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:
Hirokazu Koreeda (screenplay)
Stars:
Masaharu Fukuyama, Kôji Yakusho, Isao Hashizume
THE THIRD MURDER is director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s (AFTER LIFE, AFTER THE STORM LIKE FATEHR LIKE SON) first murder mystery/courtroom drama and one that encompasses deep thoughts on morality. From the first scene, Misumi (Kôji Yakusho) robs and kills an industrialist. Misumi freely confesses to the cops, claiming he was desperate to settle a gambling debt.
But defence attorney Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama) isn’t entirely satisfied with his mild-mannered client’s testimony. As Shigemori and his team go about their research, secret histories are brought to light, inconsistencies surface and unlikely alliances point to a more complicated set of circumstances.
One flaw of the film is the point is that it is brought up later Misumi might not have killed the industrialist and someone else could have done it. But showing the killing at the start of the film, dismisses the fact that someone else could have done it.
It is the film’s classic case where a director should never lie in a flashback scene. (Hitchcock did it once in STAGE FRIGHT and was never forgiven for it.) Kore-eda’s shot of Misumi’s reflection in the glass in the film’s final scene when he finally concludes his case with his attorney demands mention. The image in the reflection is different from his actual face reflecting the two sides of the man.
Brilliantly thought of and executed THE THIRD MURDER marks Kore-eda as his continuous best.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Plr3V4TYBQE
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: THE DAY AFTER (South Korea 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:
Yunhee Cho, Ki Joabang, Min-hee Kim
Hong Sangsoo is a Korean director that makes small films on a little budget. Films like his, will never get seen aside outside festivals. Like HILL OF FREEDOM that was also screened a few years back at TIFF, Hong’s THE DAY AFTER is a comedy of errors with lots of dialogue, confused identities and missed meetings.
The protagonist of the story is Kim Bongwan (Kwon Haehyo), the manager of a small, independent publishing company, recovering from his recent affair with Lee Changsook (Kim Saebyuk), his young, attractive, and now former, employee. All the said information is revealed over conversations of the characters.
Song Areum (Kim Minhee) takes over Changsook’s position, unaware of what has transpired and unprepared for the misguided wrath of Bongwan’s furious wife (Cho Yunhee) who suddenly appears at her husband’s office and accuses her of being his lover.
While Kim is initially on display as a deceiver with no redeeming qualities, director Hong reverses that notion by the end of the film. Hong also composed the original music for his film – a quiet entertaining piece.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv0QPchaINk
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: EUPHORIA (Sweden/Germany 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:
Alicia Vikander, Eva Green, Charles Dance
When sisters Ines (Alicia Vikander) and Emile (Eva Green) are greeted at an institution (for the dying) with the standing figure of Charlotte Rampling wearing an overall, one can immediately tell what will happen is not going to be good. Ines is about to die of cancer and she wants to find closure with her sister as to the past.
EUPHORIA marks the English-language debut of Sweden’s Lisa Langseth and it is simply terrible. This is new age stuff that many will just gawk at.
The written dialogue is also plain awful. The kind of words Emile uses, the swearing and all is also used by Ines’ character. The words or ideas of different characters should be distinct. The film could do with a bit of humour – as dealing with death is a topic ripe for some black humour. Whenever Ines coerces Emile to talk about an incident in the past, she will later use that against her and lose it.
If Emile could not see this coming, the audience certainly can, for the script is too predictably cliched. Charles Dance puts a bit of life into the film as a dying man who organizes his own farewell party. The film turns out to be a muddled look on death mortality.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: APRIL’S DAUGHTER (LAS HIJAS DE ABRIL)(Mexico 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:
Emma Suárez, Ana Valeria Becerril, Enrique Arrizon
Emma Suarez (Almodovar’s JULIETA) plays a crazy mother, one that appears warm and caring at first glance but turns out to be calculating and ruthless. April, mother of a pregnant teen re-enters her daughter’s, Valeria (Ana Valeria Becerril) life, her energetic, take-charge attitude taking on considerably more disturbing hues once the child is born.
She eventually kidnaps the baby and horrors, as if that is not enough, sleeps with Valeria’s boyfriend, the child’s father, Mateo (Enrique Arrizon).
Mateo is good-looking enough to temp both mother and daughter but is a character with no backbone. Director Franco shows what happens when maternal instincts are taken to the extreme – and it is not nice!
The rest go the film follows Valeria as she searches for her kidnapped daughter. One wishes for a more upbeat ending given the film’s theme as the ending is a bit of a letdown. Excellent performance by Emma Suarez! A good female film from a male director.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEVp4rvpD7I
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: DOWNRANGE (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:
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
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