Film Reviews

TIFF Day 9  Yesterday I saw  *Reptile*.   It was a fairly formulaic police procedural with a star studded cast: Justin Timberlake, Alicia Silverstone, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Carmen Pitt (played Jimmy Darmody in HBO's Boardwalk Empire ).   Directorial debut for Grant Singer (also the Writer).   I thought more could have been done with the writing, not a lot of intrigue, but worth watching if you like movies about crooked cops, which I do. There were way too many "jump scares" punctuated by music or sound effects, which got annoying after a while.   It will be on Netflix, not sure when. I rate it 6.5/10. ******************* TIFF Day 10 I saw *Wicked Little Letters*, it was hilarious!! Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley play neighbours in a 1920s English seaside town. When Coleman's character starts to receive obscene letters the whole town is on the case. Directed by Thea Sharrock and written by Jonny Sweet, the cast is rounded out by man...

On Wednesday during Midnight Madness I saw "When Evil Lurks" https://www.tiff.net/events/when-evil-lurks   Written and Directed by Demián Rugna (Argentina). The Story centres around two brothers that are tasked with killing the "Rotten" in their countryside town. The "Rotten" are demonically possessed and can only be killed by certain methods of execution or their infected spirit will jump to nearby men, women, children and animals.    This was not your typical possession-type movie (No Exorcism ), it had more action and quite a lot of gore, which had great audience reaction.    The Q & A after covered many questions on special effects and if their will be a sequel. Midnight Madness is my favourite part of TIFF. The Audience has a real passion for being involved.   I rate this 7/10.   ***********************************     TIFF Day 8   I was the last person to get through the Rush line for "Daddio". https://tiff.net/events/daddio ...

**************** *Limbo* - Screened Sept. 12/2023 An Australian film directed by Ivan Sen, starring Simon Baker (from the Mentalist). Simon plays a heroin addicted detective that is charged with conducting a case review of a young Indigenous girls' murder 20 years previously. The visuals in this film were absolutely stunning, shot in black and white. Taking place in Coober Pedy, an Opal Mining town that exists as a series of structures carved in underground caves, the dust and grit of the environment was reflected in the main characters' weathered appearance and drug addled weariness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy We follow the detective through his questioning of the locals thought to know secrets about the murder. This was a slow-burn character driven drama. A good one to sit back in and be transported into fascinating landscape and a characters' world. There was a Q & A after the screening with Sen & Baker. Lots of discussion around #MMIWG2S and...