Ah, the years of one’s youth— a topsy-turvy, illogical rollercoaster of emotions, hormones, and boundless wonder. The finest films that capture this spirited chaos often use their child characters as conduits, letting them revel in the sheer essence of being a kid. They turn simple tasks into wild adventures, offering glimpses of the magic and mayhem that is growing up. Enter “Riddle of Fire,” the debut feature from director Weston Razooli.

Continue reading ‘Riddle Of Fire’ Review: Weston Razooli’s Whimsical Fantasy Feature Debut Struggles To Sustain Its Magic [TIFF] at The Playlist.

It’s officially September. Summer is winding down, school is starting, and the Fall film festival circuit has kicked off. By the time you read this, you’ll have seen dozens of our reviews from the Venice Film Festival and Telluride Film Festivals. And so, while TIFF boasts much-anticipated titles like Christos Nikou’s “Fingernails” with Jessie Buckley, Richard Linklater’s “Hitman,” Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” reuniting him with Paul Giamatti, Michel Franco’s “Memory” with Jessica Chastain, Kitty Green’s “The Royal Hotel” with Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick, you’ll have read our reviews of those now.

Continue reading Toronto International Film Festival 2023: 26 Must-See Films To Watch At TIFF at The Playlist.

Forty years ago, the late filmmaker Jonathan Demme and the art-punk band The Talking Heads made one of the most outstanding concert docs of all time, “Stop Making Sense.” Now on this milestone anniversary, the beloved concert doc returns to theaters with a TIFF World Premiere and Global IMAX Live event on September 11 in a pristine new 4K restoration. Following that debut, the doc will then exclusively open in IMAX on September 22 and in theaters everywhere on September 29.

Continue reading ‘Stop Making Sense’ Trailer: Jonathan Demme’s Classic Talking Heads Concert 2Doc Gets A 4K Restoration At TIFF at The Playlist.

How great does Martika Ramirez Escobar’s surreal, award-winning film “Leonor Must Die” sound? This first feature transports a retired screenwriter of Filipino action films into the story of one of her own unfinished scripts. The film is the official Midnight Madness closing night Film of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, and it’s already won a ton of awards, including the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Continue reading ‘Leonor Will Never Die’ Trailer: TIFF’s Midnight Madness Movie Is A Offbeat Tribute To Vintage Filipino Action Films [Exclusive] at The Playlist.

Emmy-nominated American writer and film director Stefan Forbes, known for making the documentary “Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story,” is back with another fantastic documentary, this time focusing on conflict resolution and how you can’t fight fire with fire in the aptly titled, “Hold Your Fire.” The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and was quickly acquired by IFC Films.

Continue reading ‘Hold Your Fire’ Trailer & Poster: Everything Is Resolvable By Talking [Exclusive] at The Playlist.

The 2021 Fall Festival season seemed to bring a sense of normalcy 18 months into the COVID pandemic. Venice, Telluride, and the New York Film Festival all had in-person screenings with no capacity restrictions. The fourth member of that quartet, however, the Toronto International Film Festival, was not so lucky. Due to government restrictions, TIFF was forced into a hybrid in-person/virtual event with limited in-person venues, capacity limits, and far fewer attendees. Happily, that won’t be the case in 2022.

Continue reading TIFF Returns With A New Venue & Full Capacity In 2022 at The Playlist.

During my first year of film school, my teacher would assign a great task to all her students during a post-production and sound course. The assignment was a unique redubbing exercise, stripping the audio and initial sound mix from pre-existing film scenes. The goal of the activity was to practice the art of foley and sound-mix. We were given a choice to complete a brand new audio master of a select one-minute scene from either Agnès Varda’s “Clèo from 5 to 7,” Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker,” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth.” The exercise would later help open doors for the class to discover the extensivity and boundless freedom of the sound mix; how the absolute personification and given context of a visual piece of footage can be altered entirely on the whim.

Continue reading ‘Mr. Kneff’: Steven Soderbergh Turns ‘Kafka’ Into A Radical, Demented “Silent Film With Sound” [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Toronto International Film Festival: The utilization of hand-drawn animation as preferred medium for artists to assimilate and explicate real-world chaos in recent years has produced gorgeously sensitive visions including Cartoon Saloon’s “The Breadwinner,” and just this year the animated documentary “Flee” and Ari Folman’s tenderly fantastical “Where is Anne Frank.”

READ MORE: Fall 2021 Movie Preview: 60+ Must-See Films

Realized with few flourishes of imagination but an undaunted resolve for dealing with human tragedy, “Charlotte,” by directors Tahir Rana and Éric Warin and based on a screenplay from writers Erik Rutherford and David Bezmozgis, joins the growing list of such mature animated projects with underlying social justice concerns.

Continue reading ‘Charlotte’: Animated Holocaust Drama Recounts The Tragic Life Of An Artist [Review] at The Playlist.

