August 9, 2024

Welcome to TFCA Friday, a weekly round-up of film reviews and articles by TFCA members.

In Release this Week

Balestra (dir. Nicole Dorsey 🇨🇦)

“Crafting a visual pallet that is both meticulous in its use of not only space, but negative space, Dorsey allows this story to elevate to near science fiction levels of psychology and tension in its visual storying telling, keeping very much akin to the angular and starkness that the genre saw in the 1970s with the likes of Solaris, Rollerball and THX-1138,” says Dave Voigt at In the Seats. “Which makes perfect sense because what Balestra is truly about is that precipice of emotion that who want to succeed at a high level will do to themselves, Dorsey deftly manages to make these characters exist in this world while she stays out of their way as they all peel back the layers of the onion to let us see what is really going on.”

The Beautiful Summer (dir. Laura Luchett)

“The Beautiful Summer is a fleeting, light coming-of-age story that celebrates the Italian countryside,” writes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The music and light treatment of the period piece is also reminiscent of Fellini’s Amarcord.”

Borderlands (dir. Eli Roth)

“As a movie, Eli Roth’s Borderlands seems like it was created by AI from a database of nerd pop cultural references and influences. It takes place on a planet called Pandora, though it resembles Star Wars’ Tatooine more than Avatar’s verdant moon,” notes Jim Slotek at Original Cin. “It’s a desiccated, wretched hive of scum and villainy, whose dusty Fury Road-like demolition-derby-driving inhabitants all search in vain for The Vault. Said Vault contains the powerful secrets of the Eridians, a people who once colonized the galaxy and now are no more. (Kind of like the Progenitors on Star Trek).”

“It is difficult to get excited with a film adaptation of a video game.  But Borderlands has two things going for it,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Firstly, it is a highly successful, well-known and critically acclaimed video game and secondly, it is directed by Eli Roth.”

“The moronic script is the worst thing about Borderlands, no small feat in a flick this bad. Padded with exposition, including shrugged-off voice-overs from Blanchett, it frequently has the characters standing around jabbering when they should be leaping and fighting,” writes Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “The dialogue is so wooden it could be used for a bonfire. No wonder the actors all look as if they’d rather be anywhere but in this movie.”

“Borderlands is a colourful and well-designed affair that is just trying to distract you from its lack of cohesive narrative that truly doesn’t give anyone anything to do,” admits Dave Voigt at In the Seats. “It’s a talented cast, but the only person in the ensemble who actually sells what she’s doing is Cate Blanchett as the bounty hunter with a tortured past. Even with a bad script, it’s hard not to get invested in anything that woman does on screen. However, it’s all a lost cause after that.”

“Tonally messy, narratively janky and slathered with pasted-over narration that reeks of creative indecision, the film is an embarrassing affair for even the most hardcore of gamers, who already have no shortage of indifferently produced video-game adaptations to contend with,” writes Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “The only good news: The movie is so instantly forgettable that it will likely linger in Blanchett’s own memory, a cautionary tale of hasty pandemic-era decision-making.”

Cuckoo (dir. Tilman Singer)

“Tilman, whose previous film, 2018’s Luz, also involved a strong female protagonist, a demonic aggressor, and Bluthardt, throws a lot into this one, with the result that not everything or everyone gets the attention deserved,” says Chris Knight at Original Cin. “’Characters have a habit of disappearing when not required, only to pop up again at opportune moments. Thankfully, Schafer is on screen almost constantly, but it does sometimes feel like the movie doesn’t know what to do with all its other pieces.”

“Feminine energy and motherhood seep out of Cuckoo,” writes Rachel West at the Alliance of Women Film Journalists. “It’s the driving themes of the story and anyone familiar with how select types of female cuckoo birds lay their eggs in the nest of other unsuspecting birds, will put the pieces of Singer’s jumbled puzzle together quickly. No matter if you see the climax coming from a mile away, the film remains one to watch thanks to Schafer.”

