Day: September 8, 2016

TIFF16 REVIEW: Pyromanen [Pyromaniac] [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“You can be whatever you want to be” Going in with no expectations besides the recent news that the film had been shortlisted for Norway’s 2017 Oscar selection, director Erik Skjoldbjærg‘s Pyromanen [Pyromaniac] could not have delivered a better start to get me ready. Using extended camera movements to capture subtle detail from a car driving up to the older woman’s look of panic inside the house as she searches for her husband with ominous words, “He’s here.” I was enraptured. Glass breaks and fire bursts out from door to…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: Souvenir [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“Like ABBA but not so famous” It starts with bubbles. So many bubbles rising slowly in liquid as the opening credits in script font flash onscreen. And when the camera finally pans out to see what it’s been that’s mesmerized us so? A glass of water with an Alka-Seltzer dropped in, of course. This is the humor director Bavo Defurne and his co-writers Jacques Boon and Yves Verbraeken infuse throughout their outside-the-box romance Souvenir. As it is the woman about to drink this concoction is hardly special: she lives alone,…

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TIFF16 REVIEW: The Magnificent Seven [2016]

Jared Mobarak

“It won’t sweeten, it’ll only sour” I’m at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to the new The Magnificent Seven despite going in thinking it’d be the other way around. Here I was anticipating that I’d be able to watch the film with a completely blank slate because I’ve never seen the 1960 version nor have I yet been able to sit down for what is surely one of cinema’s greats: Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai. So, pretending to be a true millennial that doesn’t realize movies were made before those…

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