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The Torontonian Reviews: The Paperboy

03-013

t’s understood that exceptionally bad movies will attract an audience of camp enthusiasts, but Lee Daniels’ third directing credit is not a “trashterpiece” or “so bad it’s good” or “there’s nothing else on television, honey”. No, it’s just trash: garbage that has been pissed on by raccoons or crocodiles or whatever animal your locale attracts and glossed with the veneer of star power and intriguing trailers. Stay away. Let it die. Just let it shrivel up and die.

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The Torontonian Reviews: The Silver Linings Playbook

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The film will assuredly please crowds and win hearts in the end—perhaps even Oscar’s—but audiences interested in something more complex should probably look elsewhere.

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TIFF12 Review: The Act of Killing

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As Anwar and company tell their story about their lives as gangsters it becomes quickly evident that what they have in mind isn’t a thoughtful, introspective reflection on their history, but a glorious, bedazzled, trumped up showcase of themselves positioned as the heroes of this bloody tale of horror, augmented with dancing girls in fancy costumes, the rotund, hairy Herman, dressed in makeup and a sparkly turquoise mermaid dress, gleefully bloody re-enactments of the murders they committed, and a giant concrete fish. It’s a truly bizarre perspective on the slaughter of millions and the role this men had in it, so much so that at times, it’s even a little funny, the sheer audacity and absurdity of it all. Until it’s not.

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TIFF12 Review: Ginger & Rosa

BOMB by Sally Potter, starring Alice Englert and Elle Fanning

The leftist bent of the characters and some heavy-handed nuclear symbolism might seem to imply that director Sally Potter’s reaching for a bigger message here, but really, this is a heavily character-driven story about these two young girls whose lifetime friendship grows threatened as they grow in separate directions, and, especially, a coming-of-age story about Ginger, who learns things along the way that force her to reassess all the things she thought she knew, about her parents, about friendship, and about life.

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The View From After TIFF

Good morning, Movienam! I thought I’d start boxing the TIFF experience this morning. It’s a weird time for film festivals. Not just TIFF. But especially at TIFF this year. Literally every single journalist or publicist I talked to – and this year, I ended up spending more time with publicists than journalists, which can be…

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The Torontonian Reviews: Comrade Kim Goes Flying

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TIFF12 Review: Pieta

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TIFF12 Review: Middle of Nowhere

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TIFF12 Review: Love is All You Need

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TIFF12 Review: To the Wonder

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The Torontonian Reviews: To The Wonder

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TIFF12 Review: At Any Price

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The Torontonian Reviews: End of Watch

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The Torontonian Reviews: Storm Surfers 3D

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TIFF12 Interview: Tamara Podemski

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 Sunday, May 19 2013 12:52:48

“Two hours in the labyrinth of Paramount’s Avarice…. It was my first–and my last–IMAX venture. Haven’t been to a 3-D movie in years, and it’s bye-bye to THAT scathing visual transgression for the remainder of MY lifetime… It was an unceasing, unrelenting, take-no-audience-prisoners audial and visual back-alley mugging for two hours… I have been beaten up many times; I know what it feels like: this was a two-hour assault. I weep, as Jesus wept, for the generations that will grow up thinking this is what it means to “go to the movies.” I am near-on 79, and I [understand] that this is a generational opinion, but I do not think any sensible person not of a tot age where videogame… overkill is pro forma, could confuse the IMAX “experience” with a Saturday matinee outing. The term “author” as regards Summer Blockbuster movies, is not only moot, it is Urdu. Mountains heave mightily, and give birth to volcanic ant-hills.”
Harlan Ellison Takes In Star Trek: Into Darkness

“One of the things I wish I could do in my life would be to watch this film through somebody else’s eyes. I just can’t. I still see it as just a giant mess, and other people are seeing that it has a shape. That’s really exciting, because I still have a hard time seeing it clearly.”
~ Sarah Polley’s Greatest Wish About Stories We Tell