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:
Kelly Connaire, Stephanie Pearson, Rod Hernandez
DOWNRANGE is a horror Midnight Madness movie with all the gore, blood and violence expected from any film in the series. The simple plot involves a van with assorted male and female youth stranded on an unknown highway, after an unseen sniper shoots out one of the tires. They become the sniper’s targets one after another.
If blood and gore is all that is needed to satisfy, then a complicated plot is not really needed, but a film with a plot this simple runs into trouble soon. For one, there is hardly any opportunity for new horror set-ups, and the film grows tiresome soon, despite different bloodied body parts getting shot up.
The lazy script does not even offer a hint of explanation who the sniper is or what his reason for doing all the damage might be. A welcome diversion involved another car that comes along the highway after an hour or so, with some spectacular blow ups.
Director Kitamura (VERSUS) appears over-confident when he introduced his movie at the festival.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBf0xLj7FhU
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: SWEET COUNTRY (Australia 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:
Bryan Brown, Matt Day, Tremayne Doolan
An Australian outback western and a very good one at that. Based on true events that occurred in 1929, SWEET COUNTRY tracks the killing, search and trial of Aboriginal Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris).
Aboriginal stockman Sam works the land of a kind preacher, Fred Smith (Sam Neill), living and labouring in a respectful, if diffident, harmony.
But when a bitter and often-drunk war veteran named Harry March (Ewen Leslie) returns to town, trouble escalates and Sam is forced to kill in self-defence. Shocked, afraid, and with a deep distrust in the impartiality of settler authority, Sam and his wife, Lizzie (Natassia Gorey-Furber), go on the run.
They are immediately pursued by a posse led by Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown) and Aboriginal tracker Archie (Gibson John), expert bushman Sam must ultimately decide which of several looming unknowns to face.
The whites are shown as racist pigs while the abused Aborigines are not that angelic either. If there is any redemption for the white man, there is the good Fred Smith and more important and the change of heart of Fletcher (subtly shown).
A very absorbing film with almost perfect storyboarded set-ups from atmosphere to performances.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYKBG1znk4A
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: WINTER BROTHERS (VINTERBRODEN) (Denmark/Iceland 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:
Michael Brostrup, Anders Hove, Elliott Crosset Hove
The WINTER BROTHERS of the title are Johan and his younger brother Emil, two miners whose routines, habits, and rituals are ruptured by a violent feud with a neighbouring family.
Emil (Elliott Crosset Hove) is an odd character who when not whipping out his dick for no reason, would charm the local girl in the area. But more important than the action of the film are the lives of the miners on display.
Amidst the bleak, white and barren landscape of the mines and worse the black of the inside of the mines, the miners try to etch up a decent living. Director Pálmason contrasts both the bright light of the snow and deep darkness of the mines.
The film is really slow but what is on display here is the reality of the setting. Even the fight over a girl between two men was shot in all its ferocity (with one of the men in the total nude).
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkHG7cXVJoU
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: GUTLAND (Luxembourg/Germany/Belgium) ***
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:
Razvan Radulescu (script doctor), Govinda Van Maele
Stars:
Frederick Lau, Vicky Krieps, Pit Bukowski
A very surreal thriller noir set in a farming Luxembourg community, a rarity that makes GUTLAND a very intriguing film. It begins with the arrival of an outsider in the agricultural community of Schandelsmillen. Harvest season is already well underway, but Jens (Frederick Lau), a German drifter, is looking for work.
He is taken on as a farmhand — and also to bed by Lucy (Vicky Krieps), a single mother who picks him up at the village beer hall. He is visited by the town mayor who warns him never to sleep with the folk’s married women.
It turns out that Jens is not an innocent outsider but a robber with a past to hide. But the townsfolk are not that innocent either. The mayor’s band with Jens as a new recruit makes good irony.
