“It’s silly wasting time on something that doesn’t matter,” says a dreamy young woman with a fondness for balloons (Grace Van Patten) to an embittered and unemployed young man turned would-be detective named Sam (Andrew Garfield) in writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s surreal new film, Under the Silver Lake. It’s one of those almost throwaway lines […]
Reviews
Freaks – VIFF 2018 Review
The best part of the overly ambitious sci-fi thriller Freaks is Bruce Dern as a creepy Mr. Snowcone ice cream man. At least, that’s what he appears to be at first, before too much plot overpowers a story that would work well as a graphic novel, but on the big screen it’s too much of […]
Sicilian Ghost Story – VIFF 2018 Review
Newcomer Julia Jedlikowska wonderfully portrays the naive, tender, and somewhat somnambulistic teen Luna, who pines for and later will try to extricate her dreamy classmate Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez, also making his screen debut), in Italian directors Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s haunting, rhythmic and slowburning new movie, Sicilian Ghost Story. Early on in this hard-hearted […]
The Sisters Brothers – VIFF 2018 Review
French filmmaker Jacques Audiard (2009’s A Prophet, 2015’s Dheepan) may not seem the obvious choice to make the big screen adaptation of Patrick deWitt’s beloved, prize-winning 2011 historical novel about a pair bickering siblings who earn a living as hitmen in the Wild West of the 1850’s. In fact, reading deWitt’s “The Sisters Brothers”, with […]
Twarz – Berlinale 2018 Review
Twarz’s very first images — close-ups of blank faces in the cold — initially give the viewer the impression that we will be in for a serious drama. Then it cuts to establish the setting: these characters are standing outside a Christmas underwear shopping spree that’s just about to start. The lights turn on, the […]
The Green Fog – Berlinale 2018 Review
The films of Guy Maddin are a dream for cinephiles. Filtering his unique vision through a wealth of cinematic history, his movies are filled with endless references and allusions to other films. This style has now found an end-point in the fascinating The Green Fog, which remakes Vertigo via tens of different movies and TV […]