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Out in the Dark (SFJFF Review)
A raw and sensuous tale of forbidden love across a cavernous sociopolitical divide (the Israeli-Palestinian divide, to be exact), Out in the Dark is an impressive feature debut for director Michael Mayer, who studied film at USC. Nimr (Nicholas...
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Drug War
After a brief journey into romantic comedies and dramas, Johnnie To returns to the genre he knows best with Drug War. To, who has established himself as one of today’s best action directors, continues to solidify his reputation as...
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Interview: Neil Drumming of Big Words
For years, Neil Drumming was a successful journalist, most notably writing for Entertainment Weekly. Now, he’s jumped to the world of film. Set in Brooklyn on the night of Barack Obama’s first election, Drumming’s directorial debut, Big Words, is...
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Closure
When Bryan Tucker filmed his wife Angela’s journey of searching for her birth family, he didn’t think he’d later be making it into a documentary for public viewing. But, as he has mentioned in many interviews, he soon realised...
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Interview: Ziad Doueiri of The Attack
Writer-director Ziad Doueiri’s new film, The Attack (which I highly recommend), incurred a tidal wave of Arab anger when it was completed last year. By “tidal wave of Arab anger”, I mean this: the film has been banned in...
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Interview: David Gordon Green of Prince Avalanche
Back in May at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I sat down with director David Gordon Green to talk about his new film, Prince Avalanche, starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch. The film—a character study about two road...
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The Attack (SFJFF Review)
Though set in the trenches of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ziad Doueiri’s mystery-thriller The Attack operates predominantly on an intimate, human level, centering on a Palestinian man living in Tel Aviv (Ali Suliman) who’s bent on smoking out the people...
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Rue Mandar (SFJFF Review)
Following the death of their beloved family matriarch, two sisters (Sandrine Kiberlain and Emmanuelle Devos), their brother (Richard Berry), and their French-Jewish families gather in Paris to mourn their loss (each in their own way), annoy the living daylights...
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The End of Love
Mark Webber’s sophomore effort as a director, The End of Love, follows a jobless single-father who is struggling to make ends meet while caring for his son. The film feels incredibly personal to Webber as nearly everyone in the...
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The Cutoff Man (SFJFF Review)
Set in a sun-toasted Israel, first-timer Idan Hubel’s The Cutoff Man is a patiently reflective tale of an old man named Gabi (veteran Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy) whose dignity is slowly stripped away by a thankless (putting it mildly)...
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10 Best Films to Cool You Off
There’s a famous urban legend concerning a man who accidently trapped himself inside a freezer. Understanding his death to be inevitable, he vowed to document his own death, writing down the experience of freezing to death for the sake...
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Life According to Sam (SFJFF Review)
In the mid ‘90s, doctors Leslie Gordon and Scott Berns fell in love and had a child. His name is Sam. He’s 16, loves fiddling with Legos, excels in school, and plays a killer snare drum. He also has...
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Welcome To Pine Hill
Winner of the jury prize at Slamdance 2012, Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill is about a man who attempts to right the wrongs in his life upon receiving news that his time on this Earth has been cut...
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TIFF 2013: Vanguard and Documentary lineups announced
Easily my favorite program of the Toronto International Film Festival each year is the Vanguard program. This TIFF program aims to be “provocative cinema that defies convention”, which features films that have an unique look and feel to them....
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