“Show us your Dicks!” Roughly 90 minutes after someone in the audience yelled that request out, the people sitting in the Royal Alexandra Theatre would find themselves being showered with makeshift confetti, led in a gospel sing-along by folks in church-choir robes, and batting around beach balls and, naturally, inflatable …
Read More »'The Boy and the Heron' Proves That Hayao Miyazaki Is the Greatest Animator Alive
There are those who were confused upon reading the announcement that the Toronto International Film Festival would kick off its 48th edition with The Boy and the Heron, from the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. And then there are those who heard that this latest — and possibly the last — …
Read More »'How to Blow Up a Pipeline' Is Here to Radicalize Gen Z
A group of twentysomethings converge upon a small, seemingly abandoned house outside of Odessa, Texas. Two of them are former students, frustrated by the lack of urgency around climate change. One is a Native American from North Dakota, who does a series of D.I.Y. bombmaking videos under the name “Boomtalk.” …
Read More »How Did 'All Quiet on the Western Front' Become an Oscar Favorite?
Every year, the Oscar nomination announcements tend to inspire shrieks of joy, yelps of surprise, and the loud gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. This year was no different, with gasps soundtracking Andrea Riseborough’s somewhat out-of-left-field (and controversial) Best Actress nomination for To Leslie, some scattered “hell-yeahs” accompanying Paul …
Read More »'I Know What You Feel Before a Fight': Why Gina Prince-Bythewood Needed to Make 'The Woman King'
Gina Prince-Bythewood doesn’t find herself intimidated very often. Why would she be? The director kicked off her career with a bona fide sports-movie classic, Love & Basketball, which was the talk of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival; she’d made critically acclaimed dramas like Beyond the Lights and superhero blockbusters like …
Read More »10 Best Movies at Toronto Film Festival 2022
Should you have wondered whether the Toronto International Film Festival was indeed “back” in full force — in its 47th edition, and its second since Virtual TIFF Year Zero — you simply had to look outside. Folks milled in front the Bell Lightbox when they weren’t packed into screenings, chatting …
Read More »'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed' Is a Major Work of Anti-Pharma Protest Art
On the afternoon of March 10th, 2018, Nan Goldin walked into the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The award-winning photographer is no stranger to these institutions; prints of her groundbreaking work documenting everything from gay subcultures to the stifling legacy of suburbia to her own domestic abuse have graced their walls …
Read More »Harry Styles Gets Highly Choreographed Rollout of 'My Policeman' in Toronto
Another week, another high-wattage film festival for Harry Styles. But for those hoping for a repeat of the drama surrounding the Venice launch of Don’t Worry Darling, think again. The Toronto world premiere of his period drama My Policeman went off without any intrigue or controversy. And that was by …
Read More »'This Is New for Me': Brendan Fraser Earns Another Standing Ovation, Toronto Film Fest Prize for 'The Whale'
Brendan Fraser enjoyed another standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival as he accepted the TIFF Tribute Award for his performance in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. “This is new for me, as things go,” Fraser quipped as he held his award. “Normally, I’m the guy at the podium who …
Read More »'The Fabelmans' Is the Steven Spielberg Movie We've Been Waiting Four Decades for Him to Make
The little boy is scared. There’s such a large crowd outside the theater. He has no idea what will happen when he walks through the doors and into the room filled with dozens of seats, all facing a large blank square. Plus it’s in the dark. He’s been told him …
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