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.
Directors:
Writer:
Stars:
Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Elisabeth Shue |
by Gilbert Seah
BATTLE OF THE SEXES begins with Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) just winning the women’s singles tennis championship making her number one female player in the world.
King is outraged with the inequality of pay by the National Tennis League, especially with Jack, the chairman (Bill Pullman), who is shown to be the real villain of the story. Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), arranges the battle of the sexes match, using his loud mouth and publicity to earn himself some cash to aid his failing marriage. To King, winning this match is more symbolic.
It is a milestone for women’s rights for equal pay, a point that is mentioned at the film’s end credits but not made clear throughout the film. The lazy script by Simon Beaufoy (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) never bothers with important details of the story.
The film overdramatizes to the point of laughter. One scene has Billie’s lover in her hair salon shop hearing the news of Billie, realizing that she is needed and dramatically drops everything to leave the salon. The wardrobe of the 70’s has never looked so awful in any other film.The script contains lots of inane dialogue and unfunny jokes.
One line has Larry asking his wife if she was getting a blow dry, with full sexual innuendo. The film sheds no real light on the female rights movement, except what we already know.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ykcuAS1F4
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: SHEIKH JACKSON (Egypt 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:
Basma, Amina Khalil, Ahmad El-Fishawi
Sheikh Jackson is the nickname given to Sheikh as a kid for loving the pop idol Michael Jackson.
The film concentrates on Sheikh as a grown man, now a devout imam (Ahmad Alfishawy) who tends to be praying all the time and demanding devout behaviour of his children, just as his father (Maged El Kedwany), shown in flashback demanded of him.
Didn’t Sheikh learn from his father’s mistakes? Sheikh is also upset that he cannot cry while praying and sees a female psychologist, the sex of which he objects to.
Salama’s film is all over the place, with no observable goal. He has put on centre a subject which western audiences are unfamiliar with and makes no attempt to make him likeable or connected to the audience. The influence of Jackson over Sheikh is also vague at best.
A few comical moments like watching the father pump weights in the gym like a world class bodybuilder helps elevate this otherwise sordid affair.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsijix35ORE
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: A WORTHY COMPANION (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.
Directors:
Writers:
Stars:
Evan Rachel Wood, Julia Sarah Stone, Denis O’Hare
Montreal-based fine arts photographers Carlos and Jason Sanchez’s debut feature is a hard psychological thriller which centres on a 30-year-old woman (Evan Rachel Wood) embarking on an intimate yet ultimately manipulative relationship with a 16-year-old runaway (Julia Sarah Stone).
But the woman, Laura begins getting really obsessive and prevents Eva from leaving the house. The relationship turns out to be something like the Stockholm Syndrome. Apparently, though no details are given, Laura has had the same type of ‘stalking’ problems before, as her dad, who employs her mentions in the film.
The film is both disturbing and engaging though one can hardly look forward to a satisfactory or happy ending. Both actresses Wood and Stone bring compassion to their roles and show their need for normalcy.
Unfortunately, as can be seen in the film, this normalcy is not easily to come about and the state of affairs come about from their own personal behavioural flaws.
The film suffers from an open ended ending, which for a film like this, one expects some satisfactory closure.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: EUTHANIZER (Finland 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.
The carefully balanced (albeit deranged) life of a freelance, black-market pet euthanizer begins to come apart at the seams in this loopy exploitation-movie throwback from Finland, which evokes the brazen psychological insights and aesthetic brio of such grungy genre classics as Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter and Larry Cohen’s God Told Me To.
Director: Teemu Nikki
Writer: Teemu Nikki
Stars: Alina Tomnikov, Santtu Karvonen, Jari Virman
Review by Gilbert Seah
The EUTHANIZER is Veijo, (Matti Onnismaa), an older man with glasses always smoking a pipe who runs a black-market operation euthanizing people’s ailing pets.
The people who go to Veijo either cannot afford having their pet put down by the local vet or have no guts to perform the killing themselves. Each commission also comes with a brutal lecture, as Veijo spills over with Old Testament–style indignation about what shoddy and appalling people his patrons are and how their pets have been mistreated.
