Festivals
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Toronto 2017: Euthanizer review
★★★★☆ As a sideline to his day job, motorbike mechanic Veijo (Matti Onnismaa) puts sick animals down on the cheap, chastising the owners for their indifference to their pain. Teemu Nikki’s Euthanizer reveals itself to be an affecting examination of cruelty.In the film’s opening scene, a young woman brings her old, anaemic cat to be…
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Toronto 2017: 1% review
★★☆☆☆ There are things to like about 1%, Stephen McCallum’s debut feature about the head honchos of biker gang The Copperheads MC, scheming and duking it out in a power struggle. It’s just that sadly, there’s not a great deal to love, with the film never transcending its rote premise. The Copperheads’ President, Knuck (Matt…
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Toronto 2017: Our Festival Highlights
The world premiere of tennis drama Borg vs McEnroe will kick off the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (7-17 September), beginning a ten-day celebration of the upcoming award season’s main contenders, as well as an array of innovative and experimental offerings.Premiering later today, Dominic Cook’s feature debut On Chesil Beach stars Saoirse Ronan and Billy…
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Venice 2017: Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond review
★★★☆☆ Showing Out of Competition at Venice, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond goes behind the scenes on the shooting of Miloš Forman’s Man on the Moon, and reveals how Jim Carrey’s portrayal of Andy Kaufman was partly a tribute to the subject and partly flat-out insanity.Kaufman was as much a performance artist as a…
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Venice 2017: Una Famiglia review
★☆☆☆☆ Sebastiano Riso flies the Italian flag on the Lido with his new film Una Famiglia, a claustrophobic, scuzzy drama about a couple engaged in the illicit trade of selling babies. It’s a dour, monotonous, predictable and dull effort that doesn’t deserve its place in competition.We first spot Maria (Micaela Ramazzotti) and Vincenzo (French singer…
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Venice 2017: The Third Murder review
★★★☆☆ When a factory owner is murdered by an ex-employee the guilt appears certain and the case cut and dried. However, an ambitious lawyer soon discovers that there are layers of guilt and ends up wondering who can judge who in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Third Murder.Japanese auteur and festival favourite Kore-eda has made his reputation…
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Venice 2017: Suburbicon review
★★☆☆☆ In the black comedy Suburbicon, George Clooney takes us to the small town, white bread America that Donald Trump wants to MAGA us back to and uncovers that it wasn’t as great as all that. It joins the race for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.George Clooney hit the ground running…
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Venice 2017: The House By the Sea review
★★★☆☆ Three middle-aged siblings gather after their father suffers a stroke in The House By the Sea, a beautifully observed ensemble piece from French director Robert Guédiguian which today entered the competition for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.“Family isn’t a word. It’s a sentence,” ran the tagline to Wes Anderson’s The…
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Venice 2017: Foxtrot review
★★★★☆ War, grief and family are the themes of Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot, which joins the race for the Golden Lion at the 74th Venice Film Festival. It’s a daring and bold film, highly-stylised and imaginative, portraying an Israeli family’s reaction to bad news from the army.Samuel Maoz was in his late forties when he made…
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Venice 2017: Brawl in Cell Block 99 review
★★★★☆ Fans of Bone Tomahawk won’t be disappointed with director S. Craig Zahler’s bone-crushing, face-smashing, slow-burning genre mash-up Brawl in Cell Block 99. It stomped onto the Lido with a swagger and boasts a thumpingly good performance from Vince Vaughn.Bone Tomahawk was a bold debut. Half-John Ford Western, half-Ruggero Deodato gore-fest. Brawl on Cell Block…