TIFF12 REVIEW: Anna Karenina [2012]

“If you’re a good man you’ll forget everything” When TIFF director and CEO Piers Handling introduced the newest adaptation of Leo Tolstoy‘s Anna Karenina by saying director Joe Wright appropriately played up the theatricality of the novel, I wasn’t quite prepared for the blatant transparency where his stylistic approach’s artifice was concerned. As the camera lingers on a darkened stage covered by a place card to set the scene, I was blown away by the rising curtain uncovering a brilliantly conceived introduction to this TARDIS-like world much bigger on the…

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REVIEW: Savages [2012]

“Money’s not enough. You’ve got to give your heart.” Who’s crueler: a vicious Mexican cartel decapitating men to send a message or a couple Laguna boys willing to do whatever it takes to protect the emotionally damaged girlfriend they share? Being a trick question, the answer is yes. Plain and simply, humanity has forever been plagued by the capacity for evil since the dawn of time, whether a monkey discovering the blunt force trauma capability of a stick or Eve biting that gosh darned apple in Paradise. We yearn for…

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REVIEW: Albert Nobbs [2012]

“Life without decency is unbearable” I really enjoy films residing in the duplicitous limbo between aristocracy’s flights of fancy and the laborers at their beck and call. Rodrigo García‘s Albert Nobbs is the latest of such endeavors containing a little of its own singular intrigue as the dark secret of a meek little man’s identity rests alongside the petty constraints of social status and unwritten rules of gossip amongst two opposing classes colliding within Morrison’s Hotel’s 19th century Dublin establishment. The impeccable head waiter adored by staff and guests alike,…

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REVIEW: Kick-Ass [2010]

“I’m just a Dick in a wetsuit” Can I get away with using a film’s one word hyphenate title as it’s succinct description? Frankly I don’t care what your answer is to that question because, no joke, Kick-Ass kicked ass. This is the epitome of comic book brought to reality. What the new wave of graphic novels contains is ultra-violence, witty banter, and stories that are more than just good guy versus bad. People look to Dark Knight as what a comic based film should be, but on further review,…

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