TIFF movie review

TIFF 2016 Movie Review: SAMI BLOOD (SAME BLOD) (Sweden/Denmark/Norway 2016) ****

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

sami_blood_poster.jpgSAMI BLOOD (SAME BLOD) (Sweden/Denmark/Norway 2016) ****
Directed by Amanda Kernell

Review by Gilbert Seah

An impressive and totally compelling coming-of-age passage film of a teenage Sami girl Elle Marja (wonderfully portrayed by Lene Cecilia Sparrok). At the same time, it is a look of prejudice that was prevalent in the 30’s when the film is set.

Elle Marja is of Lapps descent and forced into an educational system that taught them that their customs and lifestyles were inferior at best. She runs away and finally gains entry to Swede education but only after overcoming surmounting odds. This is a story that needs to be told for enlightening of what occurred in the past.

The film also celebrates Lapps culture with lots of scenes with reindeer.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FFyRuwkZ94

 

 

 

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month: http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

TIFF 2016 Movie Review: ZOOLOGY (Russia/France/Germany 2016) ****

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

zoology_.jpgZOOLOGY (Russia/France/Germany 2016) ****
Directed by Ivan I. Tverdovsky

Starring: Masha Tokareva, Natalya Pavlenkova, Aleksandr Gorchilin

Review by Gilbert Seah

My personal favourite of the festival so far, ZOOLOGY which won the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival is part comedy of errors, part social satire, and part tender love story.

The film follows Natasha (an excellent low keyed performance by Natalia Pavlenkova), a lonely middle-aged woman who still lives at home with her mother, unfolds in an ordinary, uneventful manner at first. Stuck behind a desk at the local zoo, ignored by her malicious, clucking colleagues, Natasha lives her solitary existence in withdrawn defeat.

That is, until something unexpected turns her life upside down: one day she discovers that she has grown a tail. The comedy comes from how she reacts with the tail. She tucks it in her panties and dances with it. It is hilarious how it does not bother her though rumours are going on about the town of a demon human with a tail.

The satire comes from the runarounds she is given when she gets X-Rays for her tail as well as her work at the zoo. Her love arrives unexpectedly from a hospital staff who has a tail fetish. Funny, intelligent and totally unpredictable, this surreal comedy is a total delight from start to finish.

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month: http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

TIFF 2016 Movie Review: JEAN OF THE JONESES (Canada 2016)

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

jean_of_the_jonesesJEAN OF THE JONESES (Canada 2016) **
Directed by Stella Meghie

Starring: Mamoudou Athie, Gloria Reuben, Shailyn Pierre-Dixon

Review by Gilbert Seah

Writer/director Stella Meghie’s comedy concerning three generations of vibrant, vociferous, unforgettable women in the Brooklyn-based Jones family is the kind of film that is too smart for its own good.

Likely set in Brooklyn in order to be more commercial, the film would do better to be more originally set as an African Canadian film in a black Canadian neighbourhood. The film is slanted black all the way. When a man who shows up at the family home dies, the paramedic, Ray (Mamoudou Athie) who shows up in the ambulance is black. Whites are clearly a minority here and other minorities are absent.

The lead character is Jean (Taylour Paige) who falls for this annoying paramedic. The question is what she sees in him, or vice versa. Jean cannot get along with her sister or anyone she is trying to get a free place to stay with.

There is hardly anything to be learnt nor anything really humorous in this so-called comedy about an annoying family no one wants to meet. The only funny part is the segment where the sisters are caught smoking up in the car by their grandmother (Michelle Hurst) outside her house.

 

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month: http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews: JULIETA (Spain 2016) *** 1/2 Directed by Pedro Almodovar

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

julieta.jpg JULIETA (Spain 2015) *** 1/2
Directed by Pedro Almodovar

Stars: Adriana Ugarte, Rossy de Palma, Emma Suárez

Review by Gilbert Seah

A film being looked forward to, as it is based on Canadian author and Nobel Prize Winner Alice Munro’s short stores from her book “Runaway”.

Written and directed by Pedro Almodovar, his 20th film marks a departure from his signature melodrama to more high drama. Three short stores are combined into a strong narrative, told largely in flashback with a voiceover by the lead character, obviously called Julieta (Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte as older and younger versions of the film’s protagonist)

Film cineastes will be delighted to connect with film references from anything from the recent WINTER’S BONE seen in a poster to STRANGERS ON A TRAIN with a nod to author Patrician Highgate.

The film contains more dialogue than the standard Almodovar movie, and it is for this reason the director opted not to do the initial English languanger version with Meryl Streep in the title role. Aldmodovar’s use of bright colours is still felt throughout tho colourful story of life and regrets.

Trailer: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=NHkGsbz8rLY