All Toronto articles – Page 153
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ReviewsBlindness
Dir: Fernando Meirelles. 2008. Brazil-Canada-Japan. 118mins.In Blindness, Fernando Meirelles valiantly attempts to pin down Nobel laureate Jose Saramago’s largely metaphorical work of fiction for the big screen: by giving the audience eyes on a world suddenly hit by a plague of blindness. The result makes for ...
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ReviewsLater (Plus Tard Tu Comprenderas)
Dir: Amos Gitai. France / Germany, 2008. 89mins.The first Gitai film in a long time not to deal with Israeli politics, Later (Plus Tard Tu Comprenderas) is also one of his most emotional outings to date. This Franco-German co-production based on Jerome Clement’s autobiographical book (Clement ...
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News
Noah Cowanmoves sidewaystoTIFF's Bell Lightbox
Toronto International Film Festival co-director Noah Cowan is giving up his position to assume responsibility for year-round programming at the Toronto International Film Festival Group's (TIFFG) new headquarters, Bell Lightbox, with the title of artistic director. Cowan, who joined TIFFG CEO Piers Handling as co-director four years ago, will be ...
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Reviews
Battle for Haditha
Dir. Nick Broomfield . United Kingdom, 2007. 94 minsBattle for Haditha dramatises one of the most notorious atrocities of the Iraq War, the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqis by American marines in the city of Haditha on November 19, 2005 , for which five marines stand trial at Camp Pendleton ...
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Reviews
Heavy Metal in Baghdad
Dir. Eddy Moretti, Suroosh Alvi. Canada/US. 2007. 84 min.Its title promises little but this big-hearted documentary delivers much. Beginning as a misguided if not utterly foolhardy travelogue - risking one's life in the world's most dangerous city to track down an amateur music group - it segues into a potent ...
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Reviews
Flash Point (Aka City With No Mercy)
Dir. Wilson Yip. Hong Kong/China. 2007. 87 mins.Wilson Yip's new martial arts extravaganza is action-packed and honed along well-tested genre formulas, with an adrenalin-pumping soundtrack and a story that moves ahead with the speed and ruthlessness of a runaway train. It will leave its audience breathless after seeing so much ...
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Reviews
Intimate Enemies (L'ennemi intime)
Dir: Florent Siri. France . 2007. 108 min.A gritty and realistic depiction of a French platoon during the final stages of Algeria 's war of independence, Intimate Enemies is an assured and well-crafted drama that is sure to cause a stir in its native France . Featuring strong lead performances ...
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Reviews
The Passage
Dir: Mark Heller 2007 USA . 95 mins.A likable cast and the exotic backdrop of Morocco provides first-time feature director Mark Heller with the tools to make a tense thriller about Western tourists in danger but he fails to build much-needed suspense. While pretty to watch, The Passage never scares ...
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Reviews
Young People Fucking
Dir: Martin Gero. Canada, 2007. 91 MinsYoung People Fucking is quite clearly a title that's out to grab one's attention. Neither documentary nor hardcore, it's an ingeniously constructed pastiche of sexual encounters presented affectionately and with humour. Reminiscent of American independent movies of the 1980s, the film should really be ...
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Reviews
Gone with the Woman (Tatt av Kvinnen)
Dir. Peter Naess. Sweden/Norway 2007. 92 min.Picked by Norway to carry its flag at the Oscars this year, Peter Naess' new screwball romance takes off a vivacious, though rather misogynistic tone, but soon settles down to a pedestrian pace which it follows the rest of the way. Naess, whose irreverent ...
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Reviews
Glass
Dir: Scott Hicks. Australia . 2007. 122mins.The critical relationship of subject to filmmaker is the tipping point for most documentary portraits. It is the primary distinction between a probing and objective analysis and hagiography. In Scott Hicks' Glass, the composer Philip Glass has allowed the director unmediated exposure to his ...
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Reviews
Normal
Dir. Carl Bessai. Canada . 2007. 100 min.With Normal , Canadian filmmaker Carl Bessai delivers his most accomplished film yet. An intense psychological portrait of lives shattered by a sudden death, it does everything well. Although it explores familiar terrain - comparisons with the daisy-chain of Paul Haggis' Crash are ...
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Reviews
Rails & Ties
Dir. Alison Eastwood. US, 2007. 96 mins.The feature-film directorial debut of Clint Eastwood's 35-year-old actress daughter, Alison Eastwood, Rails & Ties is an always serviceable, professionally accomplished film. Unfortunately, its ambitions are hampered by a central situation that is redolent of too many made-for-TV films, as well as by implausible ...