Toronto After Dark 2013: The Last Days on Mars (Dork Shelf)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT DORK SHELF
On the last day of the first manned mission to Mars, a crew member on Tantalus Base believes he’s made an astounding discovery – fossilized evidence of bacterial life. Unwilling to let the relief crew claim all the glory, he disobeys orders to pack up and goes out on an unauthorized expedition to collect further samples. But the routine excavation turns to disaster when the porous ground collapses, and he falls into a deep crevice and near certain death. And after yet another crew member vanishes, the survivors start to suspect that the life-form they have discovered is not yet dead.
Last Days on Mars is a great looking film that quickly devolves into “28 Weeks Later in space.” It begins with an incredibly slow pace that only picks up once the accident occurs, but it feels like an eternity to get there. Most of the talented cast are wasted in roles that barely give them anything to do, with Elias Koteas and Olivia Williams being the biggest examples, but Liev Schreiber manages to anchor the film with a strong leading performance that keeps things watchable.
Toronto After Dark 2013: The Machine (Dork Shelf)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT DORK SHELF
Two computer programmers fall in love creating the first ever piece of self-aware artificial intelligence, designed to help humanity. But things go wrong when the MoD (the U.K. equivalent of the CIA who have been funding their research), decide to alter their breakthrough and teach it to become a robotic weapon.
The Machine benefits from some strong performances from leads Toby Stevens and Caity Lotz. The duo has an evident chemistry that crackles onscreen, especially after Lotz assumes her doppelgänger’s intelligent robot form. Playing the heavy of the piece, Denis Lawson does a very good job as a smarmy and greasy government official who never has anything but destruction on his mind. The film also features a strong look and style, matched with a scientifically intelligent script that sells the neo-futuristic world it takes place in. The pace is deliberate, but never lagging, managing to be enthralling from the outset.
Toronto After Dark 2013: We Are What We Are (Dork Shelf)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT DORK SHELF
Recently widowed father Frank Parker (Bill Sage) and his two teenage daughters try to keep their time-honored family tradition a secret from their increasingly suspicious small town neighbours in the wake of a torrential downpour. But as the evidence starts building, daughters Iris (Ambyr Childers) and Rose (Julia Garner) are forced to assume responsibilities beyond those of a typical family.
Director Jim Mickle returns to Toronto, after Mulberry Street opened the 2007 After Dark Festival and following a People’s Choice Award for his follow-up Stake Land at TIFF, with a brooding and character driven piece that features some excellent performances. Sage is fantastically eerie and manipulative as the patriarch of the family, looming like a dark shadow that refuses to let his girls see any literal and metaphorical daylight. Garner and Childers are perfectly cast as put upon teens who desperately want to know what life must be like for others not forced to conform to their family customs.
CONTEST!! WIN African based charmer ‘OKA!’ on blu-ray
Well its contest time again here at the Fix and this time we have a little under the radar charmer up grabs! OKA! has landed on store shelves as of last week, Tuesday October 22nd, and thanks to the amazing folks at Well Go USA we have 3 copies to give away!
Based on the true story of Louis Sarno, an American ethnomusicologist who finds himself trying to record and preserve the music of the Bayaka pygmies, the thoughtful drama OKA! debuts on Digital, Blu-ray™ and DVD October 22nd from Well Go USA Entertainment. 25 years ago, Sarno traveled from New Jersey to the forests of Central Africa to record the music of the Bayaka Pygmies. He fell in love with the people, their music, their lifestyle – and a local girl. Despite his failing health and the harsh realities of life in the village, he follows the Bayaka into the heart of the forest. Directed by Lavinia Currier (Passion in the Desert, Heart of the Garden), the film stars Kris Marshall (Love Actually, Easy Virtue), Isaach De Bankole (Casino Royale, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Will Yun Lee (The Wolverine, Total Recall) and the Bayaka of Yandombe.
