Canadian director Mark Slutsky makes a lot happen in his eight minute short Never Happened. A man and his pregnant wife say goodbye for the weekend as he’s off on a business trip with a
Continue ReadingAuthor: Alex Southey
20th Century Women (Review)
Writer-director Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women is about a single mother and her rapidly growing son who live in a time when America’s growth felt physical, like you could touch it. In 1979, in California,
Continue ReadingHacksaw Ridge (Review)
Hacksaw Ridge boasts great acting from its lead, smart, tense battle staging, and better than average (for its genre) cinematography — all of which it nearly squanders thanks to its glamorization of war. There are
Continue ReadingCutaway (Review)
I’ll be honest, as soon as I understood how this film was going to work I felt like backing out of watching it. Cutaway, a Canadian film by Kazik Radwanski, depicts only the hands of
Continue ReadingMoonlight (VIFF) Review
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight‘s writer-director, forces. He forces you to reckon with a lot of different images in the film. He creates a torrent of emotion without any audible dialogue. I can’t think of a better
Continue ReadingToni Erdmann (VIFF Review)
Writer-director Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann operates based on a sitcom premise that then develops to become a story about existentialism. A hard-working businesswoman, Ines Conradi (Sandra Hüller) has no time for her father Winfried Conradi
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