TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’

TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 16, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’

Xue Ming (Eddie Peng) returns to the scene of his crime in Are You Lonesome Tonight? It’s a decision that baffles most viewers but it’s understandable when thinking abut the literal and figurative aspects of that behavior. There are scenes, many of them, where he does the former, and for the latter, he runs into Liang Ma (Sylvia Chang), the widow of the man he ran over. The accident and the friendship take place in 1997 Shenzhen, the year when its neighboring city Hong Kong returned to China.

Anyway, the first half of this story depicts Xue and Liang’s friendship, where they …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Întregalde’

TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 16, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Întregalde’

A Transylvanian forest becomes the setting for Întregalde, a place where three Bucharest-bred aid workers (including Alex Bogdan and Ilona Brezoianu) give out food to needier peoeple in rural areas. Even in those rounds, their prejudices against the people they’re helping start to surface. And those beliefs quickly float on top on their heads because of the antics of an older man, Kente Aron (Luca Sabin). He inadvertently lures the workers deep into the woods but despite of his actions thrusting the film’s unconventional momentum, he’s not central to the film. That designation belongs to the third aid worker, Maria …

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TIFF 2021: ‘The Other Tom’ Earns Its Tears

Festival Coverage, TIFF 2021, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 16, 2021
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TIFF 2021: ‘The Other Tom’ Earns Its Tears

Some films pull on your heartstrings in a cloying, annoying way; however, The Other Tom is the rare tear-jerker that earns your tears. It’s a story about so many things, especially about America.

When the film opens, Elena (Julia Chávez) is attempting to navigate life with her nine-year-old son Tom, played by Israel Rodríguez Bertorelli. Tom is a sweet kid who is prone to erratic outbursts, and Elena is a solo mom who receives, who help – financial or otherwise – from Tom’s dad. Elena fields thinly veiled threats from the boy’s teacher. So she agrees to put the boy on …

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‘The Morning Show Season 2’ – The Lowdown from the Cast

Apple TV +, Interviews ‐ ‐ September 16, 2021
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‘The Morning Show Season 2’ – The Lowdown from the Cast

We’ve been waiting two years and now Season 2 of the hit series The Morning Show is upon us! The highly anticipated second season of Emmy Award-winning drama series The Morning Show premieres globally with the first episode this Friday on Apple TV+ followed by new episodes weekly.Starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell, The Morning Show is an Emmy Award winning series. Other critics and guilds have also given the show some awards. Jennifer Aniston got a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. Billy Crudup got a Critics Choice Award for …

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Cinema 101: Our Review of ‘The Movies: The Sixties’

TV, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 16, 2021
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Cinema 101: Our Review of ‘The Movies: The Sixties’

The Tom Hanks produced series The Movies aired its final episode, The Sixties, which ends with where the series began. It clocks in at a hour and a half runtime. The episode delves into the cultural events of the 60s. And how those events found their way onto the cinema screen.

We see the studios trying to find their way as counter cultural movements became more prevalent. American films begin to experiment more, and auteurs, once again, begin to arise. The movies try to walk the balancing line tearing apart what seems to be an ever dividing society. And the studios …

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Party On Down With The Cast of ‘Chicago Party Aunt’

Interviews, Netflix, TV, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 16, 2021
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Party On Down With The Cast of ‘Chicago Party Aunt’

It’s time to party and who better to do it with than Diane Dunbrowski, the Chicago Party Aunt. You don’t have to be from Chicago to love, Chicago Party Aunt. The new animated Netflix series based on a wildly popular twitter feed is is a bawdy, hilarious and warm hearted love letter to the Chicago (and the Chicago area) shown through the eyes of the party Queen herself, Diane Dombrowski.Based on the witty and funny Twitter account created by former Chicago writer-actor Chris Witaske, “Chicago Party Aunt” gives his alter ego a name: Diane Dunbrowski (voiced by Canada’s own Lauren …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Short Cuts Programme 05’

TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 15, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Short Cuts Programme 05’

I had a more crude answer to the thing that ties the films at TIFF 2021’s fifth short cuts programme. But a more polite version of that thing involve bodies and spaces. There’s at least a few shorts that involve bodily fluids. Some of those shorts also make its viewers question our perceptions of beauty, benevolence and subvert assumptions on who’s competent or otherwise. The star rating below is the average, but even the ‘worst’ short here is still pretty good.

Paul Shkordoff’s Twelve Hours depicts what looks like a motel room – and the woman (Laara Sadiq) temporarily living there, who basically …

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TIFF 2021 Review: ‘Spencer’ Is Memorable But Not Meaningful

Festival Coverage, Movies, TIFF 2021, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 15, 2021
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TIFF 2021 Review: ‘Spencer’ Is Memorable But Not Meaningful

Spencer is an experience. The film, starring Kristen Steward as Princess Diana, imagines the last Christmas Diana spent with The Windsors before the demise of her marriage to Prince Charles. Director Pablo Larrain’s latest foray into biopics of iconic women (he also directed 2016’s Jackie) is certainly atmospheric. It’s even watchable, but that doesn’t make it a good movie, per see.

Stella Gonet looks and acts unlike Britain’s head of state, it’s almost comical. Jack Farthing is both sexy and charismatic as Prince Charles, which is nonsensical since Charles has never been a heartthrob.

Stewart’s performance is both energetic and effortful. Stewart …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Whether the Weather is Fine’

Festival Coverage, Movies, TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 15, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Whether the Weather is Fine’

Kun Maupay man it Panahon (Whether the Weather Is Fine) is abrasive and frank. It’s full of characters who don’t tiptoe around when expressing their emotions. A young Waray-Filipino woman, Andrea (Rans Rifol) tells her friend Miguel (Daniel Padilla) that she thought he died during Haiyan or Yolanda, a typhoon that devastated Eastern Philippines.

The film, then covers the converging and diverging paths of those two friends as well as Miguel’s mother Norma (Charo Santos-Concio), a religious woman looking for her ex.

This film makes it evident that director Carlos Francisco Manatad is a hard worker, dedicating time to depict just how much …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Where is Anne Frank’

Festival Coverage, Movies, TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 15, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Where is Anne Frank’

Where is Anne Frank blends two timelines. The first has Kitty (voice of Ruby Stokes), the imaginary correspondent in Anne Frank’s (Emily Carey) diary, looking for her best friend. The problem is that this is a fictional version of 2020 where Anne Frank’s name is on some buildings and structures in Amsterdam. The people she meets think, and understandably so, that she’s crazy. The second depicts the same city in the 1940s. It mostly takes place in the attic where Anne and a few families are hiding. And to its credit, the animation film doesn’t idealize her. Instead it paints …

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