Veijo is in reality an animal lover. When his father is hospitalized, he meets the young nurse caring for him. They begin a strange affair, a bit too uncomfortable, I bet to many an audience’s liking.
He also encounters a seedy garage mechanic, Petri (who’s mixed up with a vicious gang of neo-Nazis) who call themselves ‘Soldiers of Finland’ which provide most of the film’s suspense and thrills.
Veijp’s insight and theory of life is intriguing and serves to propel the difficult to fathom plot. But the film works, as director Nikki has the audience constantly rooting for Veijo in this black comedy of manners.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: MIRACLE (Lithuania/Bulgaria/Poland 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:
Edgy, strange and completely engaging, MIRACLE is the kind of small film from a small place like Lithuania (the country’s first film at TIFF in 15 years) that never gets distribution and should be a pick at TIFF.
The story centres on the owner of a struggling post-Soviet pig farm, Irena whose husband is always drunk and is sort of a pig himself. The farm is failing and Irena’s workers make fun of her behind her back. It is all dark and gloomy till an American suddenly appears and brings the so-called MIRACLE into place.
There is another MIRACLE (a plot twist) at the end of the film as well. But not without a price. The American, Bernardas buys and takes over the farm and gives the workers and Irena money for their shares. Irena ends up sleeping with him too.
Vertelyte’s film, especially its dead-pan humour immediately reminds one of the films of Aki Kaurismaki just like the actress who plays Irena looks remarkably alike Kati Outinen, Kaurismaki’s regular actress.
The only problem of the film is a satisfactory ending. But the weird one is good enough for me.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/231418027
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: THE CRESCENT (Canada 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.
After an unexpected death in the family, a mother and son struggle to find spiritual healing at a beachfront summer home.
Director: Seth A. Smith
Writer: Darcy Spidle (screenwriter)
Stars: Britt Loder, Danika Vandersteen, Amy Trefry
Review by Gilbert Seah
This horror film from Nova Scotia, Canada has an excellent though slow beginning. Weird colourful patterns are formed and changed, which seems to flow naturally.
The film, after the opening credits and patterns turns to a funeral service where the preacher talks about suffering and pain before coming to a final rest.
The film then focuses on the single mother (Danika Vandersteen) and young son (Woodrow Graves), and advised by her mother than in order to survive: “You have to keep a level head.” Smith plays around with sounds effectively as he uses different sizes images to frame his film.
The frame sizes change when showing an image as seen from a window or from Beth’s paintings. Smith also uses tilted and upside down images, the latter as seen from the reflection of the sea water at low tide as Beth and Lowen walk along the beach.
The intermittent blaring sound is used at many points in the film. Smith’s film might be a bit too slow paced for a Midnight Madness selection. Normal horror fans will also not be too happy at this too arty piece of work that looks too smug for its own good.
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY (Norway/Germany Sweden 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.
Sixteen year-old Nisha lives a double life. At home with her family she is the perfect Pakistani daughter, but when out with her friends, she is a normal Norwegian teenager.
Director: Iram Haq
Writer: Iram Haq
Stars: Maria Mozhdah, Adil Hussain, Ekavali Khanna
Review by Gilbert Seah
When Nisha (Maria Mozhdah) is caught with a boy in her bedroom, though nothing really happened between them, her concerned parents kidnap her and send her to Pakistan. The film traces Nisha’s kidnap to her abode in Pakistan where she lives with her cruel aunt and uncle. Things get even worse, after a failed escape attempt and her being caught by the police smooching with her cousin.
They call Nisha’s dad (Adil Hussain) to take her back to Oslo. The father is madder than ever and at one point forces her to commit suicide, which she doesn’t. Director Haq has the audience clearly on Nisha’s side. Firstly, she is largely innocent, only guilty of wanting to have some fun any normal teenager seeks. When she suffers, she is also shown to earnestly want to turn over a new leaf.
The film benefits from superior performances from both Mozhdah as Nisha and Hussain as Nisha’s dad. It also helps that Haq has developed real characters, not just one dimensional cardboard ones. The film is not devoid of humour (like the egg lady on the bus in Pakistan). Haq also shows the different culture and lifestyle in Pakistan compared to Norway.
WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY is an engaging film that makes its point, while sending a message at the same time.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8_dBOzufWQ
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (France/Italy 2017) **1/2
Summer of 1983, Northern Italy. An American-Italian is enamored by an American student who comes to study and live with his family. Together they share an unforgettable summer full of music, food, and romance that will forever change them.
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writers: James Ivory (screenplay), André Aciman (based on the novel by)
Stars: Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg
Review by Gilbert Seah
The gay coming-out story CALL ME BY YOUR NAME arrives at TIFF after rave reviews from its Sundance and Cannes premieres.
It boasts the direction of Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino ( I AM LOVE and A BIGGER SPLASH) and a script by James Ivory. The film explores the tender, tentative relationship that blooms over the course of one summer between a 17-year-old boy on the cusp of adulthood, Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and his father’s research assistant, Oliver (Armie Hammer).
The father is American professor Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and each summer, the professor invites a doctoral student to visit and help with his research. While Elio has a beautiful girlfriend who takes up most of his emotional time, he also finds a growing physical attraction to the visitor.
The film is a major disappointment being all good-looking on the outside and feeling like a fairy tale, neglecting the downers of coming-out gay. Things never turn out this perfect in any gay coming-out story. The film feels even more awkward as Elio looks way under below the age of 18.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AMgliTBFKU
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: BLACK KITE (Canada/Afghanistan 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.
Against oppression, change, and seismic political shifts, a father and his daughter find solace in the seemingly clandestine act of kite flying, in the latest by Afghan filmmaker Tarique Qayumi.
Director: Tarique Qayumi
Writer: Tarique Qayumi
Review by Gilbert Seah
When Taique Oayunmi’s film, BLACK KITE opens, the audience witnesses a a political judgment/verdict of the violent chopping off of his hands of Arian (Haji Gul) which is then expanded to an execution the next morning.
In the prison that night, Arian almost dies of thirst but offers to tell his story in exchange for a drink of water from his fellow inmate. But the story that unfolds is a different one. The next scene is one with a little boy fascinating with kite flying.
The boy is Arian who learns both how to make and fly kites from his uneducated father. It is never clear exactly the reason Arian is to be executed in the morning. The only hint is that the enemy suspects him of sending messages to the resistance by his kites, but then why offer him pardon at the end of the film instead of execution.
The film incorporates some animation that appear at various points throughout the film for no apparent reason. As a result the animation appears out of place and totally unnecessary. It also tends to become a distraction of the events that are taking place.
Instead of a political tale, Qayumi’s film ends up trivializing the events to the story of a man in love of the flying of kites.
Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8odaf9TqC8
TIFF 2017 Movie Review: PORCUPINE LAKE (Canada 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.
Porcupine Lake is a story of bravery and the secret life of girls set in Northern Ontario during a hot and hazy summertime when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing.
Director: Ingrid Veninger
Writer: Ingrid Veninger
Stars: Delphine Roussel, Christopher Bolton, Lucinda Armstrong Hall
Review by Gilbert Seah
Canada’s darling Ingrid Veninger has always been a director of films with strong female content. Who then best to write and direct PORCUPINE LAKE, a story of bravery and the secret life of girls set in Georgian Bay, Northern Ontario during a hot and hazy summertime when adulthood has not yet arrived, but childhood is quickly vanishing?
Ally (Delphine Roussel) arrives with 13-year old daughter, Bea (Charlotte Salisbury) in tow from Toronto to meet up with her husband, Scotty (Christopher Bolton). Bea learns through a local, Kate (Australian Lucinda Armstrong Hall) independence, as well as the facts of life about boys and growing up. Kate is the companionship Bea’s mother is unable to offer, and the two bond a strong friendship.
PORCUPINE LAKE is the most ambitious and strongest of Veninger’s films (also beautifully shot by Benjamin Lichty), her popular film ONLY being screened at a local cinema that Bea and Kate attend at one point in the film. Veninger proves once again, she is always in control of her material and meticulously drives her film to its emotional climax and coming-of-age mesage.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Lm-EC3e5s
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