REVIEW: Empire of Light [2022]

I’m not some problem to be solved. The lithium has left Hilary (Olivia Colman) numb. That’s what she tells her doctor before he replies that the feeling will go away once she gets used to the medication. It isn’t necessarily affecting her job performance as duty manager of the Empire Cinema, though. If anything, “numb” might help considering what occurred to spark the prescription in the first place. But I’m getting ahead of myself since that information isn’t revealed until later. For now, writer/director Sam Mendes simply needs Hilary to…

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BIFF22 REVIEW: Relative [2023]

Right beside you. Life is about handling contradictions. And they all demand that we choose between compromising, conceding, or refusing to back down whether it’s opposite a family member, friend, lover, or even yourself. We weigh pros and cons. We anticipate a future that we can never know for certain. Do we choose the job or the potential for love? Do we sacrifice our career for our spouse? Do we leave our hometown, or do we decide to make a new one? Each choice becomes another snowflake falling atop a…

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TIFF22 REVIEW: The End of Sex [2023]

Are you getting enough banana? Emma (Emily Hampshire) and Josh’s (Jonas Chernick) first kiss was at a summer camp as teenagers and, minus a few break-ups here and there, they’ve been together ever since. They’re best friends, awesome parents, and, because of their two daughters being their focus for every waking second of every single day, mutually apathetic to the concept of sex. So, now that it’s the girls’ time to start going to that same camp, Emma and Josh have no clue what to do with their independence. And…

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TIFF22 REVIEW: Stellar [2023]

Hasn’t the world been ending since it started? It’s all a matter of perspective. If you’ve never known a privileged existence, what difference to your world would an apocalypse truly introduce? There’s always been fire for She (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) and He (Braeden Clarke). There’s always been tragedy. Whether living under the oppressive rule of Canadian law or being ignored and/or disrespected when leaving the reservation for the cities that they were told would open their arms if only they gave into demands for assimilation, life has always been a struggle…

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VENICE22 REVIEW: Aus meiner Haut [Skin Deep] [2023]

What is this place? What makes a person? Mind or body? Take that line of inquiry even further and ask what it is you love about your significant other. Is it how they look or who they are? The combination of answers to these questions are infinite because we as people are too. Maybe looks or humor or generosity got you through the door, but those things can’t stop you from leaving alone. At some point you must dig deeper to discover it’s the indefinable essence beneath their skin and…

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TIFF22 REVIEW: The Swearing Jar [2022]

Context doesn’t count. Both Carey (Adelaide Clemens) and Simon (Patrick J. Adams) have news. Who should go first? Well, there’s a reason most people ask for the bad. Yes, they often want the good news to soften the blow rather than have it ruined by the bad, but what about the risk that doing it the other way around might cause the bad news never to be spoken? That’s what happens here. Who knows what might have been if Simon spoke first? Because he didn’t, though, Carey’s revelation that she’s…

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FANTASIA22 REVIEW: 大怪獣のあとしまつ [Daikaijyu no Atoshimatsu] What to Do with the Dead Kaiju?] [2022]

We’re protecting people’s right not to know. The easiest way to describe the tone of Satoshi Miki‘s realization of an objectively ingenious concept (What happens to the rotting carcass of a defeated kaiju?), is to mention the question to which every journalist demands an answer after a blister filled with the gaseous byproduct of the monster’s decomposition bursts: Does it smell like poo or puke? If that sounds like your idea of a good time for two hours, Daikaijū no Atoshimatsu [What to do with the Dead Kaiju?] is for…

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REVIEW: A Love Song [2022]

Fair point. It’s not every day that you get a PG film for adults, but that’s exactly what writer/director Max Walker-Silverman delivers with his bittersweetly joyous feature debut A Love Song. Captured on campsite seven along Turquoise Lake with Mount Elbert as a backdrop, the story concerns a widow named Faye (Dale Dickey) waiting on an old friend from yesteryear. She wrote to Lito (Wes Studi) seven years after the death of her husband (he’s a widower himself) despite not having seen each other in decades. He wrote back saying…

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REVIEW: Alone Together [2022]

Don’t forget yourself. People died, businesses closed, and health and science became politicized to a point of no return, but what about the good that COVID accomplished? What about those relationships that needed a global pandemic to provide the next logical progression of conflict resolution on the extensive list John (Derek Luke) shares with June (Katie Holmes) to describe all they’ve overcome—definitive proof their one-year love is real and worth saving? Trials (he’s apparently a lawyer), holidays, regular days, and … health crisis? If your union can survive COVID, it…

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FANTASIA22 REVIEW: Next Exit [2022]

I can start with one minute. While a viral video of a young boy playing cards with his dead father captured the nation so profoundly that suicides and murders have skyrocketed due to humanity no longer fearing death, allowing every single ghost to be seen by every single human on Earth would be quite the logistical issue for first-time feature film writer/director Mali Elfman. She first started crafting Next Exit ten years ago and thus has had plenty of time to tweak and hone her script in a way that…

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REVIEW: Avec amour et acharnement [Both Sides of the Blade] [2022]

But you know that. Director Claire Denis says Sara (Juliette Binoche) “flips a coin” when it comes to seeing her ex-boyfriend (Grégoire Colin‘s François) after more than a decade. She’s built a life with his best friend (Vincent Lindon‘s Jean), a former rugby player and ex-con struggling to get this latest chapter of his professional life started. So, she knows it will be awkward. She knows that she still loves François despite also loving Jean. Will a new encounter therefore rekindle those feelings to a point of no return? Or…

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