Synopsis:
25 years ago, ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno traveled from New Jersey to the forests of Central Africa to record the music of the Bayaka Pygmies. Falling in love with a Bayaka girl and her forest lifestyle, he decided to stay. “OKA!” tells the adventure of his life in Africa with his adopted family. The Bayaka pygmies maintain a tenuous balance between their traditional forest existence and their increasing dependence on the Bantu villagers. Through the eyes of Larry, the tall, ungainly white man from New Jersey, who in spite of his failing liver accompanies the Bayaka on a journey into the heart of the forest, OKA! offers a unique glimpse into the music, humor, and spirit of the Bayaka people.
This film should charm music and cinema lovers alike with its true and vital story. We have 3 copies to give away this time around, and here’s how you enter to win!
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Winners will be picked and notified via message on Facebook after the contest closing date of November 5th!
Hurry up and enter! Good Luck to all.
Movie Junkie TO
Musicwood (Reel Indie Film Fest – Dork Shelf)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT DORK SHELF
Musicwood
Musicwood examines the environmental impact that producing acoustic guitars has (focusing mainly on the State of Alaska, since it produces most of the sought after ‘Sitka Spruce’), and the attempt to merge concerned parties like Greenpeace and top guitar makers in the world to preserve those trees. The film follows along as world-famous guitar-makers travel into a primordial rain forest to negotiate with Native American loggers before it’s too late for acoustic guitars.
It’s a methodical examination the story of the Musicwood Coalition from multiple angles. While the attempt to unite all concerned parties under one entity is ideal in concept, actually achieving the ideal is much harder. While the film manages to convey this point effectively, it also includes other issues that occur along the way, like the rosewood from Madagascar that one guitar company is busted buying illegally, that can muddle the story instead of adding to it. While these excursions are brief, they do take its toll on the overall impact of message.
The importance of the story is undeniable. Musicwood manages to put a new spin and face to the cause of preserving our natural resources. It works, yet it could easily benefit from a little more focus. Acoustic musicians (Steve Earle, Kaki King, Yo La Tengo and many more) also provide insight from the musician’s standpoint and supply a moving soundtrack. The result is a complex and heartbreaking battle over natural resources, and a profound cultural conflict.
Till Next Time
Movie Junkie TO
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- Toronto After Dark 2013- Top 5 most anticipated! (moviejunkieto.com)
- Toronto After Dark 2013: Big Ass Spider (moviejunkieto.com)
- Indie phenom `The Dirties` makes its hometown debut (Review) (moviejunkieto.com)
Satellite Boy (Imaginative Review – Dork Shelf)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT DORK SHELF
Satellite Boy
Abandoned as a boy and living with his grandfather, young Pete spends his days dreaming of his mother’s return and getting into all kinds of mischief with his best friend, Kalmain. Not a fan of his grandfather’s outdated ways, Pete bides his time until one day the land he lives on with his grandfather is bought by a mining company. Fearful that his mother will never find her way back to him, Pete and Kalmain undertake an arduous and dangerous bike journey across the western Australian Outback in the hopes of convincing the mining company to change its mind. (more…)
Toronto After Dark 2013: Big Ass Spider
TADFF 2013: Big Ass Spider
A giant alien spider escapes from a military lab, inside a corpse, and embarks on a hellacious rampage of acid venom, digestion and property damage the likes of which the city of Los Angeles has never seen. When Major Braxton Tanner (Ray Wise) and his massive military strike fails, it is up to a team of scientists, the plucky Lieutenant Karly Brant (Kramer) and a clever exterminator (Grunberg) and his new sidekick Jose (Lombardo Boyar) to kill the creature before the city is destroyed.
Big Ass Spider is a film that has no pretense as to what film it wants to be. Light years ahead of films like Sharknado, Big Ass Spider derives it laughs from genuine fun writing and not just stunt casting and goofy one liners. The film features a strong lead performance from the affable Grunberg that is genuine and infectious. Matched in charm by Boyar’s Jose, the duo work extremely well with each other and quickly become the heart of the film. Even Ray Wise gets to have some fun here, and the final mid credit sequence works because of Wise alone.
Toronto After Dark 2013- Top 5 most anticipated!
Top 5 Most Anticipated film at Toronto After Dark 2013
The Toronto After Dark Film Festival (known lovingly as simply TAD to its many fans) starts tomorrow night, October 17th, at its new home of the Scotiabank Theater in the heart of downtown Toronto. As usual the festival features and eclectic mix of films and here’s the rundown of the 5 most anticipated films on my list as I prepare to partake in as many as I can. You’ll be able to find all the reviews here afterwards, but I will be posting on Dork Shelf and Addicted for the festival as well. This year will also mark the return of the now infamous PUBCasts recorded LIVE from the Pub After Dark parties after the films. Jeff Konopka from the Liberal Dead and I will sit down and discuss topics with film makers, critics and industry types, all over a beer or two! But for now, on to the picks.
#5 – WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
The latest from director Jim Mickle is actually a remake of a 2010 Spanish film of the same name and features a family of cannibals dealing with a death in the family and whether to continue their grisly family tradition. Having not seen the original film I am not sure what to expect heading in but after director Jim Mickle’s last film, the Midnight Madness people’s choice award winner StakeLand, I have a lot of time for the Mickle and his work. Add in the work of Stake Land collaborator Nick Damici both in front and behind the camera and I’m sold. The film won raves at Cannes and Sundance and makes it Toronto Debut at TAD.
#4 –THE BATTERY (more…)
The Claire Denis Retrospective rolls on with the Director herself in attendance
This past weekend the TIFF Bell Lightbox started its 4 week retrospective into the works of director Claire Denis with some of her earliest works, Chocolat, Beau Travail and No Fear, No Die. The retrospective continues into mid-November with more of the director’s works on display, but this weekend marks the biggest weekend for the retrospective as the Lightbox will be graced with the presence of the lady herself.
On Thursday October 17th, Denis will be live and in person at the Lightbox for the presentation of the Carte Blanche selection of Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki-Bouki, along with director Mati Diop whose short A Thousand Suns will precede the film. Then the following night, October 18th, Denis will introduce her latest film Bastards, which is currently finishing a regular theatrical run at the Lightbox this week. (more…)
Catch Hellaware at the Revue tonight for FREE (Review)
Hellaware Review
Playing tonight as part of the Refocus series at the Revue Cinema is Michael M. Bilandic’s Hellaware. The film is an almost mumblecore style interpretation of the absurdities that can abound in the art world and how one unmotivated slacker uses the ill-focused energy of a local and group of rappers with dubious talent level for his own financial end.
Nate (Keith Poulson, Somebody Up There Likes Me) is a young photographer who wants to break into the New York City art scene. Yet instead of building a portfolio like other artists in his position he spends his time putting down other artists’ work. After Nate sees a music video called “I’LL CUT YO DICK OFF”, he discovers his new muses—a group of teenaged horror-rappers from Delaware—the Young Torture Killaz (think a young Insane Clown Posse). Soon Nate begins to travel to Delaware and photograph the teens under the guise of wanting to help further their careers, but these kids may not be the dupes he originally made them out to be.
Machete Kills (Guest Reviewer Andrew Robinson)
Opening tomorrow in theaters is the latest blood drenched opus from Robert Rodriguez‘s grindhouse fascination, and sequel to the original “Grindhouse” movie spinoff “Machete”, Machete Kills. Here to tell us all about his love for the Machete madness is friend of the site and proprietor of GMan Reviews Andrew Robinson.
Never has a film had more of a hill to climb than this and at the same time existed in it’s own realm of perfection than Machete Kills.
With the first film I found myself completely and utterly disappointed and I feel it was from a place of lost expectations. A film, based on a joke that was initially meant only to be that encapsulated by a (roughly) two minute trailer, where they decided to do that very narrative promised in the trailer felt like the epitomy of the “all the best parts were in the trailer” complaint that many film fans love to lob at these big dumb films. However, far away from that production process, starting anew Machete Kills has it’s own slew of dumb action gags that are ripe for joyous film lovers to dig deep into. (more…)
TIFF 2013: Blue Ruin (Addicted)
Dwight is a scruffy vagrant who lives by the beach and scavenges for food in dumpsters. He sleeps in a rusty old car seemingly content to live outside the norms of the everyday hustle and bustle. His seemingly aimless existence is interrupted when he learns of a man’s release from prison. Dwight transforms overnight and his life purpose snaps into focus as he returns to his Virginia hometown to face his past.
Blue Ruin is anchored by an intrepid and highly skilled performance from Macon Blair. (more…)
Indie phenom `The Dirties` makes its hometown debut (Review)
Finally making its hometown debut in Toronto at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival ‘Spotlight Screening’ tonight, an already sold out show, and then starting a theatrical run October 4th at the TIFF Bell Lightbox is the ground-breaking film “The Dirties”. The film is an insightful look at the effects of bullying on a fragile psyche and pulls no punches in its portrayal of a troubled teen losing his grip on the reality around him and the deadly results. The film does have a big fan in filmmaker Kevin Smith as he has picked it up for distribution on his Kevin Smith Movie Club label.
The Dirties
Starring: Matt Johnson and Owen Williams
Directed by Matt Johnson
We’ve all known (or been) someone like aspiring filmmaker Matt Johnson (played eponymously by Matt Johnson). A hyperactive teenage fanboy who’s every engagement with the world is filtered through incessant, intertwining references to movies, TV shows, comic books and other pop-culture ephemera. Armed with his ever-present video camera, Matt enrolls his best friend Owen (Owen Williams) to make a DIY comedy about their fantasized revenge on the school bullies who regularly victimize them. But after having their ultimate ‘vision’ of the film dashed, Owen soon begins to wonder if Matt is looking to make their revenge fantasy a reality.
The Dirties features a tight script, solid acting and steady camera that combined delivers a powerful and thought provoking experience. Johnson proves to be very capable in the acting/directing dual role, not afraid to show his character Matt in a very unflinching and sometimes unflattering way, Johnson manages to avoid the traps that so many ‘vanity’ projects fall prey to. Williams manages to deliver a believable performance as well, though the pair are really only playing themselves onscreen without much characterization. The film looks great with a realistic sense of scope and dynamic between the characters and the camera, more of a faux documentary than a found footage film, as Johnson wisely includes shots of the film being edited on his home computer to show that the footage has indeed been formed to play the way it does. The film also features one of the best ending credit sequences onscreen this year.
The Dirties is not perfect, some of the bullies in the film are mere cardboard cut-outs of what you’d expect and deliver some wooden performances, but it shines when it focuses on our leading duo of Matt and Owen. The ending sequence is shockingly straight forward inaction but heart wrenching in its final moments. The Dirties is the type of film that seeps in and stays with you awhile, a highly accomplished first feature from director Johnson that ends up being one of the most frank, honest and definitive works on the subject of school violence.
Till Next Time
Movie Junkie TO
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TIFF 2013: Like Father, Like Son (Dork Shelf)
Originally posted on DORK SHELF
Like Father, Like Son
Special Presentation
Director: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Ryota (Masaharu Fukuyama) and Midori Nonomiya (Machiko Ono) are a hard working professional couple who live with their only child, Keita, in a modern Tokyo high-rise. After the hospital delivers the shocking truth about their son being switched at birth, the Nonomiyas suddenly find their lives drastically altered. Their birth-son, Ryusei, is being raised by the easygoing Yudai (Lily Franky) and Yukari Saiki (Yoko Maki). In stark contrast to the Nonomiyas, the Saikis and their three children live in a modest apartment above the family’s appliance shop. Both couples are hesitant to force an abrupt emotional change on their families, but soon begin socializing, including swapping boys on weekends.
The winner of the Jury prize at Cannes this year, Like Father, Like Son is a thoughtful, methodical and serious examination of a concept usually played humorously. Fukuyama delivers a mesmerizing performance as the over-achieving Ryota, a father who while working to better his family’s situation has managed to distance himself from everyone around him. His work is nuanced and largely internalized, but displaying lots of confusion, doubt, and pain in his facial expressions.
The film does carry some pacing issues, and it takes a very long time to start getting to where it needs to go, but audience members that can stay with the film should leave very satisfied with a thoughtful and well-earned finale.
Till Next Time
Movie Junkie TO
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TIFF 2013: Don Jon (Addicted)
Jon Martello Jr. (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a New Jersey bartender and womanizer. Yet, in spite of his ability to land sexual partners, Jon has a dirty secret: he’s hopelessly hooked on internet porn. For him, no real life bedmate, no matter how gorgeous or skilled, can compare to the endless parade of images he finds on the web. Even after what would seem an exhausting session in the sack, Jon still feels the call of his laptop. Jon’s routine seems fixed for life until he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson). She’s a sassy Jersey girl who proves a rare challenge to his powers of seduction. But can he reveal to her his awkward addiction?
For his feature length directorial debut, Don Jon, (more…)
TIFF 2013: The Sacrament (Addicted)
Patrick (Kentucker Audley) is a fashion photographer. When his colleagues Sam (AJ Bowen) and Jake (Joe Swanberg), correspondents for Vice magazine, catch wind of a letter he received from his estranged sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz), they decide her story would be a great subject for a documentary. Caroline is living in what she refers to as a “sober” commune at an unnamed location outside the United States. While Patrick reunites with his sister, Sam and Jake investigate why members of the isolated community have followed a mysterious leader they call “Father” off American soil. Understandably skeptical at first, the guys slowly come around to the group’s utopian claims, until the cracks below the surface start to emerge.
TIFF 2013 Only Lovers Left Alive
TIFF 2013: Only Lovers Left Alive
Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is a reclusive, yet brilliantly talented and desired, rock star whose only wish is to avoid his adoring fans and write and play his music. Eve (Tilda Swinton) is his lady belle, who leaves her closest friend, Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), to travel halfway around the world to be with her lover and live in a ramshackle mansion-cum-recording studio on the outskirts of Detroit. Their reverie is troubled, not just by the fans who close in on and keep vigil outside Adam’s hideaway, but also by Eve’s irascible sister (Mia Wasikowska), who it seems perpetually stuck as a rambunctious and untameable teenager despite being just as old as the rest of the vampires she`s connected too.
Director Jim Jarmush uses the guise of the thousands year old vampires to tell a story dripped in decay and gothic sensibilities. Jarmush`s vampires are in no hurry to do anything, who would be after living thousands of years and seeing pretty much everything you could imagine, and in the case of Adam and Eve can spend hundreds of years apart yet remain deeply in love. The Detroit setting turns out to be a genius masterstroke in story telling as the near abandoned buildings and decrepit setting provide the perfect backdrop for the angst ridden Adam to wallow in. The film is packed with nods to historical people and places and infers that the group, including Hurt`s Christopher, have been manipulating art and culture since the time of Keats, Shelly and even Shakespeare.
Equally a meditation of the lasting impact of art throughout history, Jarmush manages to get the most out of the majority of his talented cast. Wasikowska is lost and sadly ineffectual in her turn as the sister, yet her role is a brief and fleeting for the audience as what a hundred years must feel like for the rest of the characters. A brooding and creative piece, Only Lovers Left Alive is one of the biggest highlights of TIFF 2013.
Till Next Time
Movie Junkie TO
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TIFF 2013: Parkland
Dallas. November 22, 1963. 12:38pm. Wounded President John F. Kennedy is rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where a frantic trauma team struggles in vain to save him. Precisely forty-eight hours later, the same personnel would attend to the President’s mortally wounded assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Adapting Vincent Bugliosi’s acclaimed non-fiction book Four Days in November, first-time writer-director Peter Landesman gathers a star-studded cast (including Zac Efron, Paul Giamatti, and Academy Award-winners Billy Bob Thornton and Marcia Gay Harden) to deliver an ensemble based procedural drawn from the accounts of the medical staff, investigators, and ordinary citizens who witnessed the world-changing events first-hand.
You will not find anything new or integral to the JFK Assassination in Parkland, this is not that film. Instead it remains content to merely play out and display the actions of the bystanders of that act. The film in many regards just sits there as it does little to draw the audience into the proceedings, other than what the audience brings to it. The film also features a failed story thread involving the secret service agent who originally interview Oswald months before that either needs to be more fleshed out or excised all together as it just sits hanging through most of the film as an afterthought.
The film features some decent performances, Paul Giammati, James Badge Dale and Marcia Gay Harden are all great, and one terribly unconvincing and terribly dull performance from Zac Efron. Sadly Efron is front and center here as one of JFK’s surgeons and in the midst of the other more seasoned performers sticks out like a sore thumb. And it’s that thumb that nearly ruins the whole experience.
‘The Muppet Movie’ will dazzle all ages on Blu-ray
New to Blu-ray, for the ‘Nearly 35th Anniversary Edition’, from Disney is the timeless classic that cemented the legacy of the Jim Henson universe for most children of a generation, and the generations that they have influenced in the following decades, “The Muppet Movie”. The film remains just as vital and hilarious today as it did back then, and for most adults in their 30’s and 40’s, it is an instant time capsule back to their childhood heroes in action again.
The Muppet Movie Blu-ray Review
Starring: The Muppets
Written by Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns
Directed by James Frawley
After a fateful meeting with a big-time talent agent, Kermit the Frog heads for Hollywood dreaming of show biz. Along the way, Fozzie Bear, the Great Gonzo and the dazzling Miss Piggy join him in hopes of becoming film stars too. But all bets are off when Kermit falls into the clutches of Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), a fast-food mogul seeking to promote his French-fried frog-leg franchise.
‘How to Make a Book with Steidl’ Review (Dork Shelf)
Originally published as part of the Bloor Cinema Column at DORK SHELF
How To Make A Book With Steidl
Meet publisher and printer Gerhard Steidl: revered and sought after worldwide for his ability to make the most exquisite art books imaginable. Using profits from his work with such long-time clients as Chanel, Günter Grass and Karl Lagerfeld, Steidl underwrites his publishing of limited edition books with the world’s best photographers. Superb cinematography frames the scenes between Steidl and the artists in action, revealing the playful, yet exacting process of their creative collaborations. Steidl is constantly in motion, travelling to London, Paris, New York, Vancouver and the deserts of Qatar, allowing us seductive glimpses into the rarely seen homes and studios of such renowned artists as Robert Adams, Robert Frank and Jeff Wall.
How To Make A Book is an intriguing portrait of a fiercely determined and his all-encompassing fascination and obsession with paper and ink (kind of like this week’s other film about Tomi Ungerer). At times a self-deprecating master schmoozer, at other times a grumpy and vindictive control freak, Steidl is never a boring character. During the course of the film we also traverse a product’s lifespan, from conceptual beginnings to the final product of Joel Sternfeld’s book i Dubai, and see how Steidl’s exacting standards, with all the bickering, infighting and frustrations included, work in driving creating and producing a unique and bold final product.
Audiences who invest in the journey and the man will be captivated and engrossed, though the film will likely be too dry and one sided for those who are turned off by Steidl’s OCD tendencies.
Till Next Time
Movie Junkie TO
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‘Far Out Isn’t Far Enough’ Review (Dork Shelf)
Originally published in the Bloor Cinema column for DORK SHELF
Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story
Most people have encountered the work of Tomi Ungerer during some point in their lives. From his award-winning children’s books to his provocative and iconic anti-war illustrations from the 60s and 70s, his work has always had a clever, biting edge balanced with a playful fearlessness. But his outspokenness made him a target of controversy and intense malice. This became even more evident when Ungerer began to illustrate erotic books late in his career, a move that outraged fans of his earlier work and blacklisted him and his publications from most major libraries, schools and bookstores.
Far Out Isn’t Far Enough is the story of a fascinating artist who never compromised his vision even when it meant the children’s literary world completely excised him. Reminiscent of the brilliant Wayne White documentary from last year, Beauty is Embarrassing, Far Out brings us another eccentric, reformed, and solitary man who chose to step back from his limelight and accolades. While not as accomplished or engaging as the Wayne White documentary, Far Out still tells a great story. With the multitude of drawings and artwork the filmmakers have to pull from, the picture has a fantastic and vibrant look.
Fellow author the late Maurice Sendak, of Where the Wild Things Are fame, calls Ungerer one of his greatest influences. Hopefully Far Out Isn’t Far Enough is ‘far enough’ to influence a new generation to put pen to page.
Till Next Time
Movie Junkie TO
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‘Prince Avalanche’ delivers enough to warrant a royal visitation
Starting this weekend at the Cineplex Yonge/Dundas in Toronto is the newest from the director of “Pineapple Express” and the upcoming Nicolas Cage film “Joe”,David Gordon Green. “Prince Avalanche”. Avalanche is a small, inclusionary tale set against the backdrop of a wildfire and used the filing location of Bastrop, Texas to emulate the effects after the Bastrop County Complex fire of 2011.
Prince Avalanche
Starring Paul Rudd and Emilie Hirsh
Written and Directed by David Gordon Green
Meditative and stern Alvin (Rudd) and his girlfriend’s dopey, insecure brother Lance (Hirsch), leave the city behind to spend the summer in solitude repainting traffic lines down the center of a country highway ravaged by wildfire. As they sink into their job in the remarkable landscape, they learn more than they want to about each other and their own limitations. (more…)
‘La Pirogue’ needs a little more work to achieve greatness
Starting this weekend at the TIFF Bell Lightbox is the critically acclaimed story of the struggle for a better life and the perilous journey that happens along the way in “La Pirouge”. The tale of African refuges is a story that has rarely been seen on screens before and was a big sensation at last year’s Cannes film festival, even becoming a nominee for the ‘un certain regard’ jury prize.
Starring Souleymane Seye Ndiaye, Laïty Fall, Malaminé ‘Yalenguen’ Dramé
Written by Éric Névé, David Bouchet
Directed by Moussa Touré
Each year, thousands of people leave Africa in rickety boats to undertake the dangerous (and illegal) voyage to Europe in search of a better life for them and their families. Moussa Touré’s powerful and suspenseful drama focuses on Baye Laye (more…)
Iceberg Slim pimps out the Bloor Cinema this week
The tale of Iceberg Slim is one of the most extremely unlikely forms of influential and highly regarded people you are likely to see this year. Starting this weekend at theBloor Hot Docs Cinema “Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp” recalls the turbulent life of the now deceased Slim, and how his gritty and realistic novels still inspire many to this day. The film features and candid interview with the man himself before he passed away as well as interviews with those closest to him.
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp
Starring: Iceberg Slim, Ice-T, Chris Rock, Snoop Dogg
Directed by Jorge Hinojosa
Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp tells a turbulent and transformative tale about the life of Robert Beck, who became an author following decades of pimping. As a young man searching for a role model, (more…)
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