The film is quite confusing and I had to sit back and ponder the plot and put the pieces after the closing credits. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sif439KtxWM
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: BODIED (USA 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:
Writers:
Joseph Kahn (story), Joseph Kahn
Stars:
Calum Worthy, Jackie Long, Rory Uphold
A film about battle rap, I almost walked out within the first 10 minutes not being a fan of this brutal sport. But music video director Kahn’s film increases in intensity while drawing the audience into the world of battle rapping. By the end of the film, one would not only have a more insightful view of the sport but be entertained as well.
The film begins with a battle with explanations of certain terms used by a white couple attending – Adam and his girlfriend. The film assumes the perspective of Adam (Calum Worthy), a white, purportedly progressive graduate student who infiltrates a community of diverse battle rappers for the sake of an edgy thesis.
Before long he develops his own predilection for skilfully slinging rhymed insults and epithets as a competitive poet. Adam is finally forced to choose between his love and his unforgiving girlfriend. Can Adam have the best of both worlds?
The film contains some really awesome rap battles. BODIED is produced by Eminem.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEfbPQVV7wg
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: VICTORIA AND ABDUL (UK 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:
Lee Hall (screenplay), Shrabani Basu (based on the book by)
Stars:
Judi Dench, Olivia Williams, Michael Gambon
VICTORIA AND ABDUL chronicles with humour and insight the friendship between Queen Victoria (Oscar Winner Judi Dench) and a decades-younger Indian clerk named Abdul Karim. Karim has been summoned because of his height to present a ceremonial coin on behalf of British India to the Queen as a part of her Golden Jubilee in 1887. Abdul has done what is forbidden during the ceremony.
He makes eye contact with the Queen who finds him handsome. In no time he is cooking her curries, talking to her about his culture, and being elevated to the post of official clerk, or Munshi, becoming an indispensable part of the household — and state.
Frears’ assessment of Britain and royalty remain respectful. Queen Victoria is revealed in the film with all her grandeur (her royal attire and servants) but also with all her faults and her ageing process. She also claims herself to be and shown as well as cankerous, ill-tempered, fat but also one that has held five generations of household and mother of many children and grandchildren.
VICTORIA AND ABDUL is Frears’ mediocre film which is tolerant of everything and offends no one. These kind of films are often humorous, handsomely mounted, well acted but unfortunately forgetful.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT2Ph_9bGPs
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: HIGH FANTASY (SOUTH AFRICA 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:
Stars:
Qondiswa James, Nala Khumalo, Francesca Varrie Michel
Four friends (1 male 3 females, two black and one white) on a camping trip at an isolated farm around Capetown, South Africa wake up to discover they’ve all swapped bodies.
Four of the actors Qondiswa James, Liza Scholtz, Nala Khumalo, and Francesca Michel all wrote the script together. A mix of comedy and drama, the campers argue on issues like race, gender, inequality while spouting out foul language to no end.
Shot on an iPhone, the film obviously has the feel of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and TANGERINE. This is a personal film, as can be clearly observed, and therefore not for everyone. The filmmakers do not care for anything and just do their thing.
Though occasionally funny, the whole exercise is a wast of time and talent (or rather, effort). The film only serves to prove that one should pick ones friends while going camping.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: IT STAINS THE SANDS RED (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:
Brittany Allen, Juan Riedinger, Merwin Mondesir
The zombie film genre is never short of new entries. The new zombie films have to have fresh ideas or original scare set-ups to entertain audiences, many of whom have been saturated already.
IT STAINS THE SANDS RED begins with a couple, an African American and his sexy girlfriend, Molly (Britanny Allen) stranded in the desert fete the car goes into the ditch after a silly argument.
Mollyis a troubled woman from Las Vegas with a dark past. She finds herself stranded in the desert. This means one of two things – either zombies or a TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE tip family. It is the former with a lone ravenous Zombie (Juan Riedinger) on her tail. At first, she’s easily able to outpace her un-dead pursuer, but things quickly become a nightmare when she realizes the zombie doesn’t need to ever stop and rest. Running low on supplies and beat down by the harsh environment, Molly will have to summon the strength she never knew she had to ultimately face the zombie, and the demons that have chased her all her life.
