TIFF20 REVIEW: The Kid Detective [2020]

I used to be loved. The premise behind Evan Morgan‘s The Kid Detective definitely hit upon my nostalgia as a big fan of the HBO “Encyclopedia Brown” series when I was a kid. You do wonder what might happen to someone like that as they grow older. Do they become cynical? Depressed? Do they become actual private detectives or go into the police force? A real world Encyclopedia Brown would have to face the reality that what they thought they were doing was never actually what it was. Being the…

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TIFF14 REVIEW: Day 40 [2014]

“God is one crazy bitch” Who doesn’t like a little revisionist history? Especially when it concerns the sanctity of the Bible—I think that’s my favorite kind. Because why did that book become this whole end-all/be-all document of our existence, morality, sin, and promise? Who the hell were Peter, Paul, and Mary besides 1960s folk singers with some kick-ass songs? Why can’t director Sol Friedman and writer Evan Morgan‘s voices be just as important when it comes to describing how we humans came to be? The answer is: they can. And…

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TIFF12 REVIEW: 2012 Short Cuts Canada Programmes

Programme 1 “So a TV killed your father” What do you get when you mix the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the ancient metallurgical science of alchemy, and the namesake of inventor Philo Farnsworth? The answer is Connor Gaston‘s short film Bardo Light—titled for the bright glow none of us can avoid at the end of our lives. Told via the police interrogation of the younger Farnsworth (Shaan Rahman) after his adopted father (Bill Gaston) was found suffocated to death in their cabin, we quickly learn of successful experiments using…

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