Guns, gold bars, drug lords, military coups, folk heroes, tall tales, and ghost stories. Is there a 2021 film that gives more bang for the buck than Jean Luc Herbulot’s superb “Saloum”? This is not a case of “too much” movie, where the director and screenwriter thoughtlessly stuff as many ingredients into the pot as they can and hope the concoction doesn’t boil over. No one likes a mess on a hot stovetop. Happily, Herbulot knows what he’s cooking and how to treat his varied elements.

Continue reading ‘Saloum’ Is A Kinetic, Genre-Bending Revenge Story [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

We casually throw the word “icon” around with such abandon these days that it almost feels like we need a new, more potent idiom to describe those who actually fit the bill. But until we get that term, let’s say that Sigourney Weaver is an absolute icon and leave it at that — a brilliant actor equally adept at drama, action, and comedy, a three-time Academy Award nominee (two of them in the same year), the kind of screen presence who lifts just about anything she’s in.

Continue reading ‘The Good House’ Showcases The Greatness Of Sigourney Weaver [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Jessica Chastain isn’t the only connection between “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and the upcoming Paramount+ “George and Tammy” limited series. Abe Sylvia, a co-executive producer on “The Affair” and “Dead to Me,” is the screenwriter. And Chastain is how he got the opportunity to help bring Tammy Faye Bakker’s story to the big screen.

READ MORE: ‘The Eyes Of Tammy Faye’: Jessica Chastain Unlocks Empathy & Redemption For A Televangelist Grifter [TIFF Review]

“It started with a spec script that I wrote for Jessica Chastain she was attached to about George Jones and Tammy Wynette,” Sylvia recalls.

Continue reading ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ Screenwriter Hopes Jim Bakker Will Watch It [Interview] at The Playlist.

Writer-director Camille Griffin’s debut feature film “Silent Night” effectively blends two seemingly disparate genres — holiday films and impending apocalyptic cinema. Both high-pressure situations that get you thinking about what really matters, Griffin’s film navigates difficult family and friend dynamics with mordant humor as they face the end of the world together on Christmas Eve. While the film works best when it’s satirizing ensemble holiday films a la “Love Actually,” it’s not afraid to go bleak as impending doom creeps ever closer.

Continue reading ‘Silent Night’: Keira Knightley & Co. Blend The Holiday Film With The End Of The World Genre [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Justine Bateman is on a quest to explore the fears and to openly address the toxic, self-destructive voices in our heads that tell us we’re no good and unworthy of love and success. The actor’s directorial debut and new drama, “Violet,” debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival this week, highlights the ideas she’s thought about and faced head-on in her own life: self-made insecurity, fear, and crippling self-doubt.

Continue reading ‘Violet’: Director Justine Bateman Faces Her Fears With New Olivia Munn-Starring Self-Doubt Drama [TIFF Interview] at The Playlist.

Comfortable in his newly found friendship, Hatzín (Hatzín Navarrete), a teenager from Mexico City who traveled to Chihuahua’s northern state to reclaim his father’s remains, pretends to be upset and explains he’s decided to return home. He laughs several seconds later, tricking Mario (Hernán Mendoza), his boss and impromptu life mentor.  

READ MORE: Toronto Film Fest 2021 Preview: 16 Must-See Movies To Watch

Proving he can convincingly lie on command is the first indication of the lengths to which the boy will go to protect this bond he holds so precious.

Continue reading ‘The Box’: Golden Lion Winner Lorenzo Vigas Crafts A Tense, Slow-Burn Coming-Of-Age Drama [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

The original queen of cuisine, the first rock star foodie, Julia Child became a cooking phenomenon throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, thanks to her PBS series and cookbooks. A trailblazer for sharing her love and enthusiasm for cooking and food in the mediums of books and TV, Child paved the way for today’s culture of 24/7 food programming, passing away before seeing the influx of reality TV cooking, Food Networks, and foodie social media.

Continue reading ‘Julia’: ‘RBG’ Doc Filmmakers Julie Cohen & Betsy West Turn Their Attention To Julia Child, The Original, Trailblazing Foodie Queen [TIFF Interview] at The Playlist.

What a strange career Barry Levinson has had. The Baltimore-born filmmaker burst onto the scene in 1982 with “Diner” and embarked on a winning streak that’s still somewhat astonishing — his hits from the period included “Tin Men,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “Rain Man,” and “Bugsy.” And then came 1992’s “Toys,” and after it, a steady cascade of real clunkers: “Jimmy Hollywood,” “Disclosure,” “Sphere,” “Envy,” “Man of the Year,” “Rock the Kasbah,” and so on.