Molly spends half the movie escaping from the one zombie. At least Director Minihand knows zombies are slower. So, she just needs t walk away faster than the zombie – giving more opportunity for ehr to talk to herself (and hence to the caera) for more nonsense sayings.
Expected stuff in the film includes no signal on the cell phone; the sexy girl surviving and obviously the other one done for; sexy girl victim eventually running off in skimpy outfit (Molly runs around half the time with sexy leather bikini outfit under expensive furs) and more. Would an audience watcher or the big ugly guy? Answer is obvious. Inventive stuff (or slightly inventive for that matter) includes an attack in the night with things that can only be seen with a flashlight; zombie hanging on a ledge; combining her own inner demons and the zombie demons; Molly doing coke while being pursued and stranded in the desert. The metaphor of the inner and inner demons is too obvious and not really needed in a horror flick.
The film is unshamefully politically incorrect with dialogue like, :Bitch!’ and “I am going to cut you rip real deep like a n******* in the sun.” An attempted rape scene is also present for the pleasure of the males.
Film costs are obviously a minimum with just one victim and one zombie. This limits what can be seen in the movie. Molly has to talk to herself aloud. to keep the film’s dialogue going. Minihand makes use of the setting like a sandstorm to add more dimension to the movie.
Humour is silly at most: “Can you ever keep your mouth shut.” “You smell like shit.” “Like every man in a bar, you can never know when to say no.” “And worst of all, “You got a small dick!”
IT STAINS THE SANDS RED ends up a mediocre horror zombie film with just a few but insufficient new tricks.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: THE LEISURE SEEKER (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:
Michael Zadoorian (novel), Stephen Amidon (screenplay)
Stars:
Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland, Kirsty Mitchell
Oscar winner Helen Mirren (THE QUEEN) and Donald Sutherland star as an elderly couple looking for adventure on one (romantic?) final road trip. Ella (Mirren) is dying of cancer.
Her husband, John (Sutherland) is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. As the film opens, their son and daughter discover that their parents have taken off with THE LEISURE SEEKER (the name of their camper), on a last road trip.
Ella nor John is interested in quietly fading away surrounded by nurses and machines just to needlessly prolong a winnowing life. They travel from Boston to Florida (some nice scenery on display) with John behind the wheel. The film is based on the novel by Michael Zadoorian with Italian director Virzi at the helm. But as a film, there is too many issues tackled.
Everything that one can think about growing old is in the film and covered unfortunately in a cliched manner. Director Virzi acts like a traffic cop ushering these issues in an out. The incidents like the traffic comes and goes, none too memorable, and quite boring too, just as the job of directing traffic.
The result is another old farts fantasy film about old people reminiscing or trying to be young again.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd5LWTvMy4U
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: IF YOU SAW HIS HEART (Si tu voyais son coeur) (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:
Stars:
Gael García Bernal, Marine Vacth, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
The film begins with a lively wedding celebration where the audience is introduced to Daniel (Gael Garcia Bernal), a man reeling from grief from the death of his closest friend (shown multiple times in flashback, as if we need reminding) in an accident for which he feels partly responsible. He has been cast out of his insular traveller community.
Living in a rundown rooming house and always behind on rent, Daniel gets by through scams and minor burglaries. His building is populated by colourful misfits and losers, all living on the edge like him.When davidnmeets an equally damaged and fragile young woman, Francine (Vacth), life is then something to hope for.
If You Saw His Heart is based on Cuban author Guillermo Rosales’ 1987 novel Boarding Home (a.k.a. The Halfway House). Director Chemia creates the moody atmosphere of the living conditions that reflect Daniel’s feelings well, but the film suffers from continuity.
Her fond use of flashbacks and revealing the story in non-chronological order is not only confusing but breaks a mood or effect that has been created thus far.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_1kv27NBa0
Festival Reviews 