“Kudos to Hunter Schafer as the intriguingly out-of-place Gretchen, an American of German descent, who, during a visit to her father’s German Alps resort, unwittingly unleashes her inner demons,” writes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “The place a hellhole – ghosts, entities, piercing noises, anonymous screamers and general feel-bad vibes.  Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens is the terrifying Herr König, her father’s boss who runs the place like an unkind lion tamer.”

“The central mystery to Cuckoo is not so much a whodunit but a whatchamacallit, and even that central enigma yields little in the way of surprise or shock. Certainly, it’s fun to see Schafer, best known for her work on HBO’s teenage-wasteland series Euphoria, match wits with Stevens, including a gnarly sequence of knife play,” notes Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “But neither actor can figure out where their director is going with all this madness or where he might want to be at any given moment, tonally and thematically. It’s enough to drive anybody, even the king of kook Stevens – well, you know.”

“Performances-wise, Hunter Schafer as the 17-year-old serves the horror feature well,” notes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “Cuckoo plays for horror and scare effects, coming from plot and camera techniques while paying less attention to story continuity or ending.”

“Cuckoo, aptly named for its transfixing call, takes a simple premise and runs with it. That’s what some of the best horror movies do. With one key setting in the hotel, a sparse cast, and an atmosphere saturated in dread, this is one lean and mean thriller,” says Pat Mullen at That Shelf. “Much of the drama hinges on Schafer’s performance and she totally commits to giving audiences a Final Girl to root for.”

Dance First (dir. James Marsh)

“Marsh has created a superficially experimental if tame take on an artist of grim truths and dark comedy,” says Liam Lacey at Original Cin. “As such, it takes liberties that risk annoying those of us with a cursory knowledge of Beckett’s life while misleading those unfamiliar with his work. Clocking in at a brisk 100 minutes, mostly in black and white, the film features some good performances (led by a brooding Byrne, doing an impression of Beckett’s annoyed raptor profile), and a dramatic structure that initially intrigues before it wears out its welcome.”

“At its best, the film captures the spirit of love and regret as well as the process of growing old but it fails to account for Beckett’s genius – what it is that literalists really like and where his genius originated from,” observes Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

Daughters (dir. Natalie Rae, Angela Patton)

“Don’t expect a dry eye at home or in the theatre when the families reconnect in the gymnasium for the daddy-daughter prom. Daughters adds to the emotional tenor of the dance by shooting on film,” says Pat Mullen at POV Magazine, who speaks with Vancouver native Natalie Rae and Angela Patton about their Sundance Audience Award winner: “‘The project always had people that were really close to the subject matter, so that’s been very important to me,’ notes Rae. The director cites the lived experience of cinematographer Michael ‘Cambio’ Fernandez, whose mother was incarcerated for eight years. ‘Cambio has the emotional intelligence to have been through that as a child. All the decisions around who’s in the space, who’s capturing it, who’s editing it, and how the film is being edited comes from a very personal place.’”

Inside the Mind of a Dog (dir. Andy Knight Mitchell)

At Afro Toronto, Gilbert Seah calls the film “totally entertaining for both dog lovers and non-dog lovers and filled with insight and fun-filled facts.”

The Instigators (dir. Doug Liman)

“[B]rings together Casey Affleck and his big brother Ben’s bestie Matt Damon in a testosterone-fueled heist comedy-drama about political corruption, underworld thuggery, and male friendship,” says Anne Brodie at  What She Said. “Rory (Damon) needs $36K to satisfy debts around his child by his estranged wife. Cobby (Affleck) has strong ties to the criminal world and has just been bounced from prison; he needs getaway money. The pair are thrown together by an evil crime boss played with malicious glee by Michael Stuhlbarg.”

“Liman, no stranger to staging thriller chase scenes with Damon thanks to their work on the first Bourne film, pulls off one mildly entertaining crash involving half of the Boston police force, all set to Petula Clark’s Downtown,” says Barry Hertz at The Globe and Mail. “But the director cannot get a handle on the too-loose story, nor ignite any chemistry between real-life pals Damon and Affleck (the latter co-wrote the script). The movie might be impossible to ignore for Apple TV+ users navigating their way around the service, but if you do feel compelled to flick it on, at least grab a few piles of laundry before pressing play. The Instigators is a movie made for multitasking.”

