Day: September 11, 2015

TIFF15 REVIEW: Len and Company [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Be good or be gone” Hearing how deeply a film touched its cast lends a certain air that might not normally be there. Len and Company has it as Juno Temple and star Rhys Ifans both exclaimed during their TIFF premiere Q&A how affected they were by director Tim Godsall and cowriter Katherine Knight‘s script. Shot at the former’s own home with a delicate touch of humanity, an abundance of humor, and the perfect pinch of dramatic gravitas, the film proves more than its conventional story presumes. We’ve seen its…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Mænd & høns [Men & Chicken] [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“In fact, they hadn’t been dealt any cards” While I’m not familiar with Anders Thomas Jensen‘s solo work, I am with the films he has collaborated on opposite Susanne Bier. So to see images of his latest Mænd & høns [Men & Chicken] with a weirdly disfigured and hair lipped Mads Mikkelsen readying for a badminton strike was to be unprepared for the dark comedy of pratfalls a la Klovn it provides. A perverse genetic-minded fairy tale about family—warts and more warts—its lead duo consisting of one brother who must…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: Ville-Marie [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“It’s like you never do the right thing” It may only be his second feature length fictional narrative, but writer/director Guy Édoin‘s Ville-Marie is something special. The title is named after the Montreal hospital where the majority of the film takes place. From an unforgettable opening that violently shakes us awake to prepare for the sprawling yet meticulously constructed plot extending out of its devastation, Édoin and cowriter Jean-Simon DesRochers grab us with a disorienting amount of seemingly disparate avenues. Two automobile accidents will give each character a reason to…

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TIFF15 REVIEW: A Patch of Fog [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“What happened to one guy doing another guy a favor?” After Michael Lennox‘s success with the Oscar-nominated short Boogaloo and Graham, it was only a matter of time before he’d delve back into the feature game with his debut solo fiction. Scripted by John Cairns and Michael McCartney, A Patch of Fog possesses the type of intrigue and suspense that’s able to capture the attention of two grossly underused character actors in Conleth Hill and Stephen Graham. One plays a famous writer living off the royalties of the only novel…

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