Day: August 23, 2018

REVIEW: Brimstone & Glory [2017]

Jared Mobarak

This one has gunpowder in his blood. The concept of The National Pyrotechnic Festival in Tultepec, Mexico is insane. For two days the town responsible for 90% of all fireworks in the nation plans an elaborate celebration in honor of their patron saint San Juan de Dios wherein they literally run into fire. First is the Castillos del Fuego: high towers affixed with carousels to light and spin with patterns and artwork as tiny missiles fly through the air. Second is the Spanish running of the bulls-inspired Pamplonada where massive…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Kingsway [2018]

Jared Mobarak

I’ve been on speaker? Love and suicide. Those are the words director Bruce Sweeney says inspired him to write Kingsway and are very much at the forefront of his dramedy about the dysfunctional Horvat family. And both are treated with humor despite never in a way that belittles their respective import. It’s not about laughing at suicide or those distraught and lost enough to contemplate the act. We smile instead because of our ability to see ourselves in the subject’s heaviness and a tumultuous aftermath that can lead towards a…

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