TIFF19 REVIEW: III [2019]

No one said enough is enough. I’ve never been one to pay attention to lyrics. All I need is a good tune, complementary voice, and the joy their marriage instills. So I didn’t think twice when The Lumineers‘ latest single “Gloria” hit the radio. Its folk rock melody was as upbeat and fun as any of the other songs they’ve released like “Ho Hey” or “Ophelia.” Little did I know that the words Wesley Schultz put to Jeremiah Fraites‘ music depicted a dark scene of addiction—one very close to his…

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REVIEW: Les îles [Islands] [2018]

Tell me you want me. Winner of the Queer Palm at Cannes 2017 for short film, Yann Gonzalez‘s Les îles [Islands] delivers eroticism in many forms. From one scene of intimacy to the next, he lets his camera follow characters into the throes of sex before pulling out to show how one’s pleasures are another’s performance. A man (Alphonse Maîtrepierre) and woman (Mathilde Mennetrier) in bed are ruled by lust and ultimately revealed to be a horror trope of innocence lost for a monster (Romain Merle) to interrupt. His skin-less…

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REVIEW: Partysaurus Rex [2012]

You were way scarier than the last sea monster. As the wet blanket of the group, Rex (Wallace Shawn) rarely gets to do anything more than fret and accidentally cause problems due to uncontrollable anxieties. So why not let him have some fun, albeit against his better judgment? Knowing this outcome would only be possible if he was removed from the usual Toy Story group and thus rendered “cool” by not having anyone cooler to compare, Mark A. Walsh and Dylan Brown let Bonnie isolate him in the tub with…

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REVIEW: My Josephine [2003]

Something that never touches the ground shouldn’t be dirty. It’s only fitting that Barry Jenkins‘ student film My Josephine would stand as a precursor for the unrequited love bubbling beneath the surface of unspoken hardship he’d later explore in Moonlight. Inspired by a laundromat he passed post-9/11 with a sign reading “American flags clean free” and two people folding clothes behind it, he chose to write the latter pair as subjects of a story hewing inward rather than out. Many would have seen that sign alongside workers of Arab descent…

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REVIEW: Keep It For Yourself [1991]

I am in your hands. Writer/director Claire Denis was commissioned to create a short film for an omnibus in 1991 meant to showcase the new Nissan Figaro. Besides including the car in the narrative, she had carte blanche as far as how, why, or what else. The result is Keep It for Yourself, a virtually plot-less adventure of a French woman (Sophie Simon) left alone in New York City after the man she’s visiting leaves town the day before she arrives. He set her up with an apartment to sleep…

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REVIEW: Sombra City [2019]

I said I don’t trust you, but— It’s 2037 and the world looks similar to ours but for certain societal changes. The main alteration at the center of Elias Plagianos‘ Sombra City is the legality of murder if done with a bounty hunting purpose. Think a duel, but farmed out to trained assassins. As long as you’re licensed, hired by a third party with just cause, and provide the potential victim with enough clarity to mount a chance at self-defense before engaging within a private setting (and therefore making it…

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REVIEW: Weekends [2018]

Why wouldn’t a child of divorce remember his youth as a horror film? You have the responsible parent languishing in the midst of an in-progress home as she struggles to remake her life and the unpredictable “cool” parent who gets to shirk his duties and simply provide fun for two days in a bachelor pad decked out with everything no middle-aged man needs. And then come Mom and Dad’s “friends”—the formidable father figure replacement looking to horn in on your monopoly of maternal warmth and the out-of-nowhere mother figure seeking…

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REVIEW: One Small Step [2018]

We don’t do anything alone in this world, but sometimes we do have a tendency to forget it until those who’ve helped us have disappeared. This is the message behind Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas‘ One Small Step, the sweetly told journey of a young Chinese American girl dreaming of space from a cardboard box shuttle with her Dad in the backseat. The filmmakers move us forward through the years with that flight of fantasy becoming an adolescent mission. From ear-to-ear smile in moon boots jumping on the bed to…

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REVIEW: Late Afternoon [2018]

I was never good at keeping time. Good luck keeping a dry eye during Louise Bagnall‘s heartfelt look at an elderly woman suffering from an Alzheimer’s-like disease. Even when the endgame is obvious, you can’t stop the emotions from rising within. I’d argue that knowing what’s coming before it does only makes the result more potent because you can anticipate the act but not the method. And with swirls of color, morphing shapes, and characters spanning time before making way for others, the journey becomes an unpredictable ride through the…

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REVIEW: Animal Behaviour [2018]

See? You’re fine. It’s a rather shrewd personification that’s at the back of Alison Snowden and David Fine‘s Animal Behaviour. We accept the impulses of animals—even adore them sometimes—but prove desperate to curb our own. The idea is that they don’t know better and we do. It’s our more evolved brains that allow us to see how harmful our impulses can be and decide to consciously work towards correcting them. Those who can’t and, more importantly, those who refuse are thus deemed “animals” themselves. Murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals…

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REVIEW: Skin [2018]

Truly dedicated. How deep does hate go? Is it something with meaning that burns within every cell of your body or a desperate ploy to be included, feel superior, and feign importance? And how much of it is based in fear of the unknown, fear of being exposed, fear of being left behind? Or is it born out of a warped conflation of bigotry with culture and a projection of that which you are onto another in order to trick yourself into believing you aren’t the worthless one? These are…

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