Continue reading ‘The Survivor’: Barry Levinson’s Boxing Biopic With Ben Foster Both Embraces & Subverts Its Formulas [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Reuniting with “St. Vincent,” director Theodore Melfi, Melissa McCarthy, and Chris O’Dowd play a married couple on the rocks after the unexpected loss of their baby tears them apart. Calibrated as a crowd-pleaser like their previous collaboration, which had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival where it was runner-up for the audience award, “The Starling” is the kind of cloying, overly sentimental treacle that often gets labeled uplifting, but whose seams show like a mass-produced discount t-shirt. 

Continue reading ‘The Starling’: Melissa McCarthy & Chris O’Dowd Offer Emotional Range In A Cloying, Overly-Sentimental Movie [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

According to the basic tenets of Christian scripture, all god’s creatures are worthy of judgment-free love. And while the hypocrisy of those words is rarely interrogated in “The Eyes Of Tammy Faye” — the bible belt preachers and communities presented in the film often fail to practice what they preach and are never forced to examine their own accumulation of wealth — these parts of the bible are really not the film’s concern.

Continue reading ‘The Eyes Of Tammy Faye’: Jessica Chastain Unlocks Empathy & Redemption For A Televangelist Grifter [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

In writer-director Stephen Karam’s feature debut, the dark horror-comedy “The Humans,” it’s not so much a bump in the night or the creak in the door that can rupture an untapped fear. Those are merely the externalized notes that grant music to the ever-present existential dread. These are primordial forces that afflict us in our dreams and in our prayers, ones we sometimes paper over with religion or companionship.

Continue reading ‘The Humans:’ Steven Yeun, Beanie Feldstein, & Richard Jenkins, Only Partially Save This Dark Horror Comedy [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Everyone knows someone like Rebeca Huntt. A born-and-bred New Yorker, she came of age in a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, her family’s pride and joy. Now well into her twenties, she’s figuring out her priorities as an artist and her place in the world. She loves her parents even if they sometimes push her buttons, she couldn’t be closer with her big sister, and she’d die without her crew of friends.

Continue reading ‘Beba’: Rebeca Huntt’s Earnest Documentary Struggles With Perspective [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

Co-created by Ava DuVernay and former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick — who silently took a knee during the US national anthem in 2016 in protest of the racial inequality and indiscriminate killing of Black Americans by police — “Colin in Black and White,” the limited docudrama series from Netflix, follows its subject as he looks back on his formative years as an adopted, biracial high school and college athlete with his eyes set on becoming a professional quarterback.

Continue reading ‘Colin in Black and White’: Ava DuVernay and Colin Kaepernick’s Series Simmers With Promise [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

To open: Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a young woman living in North Ossetia, is planted against the cement wall by the freeway. As the tumult of cars rushes by, a young man — the seemingly lovesick Tamik (Arsen Khetagurov) — calls for her. She covers her face with her zipped-up jacket, only exposing her vacillating eyes; they express so much it’s as though she’s created a never-before-seen emotion.

Continue reading ‘Unclenching the Fists:’ A Bleak, Unflinching Russian Coming-of-Age Tale [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

There’s no escape for the women in Hany Abu-Assad’s blistering new film “Huda’s Salon,” a fearless statement on gender oppression shaped as an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Back in top form, the acclaimed director behind stunners such as “Paradise Now” and “Omar” returns to dissecting the perilous Palestinian experience under Israeli control.

READ MORE: Toronto Film Fest 2021 Preview: 16 Must-See Movies To Watch

Before his camera enters the eponymous beautification business where lives are upended, Abu-Assad eases us into the reality of his people via snippets of quotidian interactions in the occupied territories.

Continue reading ‘Huda’s Salon’: Hany Abu-Assad Offers a Fearless Reckoning on Women’s Oppression in Occupied Palestine [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

We have a tendency, as difficult films work the festival circuit, to reduce them to simplistic, giggle-worthy loglines, perhaps as a way to avoid grappling with work that challenges our ideas of what this medium is and how it should work. “Annette” somehow became a movie about Adam Driver singing during cunnilingus, even though that moment comprised maybe 20 seconds of a two-plus hour film; if all you read were snickering tweets about it, “High Life” is a movie about a “f*ck box.” 

READ MORE: Toronto Film Fest 2021 Preview: 16 Must-See Movies To Watch

This brings us to Lucile Hadžihalilović’s “Earwig,” which has already become somewhat notorious as “the movie about the girl with ice cube teeth.” So it seems worth starting out by noting that “Earwig” is not about that.

Continue reading ‘Earwig’: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Latest Is A Beautiful Baffler [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.

“Should you still be drinking?” she asks, and it’s pointed, but everything they say to each other is pointed. Jo Henninger (Jessica Chastain) and her husband David (Ralph Fiennes) have been married for something like a dozen years, and it’s not going well; they guard each other with barely-veiled (if that) contempt, and their interactions are less like conversations than jousts, a constant barrage of little jabs and snipes.

Continue reading ‘The Forgiven’: Ralph Fiennes Shines In John Michael McDonagh’s Thinnest Effort To Date [TIFF Review] at The Playlist.