Film
Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf Stand Out In the Shrugworthy Pieces of a Woman: TIFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: Pregnant couple Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and Martha (Vanessa Kirby) go through a dangerous labor with a new midwife, Eva (Molly Parker), only for the worst possible outcome to occur. In the months that follow, they each process their grief and anger in different ways. Meanwhile, Martha’s mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), pushes for legal justice that may or may not offer the closure that the family needs. Labour Pains: When people discuss Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, the discussion will inevitably be broken into two parts. Most will focus on the film’s first 33 minutes, which takes place entirely on September 17th and follows – in one long, mostly uninterrupted take – the night that Martha...
10 Almost Famous Quotes You Probably Say All the Time
When Cameron Crowe put us on the tour bus with William Miller, Penny Lane, and Stillwater 20 years ago, he did more than just make us a fly on the wall for the circus, pump us full of great music, and make us believe that we’re cool. After we came back to the real world after 122 minutes of thinkpieces, Band Aids, and golden gods, we had a new language to describe our own realities — and love of music. So, here we are, two decades later, long after Doris has been retired; drunk on the booze of friendship; dark and mysterious as ever; totally, utterly uncool; and still tossing about the following lines as if we first saw Almost Famous just yesterday. Don’t “fecking” judge us. Anyway, it’s all happening. “One day … you’ll be cool.” <img data-attachment-id="1069223" data-permalin...
Frances McDormand Walks Right Into the Oscars With Nomadland: TIFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: Based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction novel, Nomadland follows 60-something Fern (Frances McDormand) over the course of a year as she moves from place to place, working odd jobs and living in her van. Throughout her journey, Fern comes across a multitude of communities: some who accept her as she is, others who try to pin her down and keep her stationary. These series of experiences offer a character study of a head-strong, mature woman working through her grief and searching for herself. Authentic Experiences: Over the course of four features, director Chloé Zhao has repeatedly returned to stories of marginalized people, living on the fringes of conventional society. She favors stories of...
Netflix Defends Controversial Film Cuties as “Social Commentary” Against Sexualization of Children
Netflix is defending its newly released film, Cuties, against claims that it overly sexualizes its young subjects. Cuties (or Mignonnes) is a French comedy-drama that won Maïmouna Doucouré the Directing Award-Dramatic at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. It centers on a 11-year-old Senegalese girl named Amy who seeks to understand her identity while living in Paris. She comes across a group of girls in a twerking dance squad, and begins to seek freedom and acceptance by joining their sexualized troupe. Since launching on Netflix on September 9th, the film has received intense backlash. Now, Netflix has issued a statement defending the movie. “Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” a Netflix spokesperson told Variety. “It’s an award-winning film and a pow...
Netflix’s The Devil All the Time Is a Messy Southern Gothic Stew: Review
The Pitch: Set against the mud-covered backdrop of southern Ohio and West Virginia in the ’50s and ’60s, we see the ways that faith, violence, and lost innocence play out against an interconnecting web of characters. There’s Willard Russell (Bill Skarsgård), whose experiences in WWII haunt him even as he tries to make a life back home with a sweet waitress (Haley Bennett). There’s also Carl (Jason Clarke) and Sandy (Riley Keough), who get their kicks picking up hitchhikers, photographing them, then slaughtering them. There’s Sandy’s brother, Lee (Sebastian Stan), a portly, corrupt sheriff constantly gunning for re-election and turning a blind eye to his sister’s wrongdoing. Caught in the middle of it all is Alvin (Tom Holland), Willard’s orphaned son, trying to navigate his way throug...
New Jimi Hendrix Documentary Explores Infamous Rainbow Bridge Film and 1970 Concert in Maui
Some performances are as legendary as the story surrounding it, and Jimi Hendrix’s live show in Maui, Hawaii is one of them. The famous 1970 concert took place at the foot of the Haleakala volcano, filmed as part of the rock icon’s hilariously incoherent Rainbow Bridge movie. Now, a new documentary called Music, Money, Madness… Jimi Hendrix In Maui will take fans behind the scenes of that ill-fated film and the unusual circumstances leading up to Hendrix’s performance. An accompanying live album has also been announced. The idea for Rainbow Bridge came shortly after Hendrix’s momentous delivery of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock the previous year. Seeking to capitalize on Hendrix’s rock stardom, his manager, Michael Jeffrey, planned out a semi-fictional movie that would captur...