“Just about everyone is playing a character marked by ineptitude — The Instigators is fuelled by offhand failure and screw-ups, which is inherently funny. Likewise inherently funny is the sight of Bourne as a middle-aged failed dad or the terrifying Boris Pash of Oppenheimer as a half-hearted criminal better suited to stand-up,” notes Liz Braun at Original Cin. “So, should The Instigators be viewed as a lengthy inside joke? Consider the soundtrack, with its Boomer-Gen song choices that are laugh-out-loud funny for their wrong-headed obviousness. There’s a certain knowing element to this undertaking that winks at the glory days of all concerned, even as it nods to the world o’ streaming.”

It Ends with Us (dir. Justin Baldoni)

“Incredibly, Lively makes it all work,” writes Johanna Schneller at The Globe and Mail. “Beyond nailing Lily’s exact shade of auburn hair, funky/sexy dress and vision-notebook stuffed with flowers, she also conveys her luminousness and strength, and reminds you how pleasurable it can be to watch a romantic thriller. (You may find yourself recalling Julia Roberts in Sleeping with the Enemy.). Lively is so good that you barely notice that her character doesn’t have an arc – she starts admirable and ends confirmed to be admirable – or that the six people in the film seem to know only each other.”

“The story is based on the wildly popular 2016 novel by Colleen Hoover, itself based on the relationship between the author’s mother and father. It’s also about domestic abuse, so any critical review had best tread lightly. And to be clear, the themes are powerful, and the acting — particularly Blake Lively in the staring role — is for the most part excellent,” admits Chris Knight at Original Cin. “The problem is the execution. As directed by Justin Baldoni (who also stars as the husband), the film feels lacklustre and slapdash, never doing anything to rise above the basic storytelling beats.”

“Running at 130 minutes and despite being a female slanted film and its questionable treatment of the sensitive topic, It Ends with Us engages both genders at what abuse and violence can do to a relationship,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto.

Lolo and the Kid (dir. Benedict Mique)

“Lolo and the Kid plays like a melodramatic pauper’s version of the Peter Bogdanovic’s classic Paper Moon in which two family con-artists set up to make a living act the expense of sympathetic victims. It lacks originality, humour and drama making a dry and ultimately boring 90 minutes,” sighs Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “The awful dragged-on climax aimed at tearing the heartstrings is too much to bear.”

Sugarcane (dir. Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie)

“The stories from survivors of the St. Joseph’s school are beyond harrowing — missing children, violent punishments, sexual assault, suicide, infanticide. Some of the Indigenous girls raped by priests became pregnant; their infants were often killed or given away by clergy. Throwing these inconvenient newborns into the school furnace appears to have been a regular solution,” writes Liz Braun at Original Cin. “One hopes Sugarcane will be shown in schools all over North America.”

“Researchers are carefully cataloging and studying documents, archival film and VHS, news reports, and victim statements, as part of ongoing investigations. Shortly after the discovery of the graves, churches across Canada burned,” writes Anne Brodie at What She Said. “A bright spot was the Pope’s invitation to the Vatican to tell him about their experiences and hear his message. This beautifully made documentary with a stunning score hits home has excellent production values, it’s hard-hitting and not manipulative, paced to let these unthinkable things sink in, and offers hope as society works towards truth and reconciliation.”

“Untangling the many stories of Sugarcane was evidently also a daunting task for the filmmakers, who don’t always clearly identify the speakers and how they fit into the overall narrative. Many of the predator priests are either dead or quietly living out the last few years of their lives, disavowing all knowledge of the evil they perpetrated,” observes Peter Howell at the Toronto Star. “But the film doesn’t end on such a downbeat note. One story Sugarcane tells really well, by showing rather than saying, is the rapprochement between Julian and Ed NoiseCat. They find renewed father-son closeness during the film, even bonding over a shared love of Neil Young’s music.”

“As most Canadians have already been bombarded with so much news of the unmarked graves in residential schools, there is nothing new that Canadians have not already heard of,” says Gilbert Seah at Afro Toronto. “But by looking from Julian’s family’s perspective, all the bad stuff has been made more credible and unaccepting.  It makes a difference when one hears a testimony firsthand compared to the reading of what has happened in the news.”

