Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: Borg McEnroe The other tennis movie that played at TIFF is Borg McEnroe, which was the opening night film because…someone at TIFF really likes tennis? It’s a tennis themed year. If you’re a big tennis fan, you might enjoy Borg McEnroe for its recreation of the 1980 Wimbledon finals By Sarah • Sep 15, 2017 10:07 am
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: The Current War The Current War is about Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) scrambling to build the electrical grid that will power a nation. When the movie begins, Edison is already a famous “inventor”, known most recently for the invention of the lightbulb, and Westinghouse has made an enormous By Sarah • Sep 15, 2017 08:16 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Gary Oldman goes for Oscar in Darkest Hour Darkest Hour begins as Neville Chamberlain is forced to resign as Prime Minister on the eve of World War II, and Winston Churchill is selected as his replacement after the more popular Lord Halifax—also a supporter of appeasement—passes up the opportunity. It’s a bit of political maneuvering By Sarah • Sep 14, 2017 01:34 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Lainey: Did we mention Nicole Kidman is riding a wave?) Yorgos Lanthimos makes films so surreal they are almost impossible to describe. He’s not a visual surrealist so much as an emotional surrealist, his stories taking you into bizarre worlds and twisted circumstances. A Lanthimos film is a horror By Sarah • Sep 14, 2017 10:47 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding I, Tonya sold during TIFF to distributors Neon and 30West, in a deal said to be $5 million. Lainey thinks that’s low, but it sounds about right to me—the natural effect of the disastrous summer is more cautious spending. Netflix was apparently offering $8 million—I ran across By Sarah • Sep 13, 2017 03:55 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews James Franco and the real Disaster Artist The Room is the most popular cult film of the last twenty years, frequently described as the “best worst movie ever made”, and subject of The Disaster Artist, a half-memoir, half-procedural about the making of the movie and the friendship at its center, both on and off screen, between Tommy By Sarah • Sep 13, 2017 12:15 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: The Shape of Water If you ask me to describe Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water, the short answer is: Amelie f*cks a fish monster. The long answer, though, is that The Shape of Water is a beautiful, tender, sweet, sincere, sorta funny, definitely weird, deeply romantic film about love and By Sarah • Sep 12, 2017 03:24 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: Downsizing Alexander Payne follows up his pair of family dramas with Downsizing, a movie that doesn’t quite know what it is. I would like to ask Payne if the attraction of Downsizing was REALLY the material, or was it playing around with the various technology required to make it, from By Sarah • Sep 12, 2017 11:12 am
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: Battle of the Sexes Let’s just get it out of the way—yes, Battle of the Sexes gives Emma Stone the more Oscar-worthy part than La La Land. Billie Jean King is a better character, better written, and this is now a classic case of “won an Oscar for the wrong movie”. With By Sarah • Sep 12, 2017 09:39 am
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: Molly’s Game Molly’s Game is Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, but it’s Jessica Chastain’s movie from start to finish. Written by Sorkin, adapted from Molly Bloom’s memoir as the mastermind of the world’s most exclusive poker game, unsurprisingly Molly’s Game is mostly a series of flashy By Sarah • Sep 11, 2017 11:33 am
Movie Reviews and Previews TIFF Review: mother! Whoo boy are we in for a fight over mother!. Firstly because the trailers and marketing are MASSIVELY misleading—it isn’t a horror film or a riff on Rosemary’s Baby. And secondly because it’s the kind of film designed to be upsetting and polarizing, and is open By Sarah • Sep 11, 2017 08:19 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Bill Skarsgård and a bunch of kids in It It lets you know what kind of movie it is right off the bat, when Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård) bites the arm off a little kid before yanking him into a sewer. The kid in question is Georgie, with his iconic yellow raincoat, and his disappearance begins a year-long By Sarah • Sep 08, 2017 09:49 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Tulip Fever is insane Filmed in 2014, intended for release in 2015, eventually slated in 2016, inevitably kicked to 2017, and then bumped a few times just to be sure, Tulip Fever hop-scotched its way across release calendars so much it became a joke among film critics. Tulip Fever actually being released in theaters By Sarah • Sep 07, 2017 04:09 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury The first look at Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury is in Entertainment Weekly this week, marking the singer’s would-be 71st birthday. It shows Malek in character during the 1985 Live Aid concert, one of Freddie’s most famous moments. #RamiMalek is #FreddieMercury in this exclusive first look at ' By Sarah • Sep 07, 2017 09:49 am
Movie Reviews and Previews Now it’s LucasFilm back in the mess As a reminder that DC Films aren’t the only ones having near constant meltdowns, yesterday LucasFilm announced that Colin Trevorrow—of Jurasssic World fame—is no longer directing Star Wars: Episode IX. This comes less than three months after Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired while making the By Sarah • Sep 06, 2017 11:45 am
TV Updates Death and Grief Haunt Twin Peaks Twin Peaks: The Return is a lot of things— frustrating, sublime, confounding, profound, subliminal, meandering, extra-narrative—and while it eschews linear storytelling and finite plot points, it offers rich themes, including expounding on the original series’ depiction of evil as an exterior force and people as conduits that let it By Sarah • Sep 06, 2017 09:55 am