Wonder Woman 1984 Delayed Until Christmas
Wonder Woman 1984, photo via Warner Bros. Wonder Woman 1984 is changing its release date… again. The Patty Jenkins-directed sequel has been delayed until Christmas, reports Deadline, primarily due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Wonder Woman sequel was originally scheduled to hit theaters in 2019 on December 13th, but the studio then decided to push it to Memorial Day Weekend in 2020. Once COVID-19 spread to the US, they realized it should be delayed once more to this October. And now, at long last, it appears things are coming full circle — seemingly for good — for Gal Gadot and company. “Patty Jenkins is an exceptional filmmaker and with Wonder Woman 1984 she has delivered an incredibly dynamic film that moviegoers of all ages around the world will absolutely love. We’re very pr...
Madonna Details New Biopic Written with Diablo Cody
Madonna is getting into the screenwriting groove with Diablo Cody. Last month, the two announced they were collaborating on a screenplay, but stopped short of divulging any specifics. Now, The Material Girl has confirmed that their collaborative project is in fact a biopic about her career and “the struggle as an artist trying to survive in a man’s world.” The screenwriting partners revealed the news in an hour-long Instagram Live video, as well as shared some of the major plot points that will be highlighted in the upcoming film. One of those involves Madonna’s early years spent in New York City. The pop star famously moved to the Big Apple in 1978 with $35 in her pocket, and quickly established herself as a dancer and burgeoning pop star. She also tapped into the city’s ballroom culture,...
Spike Lee Captures a Celebration and Calls for Action With David Byrne’s American Utopia: TIFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: With American Utopia, director Spike Lee brings his eye to David Byrne’s critically-acclaimed Broadway show. Part concert documentary, part contemporary dance performance, and part social commentary, Lee’s latest feature is a call to action about embracing human connections, social responsibilities, and change across the world. Uniform-ity: Unlike conventional concert documentaries — and not too dissimilar from Jonathan Demme’s iconic Talking Heads feature Stop Making Sense — the stage of the Hudson Theatre is kept almost completely bare. Byrne remains under the spotlights for nearly the whole runtime, decked out in a visually bland grey suit and bare feet. Over the course of the first few song...
Ubisoft Announces Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game Reissue
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game — Complete Edition Ten years after its initial release, Ubisoft has announced an updated version of the beloved sidescroller Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game. The new Complete Edition will arrive sometime during the 2020 holiday season. Based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, as well as the 2010 movie from Edgar Wright, this beat ’em up game follows Scott and his friends on a quest to defeat the League of Evil Exes. The Complete Edition includes the original game and all the accompanying downloadable content, which unlocks new playable characters (Knives Chau and Wallace Wells!), minigames, and PvP battles. Up to four players can join together locally or online, piloting the roles of Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, S...
HBO’s Coastal Elites Feels Like a Carefully Curated Twitter Feed: Review
The Pitch: Amidst the backdrop of 2020 — the heady and often unpleasant mix of an impending presidential election and a worldwide pandemic that’s hitting the United States especially hard — five people deliver five different monologues (or, as they’re briefly dubbed, “unhinged rants”) about the Way We Live Now in the satirical HBO “special presentation” Coastal Elites. Look at the Camera: Because of the very nature of the coronavirus pandemic, Coastal Elites is a decidedly un-flashy glimpse into the lives of a quintet of Americans. From sly writer Paul Rudnick, the 90-minute special presentation (that’s what HBO is calling Coastal Elites, and although it’s movie-length, frankly, the descriptor fits) is meant as a mix of earnest sincerity and dry wit. How is this disparate handful strugglin...
Temi Otedola makes acting debut
Temi Otedola, daughter of billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, says she’s excited about her acting debut in an emotional movie ’Citation’. Newsmen report that the star- studded movie, which happened to be a teaser of Otedola’s first feature movie, was directed by Kunle Afolayan. Temi played a role in a character as Moremi Oluwa in the movie ‘Citation’ which also featured prominent artistes. Temi, who said she was so excited and overfilled with gratitude over her first debut, took to her Instagram page @temiotedola to make the announcement to her fans. “I can’t believe this day is here. I can officially share the first teaser for #CitationTheMovie… “This day is an emotional one for so many reasons. As many of you already know Citation is my debut feature film, and is directed by the legen...
