappearing children in the past. One of the kids researched that these events occur once every 27 years. It is later revealed that Pennywise comes out to eat children. The kids have to say together in order to defeat the monster.
The film never compromises the horror – which is both emotional and physical. IT is clearly a film for adults but with both adult and childhood horror. Besides the real terror of the dancing clown, there is the notion that the terror is also imagined. When the terrorized kids stick together, Pennywise is defenceless. The film also emphasizes the terror of being alone.
As a result of the un-compromised horror, the film turns out to be quite nasty. The nastiness includes:
– poor young Georgie at the start of the film losing an entire arm
– pedophilia with Beverly terrorized sexually by her father
– bullying taken to the limit with the bullies using a knife to cut up a victim and a vicious fight of rock throwing lots of blood splattering a son killing his father with a switchblade
With a story involving a total of 7 kids, it is expected and it does happen, that not all the stories are completely told. The main kid, Bill, for example has a few minutes with his parents who are then absent throughout the rest of the film .
IT though set in Maine (as in many of King’s stories) was shot in the Riverdale neighbourhood of Toronto and also around Oshawa and Port Hope. Canadians will definitely recognize their typical built neighbourhoods, with the streets and storm drains, like the one shown early in the film when Georgie first meets the killer clown.
Despite the film’s flaws, director Andy Muschietti (MAMA) effectively piles the horrors on. His display of emotional and physical terror is well balanced. The horror and shock effects are quite good. The film is definitely many steps ahead of recent horror films like ANNABELLE CREATION.
The film running at 135 minutes, is long for a horror movie which normally runs 90 minutes. Thought the film is scary in most parts, the film drags in the middle. At the end of the film, the credits ‘Chapter 1’ appear, which means a sequel is for sure already in the making. The second instalment should be good if it is at least good as this one.
Festival Reviews 