Shocking Tearjerker: Our Review of ‘Joe Bell’

Movies ‐ ‐ September 21, 2021
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Shocking Tearjerker: Our Review of ‘Joe Bell’

Some films based on true stories are stories everyone knows. While there may be shocking moments in those kinds of films, most of the plot is know. They are successful because you want to know more about those public figures. Other times you know very little about the story or the people in them.  Joe Bell is one of those latter films, and before you start looking up the man do yourself a favour and watch the film first.

Joe Bell (Mark Wahlberg of Instant Family) is walking across America in a crusade to stop bullying. His son Jadin (Reid Miller …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Montana Story’

Festival Coverage, TIFF 2021, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 20, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Montana Story’

Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, Montana Story tells the story of Cal Thorne (Owen Teague), a young man who finds himself returning to the family ranch that he left due to the ailing health of his father, Wade. Having lived a (mostly) destructive life that has left his family in ruins emotionally and financially, Wade now lies in a coma, cared for by his personal nurse, Ace (Gilbert Owuor). Things become more difficult when Cal’s estranged sister, Erin (Haley Lu Richardson) returns to the ranch to see her father’s plight for herself.

Montana Story is a beautiful and poignant …

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‘A Million Little Things’ Season 4 – Romany Malco and Christina Moses Interview

Interviews, TV ‐ ‐ September 20, 2021
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‘A Million Little Things’ Season 4 – Romany Malco and Christina Moses Interview

The hit drama, A Million Little Things is back for a fourth season, but according to two of the show’s beloved stars don’t count on it being an easy ride for the main characters. A Million Little Things has been keeping loyal fans on the edge of their seats for three seasons. The show follows a group of very tight knit friends from Boston who are loyal to a fault. The group bond under unexpected circumstances that changes their lives forever. Some have achieved success, others are struggling in their careers and relationships, but all of them feel stuck in …

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Who’s Responsible?: Our Review of ‘A Maid For Each’

OVID.tv ‐ ‐ September 20, 2021
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Who’s Responsible?: Our Review of ‘A Maid For Each’

Maher Abi Samra’s A Maid For Each begins in living room in Lebanon, where a local bourgeois woman shows off her maids to the camera. But most of the documentary takes place at an agency where those maids start out. It barely shows the maids and instead shows the agent, taking calls telling clients about what languages his maids speak and where they’ve worked. He’s matter of fact about these maids’ skills. He doesn’t need to do a sales pitch to sell them. Maids are necessary in Lebanese society, a sign of wealth for people who delude themselves into thinking …

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Survivors: Our Review of ‘Roque Dalton: Let’s Shoot The Night’

OVID.tv, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 20, 2021
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Survivors: Our Review of ‘Roque Dalton: Let’s Shoot The Night’

Niche viewers might relate well with Tina Leisch’s Roque Dalton: Let’s Shoot The Night, a documentary about an obscure El Salvadorean poet and revolutionary, the Bertolt Brecht of Latin America. And that’s because of how he used language to describe what’s near and dear to El Salvadoreans.

Cinema is an artistic that most directors use to capture conventional beauty, but this film instead captures nondescript places like libraries. Roaming grounds for leftist academics whose outer beauty and youth made way for wisdom to explain a man and a moment.

Roque Dalton’s mysterious death in the 1970s meant, obviously, that he left behind …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Silent Night’

TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 19, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Silent Night’

It’s the end of the world, how would you like to spend it? I’ll probably send it with family since rebellion in my 30s isn’t cool anymore. A couple, Nell and Simon (Keira Knightley) and their son Art (Roman Griffin Davis), decide to invite their friends, all of whom are insufferable. An addition to the group is Sophie (Lily-Rose Depp), who in uncomfortable with the idea that Sandra (Annabelle Wallis) is using the end times to sleep with her husband James (Sope Dirisu).

End of the world movies often go macro, and it’s interesting to see Silent Night use the opposite …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Ste. Anne’

TIFF 2021 ‐ ‐ September 18, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘Ste. Anne’

Family is a broad theme in Rhayne Vermette’s Ste. Anne, one that it explores through eyes feeling alienation. Of eyes that see something for the first time. The family in this film receives news that someone found one of their members, Renee (Vermette), and it chronicles that group’s reaction to having her back in the film. It is a film of gatherings, of eavesdropping into conversations, of arguments about shifting power dynamics. Those dynamics specifically change keeping in mind that Renee has a daughter, Athene (Isabelle d’Eschambault).

The film’s digressions might not be for everyone, but its power is undeniable when …

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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘The Girl and the Spider’

TIFF 2021, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 18, 2021
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TIFF 2021: Our Review of ‘The Girl and the Spider’

The Girl and the Spider is, broadly, about change, but it specifically captures the relationship of two bisexual women. These women are Lisa (Liliane Amuat) and Mara (Henriette Confurius), and the Swiss production depicts their life as Berliners. Most of the film takes place in an apartment, where their family members and neighbors go in and out, and it never explains who lives there.

I also point out Lisa and Mara’s bisexuality because there’s a presence of desire within everyone’s gaze. Even Lisa’s mother Astrid (Ursina Lardi) takes an interest on one of the movers like Jurek (Andre Hennicke). The film …

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Charming Family Film: Our Review of ‘Tango Shalom’

Movies, What's Streaming? ‐ ‐ September 17, 2021
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Charming Family Film: Our Review of ‘Tango Shalom’

Movies are supposed to make you feel something. Whether it makes you smile, laugh, be afraid or pump you up it doesn’t matter. If it does something for you it has done its part. Tango Shalom does just that. It’s a charming little film that will bring a smile to your face throughout its nearly two hour run time.

Rabbi Moshe Yehuda (Jos Laniado) has a problem – he needs money. Everyone in his family is coming to him for a little but he has nothing to give. His teaching isn’t bringing in much, and in his orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, jobs …

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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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