“Sugarcane deftly and profoundly provides a means by which the greater process of understanding is to be accomplished,” writes Jason Gorber at POV Magazine. Gorber also speaks with directors Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie. “This is a history that even the people who survived it do not often talk about. My grandmother really doesn’t speak about her experience in residential schools beyond two stories,” says Julian Brave NoiseCat. “There’s one story about how she was hidden by her grandparents in a trapping cabin so that she would avoid being taken away to the school [but] she was still found and taken away. The other story is about how she and her friends at the school would call the priests and nuns the kenkéknem, which means black bear in our language [Secwépemc]. They would call them that because the black bear is a predator. So there is very limited conversation about this even within my own family, my own community.”

File Under Miscellaneous

To mark The Movie Man’s broadcast, Andrew Parker visited Highland Cinemas to catch the overall vibe, marvelling at the uniqueness of what owner/operator/builder Keith Stata has accomplished and reports at The Gate:  “The Highland is a great place to see a movie, and it performs a major community service by being one of the few cultural institutions that is easily accessible to many of the surrounding communities. The auditoriums are intimate, cozy, and well loved in the best possible way, and while a lot of memories will be made by what patrons see on screen, it’s Stata’s undying enthusiasm and will to keep going and the overall trip into his psyche that will leave the biggest impression,” writes Parker.

At The Gate, Andrew Parker also chats with Seattle based filmmaker and creator of the Cat Video Fest, Will Braden, and Fox Theatre booker/GM Kristal Cooper about the meteoric rise of the annual round-up of the best in feline cinema; a charitable endeavour that last week in its initial release stateside made more in per screen average at the box office (in a little over 100 locations) than six of the top ten films domestically: “Cats are universal, and those who love them all feel the same when they get together in a theatre, even if that’s all they have in common,” says Braden.

A Festival of Festival Coverage: TIFF’s Next Wave of Announcements

At The Globe and Mail, Barry Hertz reports on Toronto’s Centrepiece line-up at this year’s festival: “Canadian filmmakers with new works in Centrepiece include a number of TIFF veterans. Sofia Bohdanowicz will bring to Toronto the world premiere of her music-academia drama Measures for a Funeral (formerly titled Opus 28), her latest collaboration with actress Deragh Campbell, who will be pulling double duty as the star of Kazik Radwanski’s new romantic dramedy Matt and Mara, co-starring BlackBerry director Matt Johnson,” writes Hertz, who also runs down the TIFF Docs slate.

At POV Magazine, Pat Mullen chats with programmer Thom Powers about the TIFF Docs line-up, which opens with Eddie Huang’s Vice Is Broke: “Eddie travels around interviewing people who worked in the company,” says Powers. “He keeps receipts on the people who did the actual work, versus the people who took credit for the work, as they look back on those years where many people were making their careers but with mixed experiences inside the company. You really watch people trying to grapple with separating the good from the bad in a potent time of their life.”

At the Toronto Star, Peter Howell looks at how TIFF is tapping into its younger audience and making some changes, like acknowledging the shrinking relevance of premiere status:  “The festival used to care a lot about this,” writes Howell. “A decade ago, in response to what was perceived as poaching of its world premiere bragging rights by Telluride, TIFF instituted a policy that all films screening during the festival’s first four days had to be world or North American premieres. It quietly eased up on this get-tough move following industry pushback.”

At Toronto Franco, Gilbert Seah previews the Locarno Film Festival: “The Locarno Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland.  It specializes in after-cinema, supposedly showcasing the best of auteur cinema,  Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, short, avant-garde, and retrospective programs. The Piazza Grande section is held in an open-air venue that seats 8,000 spectators.”

TV Talk/Series Stuff: Time for Plan B

At What She Said, Anne Brodie reports on CBC’s Plan B: “As bizarre as it all sounds, it’s a compelling sci-fi tinged series grounded in the realities of Mia’s need to help the world regain its equilibrium. If a second chance is offered to time travel to reverse things, so be it.”