September 07, 2018

TIFF18: Masterful Swedish SF and more

Capsule reviews and notes from day two of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Ulysses & Mona (France, Sébastien Betbeder, 4) Art student seeking challenge appoints herself assistant to a gruff retired artist (Eric Cantona) as he finds reason for an amends tour. Charming comedy-drama with flashes of Jarmuschian eccentricity.

Although mobile phones have ruined many movie plots, Skype has made scenes that would previously been shot as voice calls more connected and easier to shoot.

Mobile phones have also ruined many movie screenings but that’s a whole other area.

ANIARA (Sweden, Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja, 5) When a luxury mass transport ship taking passengers to Mars from a ravaged Earth goes off course, a mediator of computer-assisted hallucinations struggles to keep hope alive. Surprising, multi-layered, emotionally resonant SF recalls Ballard and Kubrick while maintaining its own distinctive vision.

Among the brilliant elements of this film is the obvious-in-retrospect idea that a passenger transport vehicle would look like a combination of a hotel and a modern airport, food court and all.

Mothers’ Instinct (Belgium, Olivier Masset-Depasse, 3) After her best friend’s young son dies in an accident, a 50s housewife comes to suspect that the woman has sinister designs on her family. Otherwise assured Hitchcock homage winds up breaking the thriller contract in a way Hitch would never have signed off on.


Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, streaming platforms and DVD over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release.

#TIFF18: Vacation Gets Weird & Guerrilla Women vs. ISIS

Capsule reviews and notes from day one of the Toronto International Film Festival.

After a lackluster 2017, it’s time to hurl ourselves into a brand new TIFF.  This year promises more sure-thing directors and a resurgence of titles from Asia. Will the cinema gods smile or frown? Stay tuned for ten days of capsule reviews, followed by a round-up in order of preference when it has all unspooled.

Florianópolis Dream (Argentina, Ana Katz, 4) Separated couple, both psychologists, take a Brazilian vacation with their teenage son and daughter, falling into the beach bum community of the oddball dude who rents them a house. Low-key observational comedy of a family drifting apart.

Very subtly set in the long-ago time of cassette tapes, Nirvana T-shirts and cameras as a standalone item. Though this is by no means a plot-focused film, key events wouldn’t happen in the smartphone era.

Girls of the Sun (France, Eva Husson, 4) Traumatized war correspondent (Emanuelle Bercot) covers an all-woman unit of Yazidi partisans as they fight alongside the Peshmerga to liberate a city held by their former ISIS captors. The standout set-piece of this ripped-from-the-headlines feminist war movie is the gripping extended flashback depicting the escape of the protagonist from her captors.

Bercot’s character is clearly based on Marie Colvin, also the subject of an upcoming biopic starring Rosamund Pike.


Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, streaming platforms and DVD over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Snort the Pringles

In the latest episode of our deeply intuitive podcast, Ken and I talk incompetence in GUMSHOE, updating Nephilim, smart emotional writing, and Lincoln Park time travel.