Giant Little Ones captures how high school environments have and haven’t changed in a generation where LGBTQ acceptance is becoming common. Friends since they were young, Franky Winter (Josh Wiggins) and Ballas Kohl (Darren Mann) have been able to lead similar lives. They’re popular in high school and both are members of the swim team. On the outside looking in, they appear to be popular with the girls. All of this changes when Franky celebrates…
"TIFF 2018: Giant Little Ones"Category: Movie Reviews
Actress Elisabeth Moss delivers what may be among her finest performances as alcoholic musician Becky Something in Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell. Becky Something (Elisabeth Moss) made it big out of the 90s punk rock scene. Her band, Something She, isn’t anywhere near the glory that they used to be. The trio, including drummer Ali van der Wolff (Gayle Rankin) and guitarist Mari (Agyness Deyn), can no longer sell out arenas so they stick with more…
"TIFF 2018: Her Smell"
Free Solo documents free soloist Alex Honnold in his attempt to climb the Freerider route (2,900 feet) of El Capitan in the Yosemite National Park. Alex Honnold is seen a phenomenon in the eyes of free soloist climbers. It’s a dangerous profession–one that surely holds a risk given how ropes are not involved. One wrong move while climbing and it’s life or death. Co-directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin follow the climber every step of…
"TIFF 2018: Free Solo"
Destroyer features a strong performance from actress Nicole Kidman but its storytelling decisions might prevent some from truly enjoying the film. LAPD detective Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman) remains haunted by events from years earlier while working undercover. One day while at the office, Bell becomes the recipient of mail containing dyed money. She knows then and there that gangster Silas (Toby Kebbell) is back in town. She’s hell-bent on finding him after what happened years earlier…
"TIFF 2018: Destroyer"
Serving as a love letter to Glasgow, Wild Rose shows how far one woman will go if it means becoming a star in Music City. Rose-Lynn Harlan wants (Jessie Buckley) to hit the big time as a country singer but there’s one minor problem–she lives in Scotland. This isn’t to say that pursuing her dreams will be easy because it won’t. Her own economic situation, let alone a drug-addiction past that put her in jail,…
"TIFF 2018: Wild Rose"
Set at a child detention center for the large majority of the film, Icebox is a film that should really hit a nerve with audiences. With the gang violence surrounding his native Honduras, 12-year-old Oscar (Anthony Gonzalez) soon leaves for the US with the main goal of finding his uncle. This is easier said than done when the pre-teen is caught by a few U.S Border Patrol agents. After they ask Oscar a series of…
"TIFF 2018: Icebox – Timely in Current Environment"
Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, Mid90s, takes us back to the middle of the 1990s with a look at life for one teenager’s summer in LA. Stevie (Sunny Suljic) lives with his older, abusive brother Ian (Lucas Hedges, appearing in 3 films at TIFF), and single mom, Dabney (Katherine Waterston). Stevie’s world opens up when he discovers a skate shop. While I realize that the film takes place during the mid-90s, the frequent use of slurs…
"TIFF 2018: Mid90s"
With a stellar performance from Emma Thompson, The Children Act tells a moving story of a judge who must decide on life or death. British High Court judge Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson) is given the sole responsibility of well, choosing life or death for a minor. The minor in question is Adam Henry (Fionn Whitehead). He’s suffering from leukemia and is denying the hospital from giving him a blood transfusion. Even though it’s the very…
"The Children Act: Emma Thompson is Remarkable"
Kursk tells a worthy story but one wonders what the film would look like if left to examine everything from the submarine to the government. It’s been just over 18 years in which the submarine fell to the bottom of the Barents Sea. This was a submarine that was over 200 yards long. The submarine in the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet is said to be unsinkable. Unlike the Titanic, most of the men serving on board…
"TIFF 2018: Kursk"
Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz tells the life story of the last surviving prosecutor of thee Nuremberg Trials. If you don’t know Ben Ferencz’s name, you really should take the time to learn about him. The Romanian native would move with his family to the United States when he was ten months old. This is because of the anti-Semitic persecution during this time. It wasn’t safe to be Jewish in Europe at…
"TIFF 2018: Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz"