Festivals
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#LFF 2017: Let the Corpses Tan review
★★★★☆ Moving away from the febrile world of 1970s Italian horror to that decade’s Euro crime dramas, Belgium-based duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani have crafted yet another deliriously frenetic, blood-soaked homage to cult cinema of yesteryear.Working from a pulp fiction novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid, Let the Corpses Tan drops the audience…
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#LFF 2017: Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse review
★★★★☆ The hills are alive with the sound of Satan in Lukas Feigelfeld’s outstanding debut feature. Set in 15th century Austria, high in the Alps, the film details the mental disintegration of a twentysomething milkmaid who lives alone in a cabin in the woods.Hagazussa: A Heathen’s Curse will most likely be pegged as this year’s…
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#LFF 2017: The Final Year review
★★★★☆ Chronicling the last twelve months of Barack Obama’s tenure, Greg Barker’s The Final Year is an intimate, earnest and insightful expose of the key players of his departing administration and the legacy left in his wake as the world enters the Trump era.From charting the day-to-day workings of Obama’s close-knit team of advisers as…
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#LFF 2017: Journey’s End review
★★★★☆ Opening in 1928, R.C. Sherriff’s play Journey’s End depicted the tragic futility of the Great War through the metaphor of lost youth. British director Saul Dibb’s adaptation, in cinemas this week, is a timely reminder of the true cost of the conflict. Asserting his status as a serious young talent, Asa Butterfield ably leads the…
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Toronto 2017: Three Billboards wins People’s Choice Award
As the 2017 Toronto Film Festival closes, we take a look at our top picks from the festival. Despite already premiering in Venice, Darren Aronofsky’s unhinged Mother! created the most buzz on the ground, garnering rave reviews from festival-goers and critics alike.Sadly, that hasn’t translated to box office success, with the film flopping at the…
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Toronto 2017: Valley of Shadows review
★★★★★ Using the folkloric tropes of a deep, dark wood and tales of a beast terrorising the countryside, with his feature debut Valley of Shadows Norwegian director Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen has crafted one of the year’s finest, most deeply affecting psychological dramas.As with all the best ghost stories, this one starts with a family in…
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Toronto 2017: Lady Bird review
★★★★★ Following her co-director credit on 2008’s Nights and Weekends, Greta Gerwig goes it alone directing Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird. A lovingly observed, pitch perfect coming-of-age comedy, Gerwig’s warm, astute account of the end of adolescence is a stunning solo debut. High school senior Christine (Ronan) – now insisting that she is called ‘Lady…
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Toronto 2017: Dark River review
★★★★☆ Following this year’s The Levelling and God’s Own Country, the decaying farmlands of rural England appear to be replacing the urban concrete high-rise as the preferred setting for British social realism. Clio Barnard’s Dark River may well be the cream of this particular crop.Barnard, whose Yorkshire-centric filmography already includes doc-hybrid The Arbor and The…
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Toronto 2017: Darkest Hour review
★★☆☆☆ Unpopular with his own cabinet and under pressure to enter into peace negotiations with Nazi Germany, once he became PM Winston Churchill’s character became symbolic of wartime spirit, his rousing speeches among the most famous examples of political oratory. What a shame, then, that the portrayal of such a figure should be fumbled so…
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Toronto 2017: Jane review
★★★★☆ When now-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall went to Tanzania to study chimpanzees, she had no scientific qualifications or formal training. Armed with a passion for nature and her tenacity, she changed the way our closest cousins are understood by science.Brett Morgan’s Jane blends hundreds of hours of archival footage with a new interview with Goodall…