May 18, 2018

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

Opening this Week

A Man of Integrity (dir. Mohammad Rasoulof)

“A film that has effectively cut right to the black heart of an issue that impacts everyday people, … a noteworthy resonant work of art” — Andrew Parker, The Gate

Another Kind of Wedding (dir. Pat Kiely)

“Fails to be either a dysfunctional family drama and a romantic wedding comedy, while striving to be both” — Gilbert Seah, Festival Reviews

Book Club (dir. Bill Holderman)

“The cast is picking up scraps from a screenplay that feels tossed off and left half-finished. They are jumping at an opportunity to play characters who proudly resist being put out to pasture in a movie that feels like Hollywood is just trying to give them something to keep busy” — Radheyan Simonpillai, NOW Magazine

“In their great haste to dismiss the notion that people might get too old for romance, Simms and Holderman swing the pendulum so far in the opposite direction they side with the even more offensive idea that no woman at any age is complete without a man” — Kate Taylor, The Globe and Mail

“Aims low as a glossy, standard senior product with nothing fresh to offer, and succeeds” — Gilbert Seah, Afro Toronto

“A testament to the talent and professionalism of the leads in the mature-skewing romantic comedy Book Club that this raggedy film works at all” — Andrew Parker, The Gate

Boom For Real (dir. Sara Driver)

“I want people to understand that Jean-Michel wasn’t some mythological figure. He was just this kid.” On the TFCA website, José Teodoro interviews director Sara Driver

“Fascinating but as an artist’s biography, it’s too narrow a window to be useful” — Liam Lacey, Original-Cin.ca

“Gives us some insight into the mysterious brilliant Basquiat, whose art will surely endure” — Marc Glassman, POV Magazine

“An exhilarating portrait of the art scene and a young man in the process of becoming, before he became myth” — Nathalie Atkinson, The Globe and Mail

“Feels like a biography where the subject disappears into their surroundings entirely, and the film is a lot stronger for it” — Andrew Parker, The Gate

The Child Remains (dir. Michael Melski)

“No one’s trying to reinvent the wheel here; the machinery works just fine, and I remain grateful that Melski doesn’t play out every scene in exhausting slow motion the way the Conjuring or Insidious movies do” — Norm Wilner, NOW Magazine

“Provides new meaning to the words ‘inspired by true events,’ which may be totally hokum” — Gilbert Seah, Festival Reviews

“The ghostly dead moms and rotting evil babies of the climax are true Canadian cheese” — Pat Mullen, Cinemablographer

“Looks and moves like a film one would find while flipping through the channels at two in the afternoon on a weekend sometime around Halloween” — Andrew Parker, The Gate

Deadpool 2 (dir. David Leitch)

“Plays like a conventional superhero picture with too many secondary characters and an over-complicated plot that’s borrowed from both the comics and a couple of Terminator movies” — Norm Wilner, NOW Magazine

“Like the superhero version of Airplane! in the frequency of its gags (some of them groaners). With the winky fourth-wall-breaking of a Bob Hope movie, only with explosions and severed limbs” — Jim Slotek, Original-Cin.ca

“The funniest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe” — Gilbert Seah, Festival Reviews

“Lacks the anarchic glee and spontaneity of its blockbuster predecessor, but it still has a lot to enjoy” — Andrew Parker, The Gate

“A film that is merely aggressively aggressive” — Barry Hertz, The Globe and Mail

Disobedience (dir. Sebastian Lelio)

“Lelio’s film is about more than sex, or its perhaps easy ability to shock. It is a love story, as beautiful as it is devastating” — Barry Hertz, The Globe and Mail

“Well done, if not entirely convincing” — Susan G. Cole, NOW Magazine, including a piece on the TFCA website on the inauthenticity of the film

“By switching the point of view between three characters, the film is occasionally powerful” — Gilbert Seah, Festival Reviews

“Very much a woman’s movie from a director who’s proven his skill at telling women’s stories” — Jim Slotek, Original-Cin.ca

“Never hits as hard as it probably should. What should feel gut wrenching instead comes across as mildly inconvenient for everyone involved” — Andrew Parker, The Gate

Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (dir. Wim Wenders)

“If you know anything about the papacy’s status quo, you know Francis is a radical – but radicals deserve dissent, too, and there’s none to be found in this reverent portrait” — José Teodoro, NOW Magazine

“An inspiring documentary about a man with a message of humility, charity, peace, and stewardship of the plane” — Jim Slotek, Original-Cin.ca

“Wim Wenders makes a deal with the Devil in this toothless Papal doc with ace access” — Marc Glassman, POV Magazine

RBG (dirs. Julie Cohen and Betsy West)

The 71st Cannes Film Festival

Peter Howell in The Toronto Star: On Whitney; on the likely Palme; on Solo; on Spike Lee’s wake-up call; on a special screening of 2001; on Arctic

Chris Knight in The National Post: On Solo; on the very strange movies for sale at the festival; on how it’s been a strange year for Cannes indeed

BlacKkKlansman: At Maclean’s, Brian D. Johnson calls Spike Lee’s latest “a ground-breaking film for the America First era that lays down a Black Panther gauntlet on the doorstep of Donald Trump”

The Gentle Indifference of the World: At Cinemablographer, Pat Mullen describes the film as “a handful of truly memorable set pieces within [a] slice of slow cinema”