TIFF21 REVIEW: The Middle Man [2021]

You’ve just got to take things as they come. Frank Farelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) has been unemployed in a dying town for quite some time. The area used to attract visitors in the past—not many, but enough to staff a hotel that’s now been closed for years. So too has the local movie theater. As the so-called “Commission” (Paul Gross‘ Sheriff, Nicolas Bro‘s Pastor, and Don McKellar‘s Doctor) explains it, they may not be able to keep the streetlights going thanks to a dwindling budget caused by a lack of…

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REVIEW: Selvmordsturisten [Exit Plan] [2019]

Life never stops. Life is forever. Max (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is an insurance adjuster who just told his latest client that her claim wouldn’t be approved since her husband’s six-month disappearance isn’t confirmation of death. It’s a revelation that leaves her distressed not because she won’t be getting the money, but because she’ll have to continue living with the possibility he might still be alive. She wishes for a body because it would provide answers. She wishes Max would sign-off on the plan anyway because doing so would supply a legal…

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TIFF18 REVIEW: Blindsone [Blind Spot] [2018]

Remember to breathe. The boldness of Tuva Novotny to choose to make her directorial debut a one-shot film of harrowing emotion cannot be understated. Her Blindsone [Blind Spot] takes us through the wringer as tragedy befalls a small, (seemingly) happy family without warning. These characters are distraught, confused, and falling to pieces as ambulances race and patience is tested before discovering new insights that may only provide more questions. And Novotny fearlessly traverses each new dramatic impulse, moving the camera from one to the other so we can be a…

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REVIEW: Annihilation [2018]

Sometimes it’s beautiful. Reflections have been the subject of many fantasies whether it’s Through the Looking-Glass or Poltergeist III. The notion that a double exists in a different world conjures an unavoidable eeriness and the possibility of usurpation wherein fiction could become truth. It’s easy to therefore see the inherent duality as a good versus evil scenario with conqueror and conquered fighting for the opportunity to exist. But what happens when you make your mirror less smooth? What if the prism through which your image has been duplicated refracts rather…

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REVIEW: Krigen [A War] [2015]

“B for Bang” It’s not inconsequential that Tobias Lindholm‘s latest drama is simply and generically titled A War [Krigen]. This isn’t a story about Afghanistan or even Denmark—war is war no matter where it takes place or who is involved. Instead the film is about our actions both home and abroad, in the fight and outside it. It’s about our ever in flux notion of conscience and moral compass as it relates to patriotism rather than right or wrong. At the end of the day war is fought because governments…

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