Doc Corner: 'We Kill For Love: The Lost World of the Erotic Thriller'

By Glenn Charlie Dunks

If you’re restless for the return of Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This podcast, "Erotic ‘90s", then We Kill For Love: The Lost World of the Erotic Thriller may be for you. In many ways, Anthony Petra’s near three-hour video essay (even so much as to get the opening credit of “A video by”) is like the direct-to-video cousin to Longworth’s long-form audio series. And I don’t mean that as a pejorative. I hope the director wouldn't take it that way, either, given Petra’s desire to focus more attentively on the less fondly remembered, less glossy works of (largely independent) Hollywood eroticism that more often than not skipped theatrical exhibition. Instead they instead found money and eager viewers on the shelves of video stores and as late-night cable network fare across the country...

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TIFF '23: "Concrete Utopia" is an earth-shaking blockbuster parable

by Cláudio Alves

Genre cinema has long been the home of social critique through allegory. Think back to Godzilla's reflection on Japan's atomic trauma or Night of the Living Dead's invention of the zombie movie as the place to study civilization's collapse. South Korea's new Oscar submission, Concrete Utopia, follows the tradition. Though, here, you'll find no Romero undead or radioactive kaiju to distract and reflect human folly at the viewer. Instead, Tae-hwa Eom's latest tackles the precepts of the disaster flick with a dash of post-apocalyptic dystopia, showing Humanity's self-made ruin in the aftermath of a massive earthquake that renders Seoul a wasteland…

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TIFF '23: Sophie Nélisse in ‘Irena’s Vow’

By Abe Friedtanzer

There’s a reason that there are so many films about the Holocaust. The attempted conquest of Europe and the whole world by the Nazis resulted in millions of innocent lives lost and countless others irreversibly altered. Fortunately, there were more than a few people who made the brave decision to stand up for those who couldn’t advocate or fight for themselves. These stories typically make for poignant cinematic tales. The latest is Irena’s Vow, which stars Sophie Nélisse as a Polish nurse who risked her life to safeguard a group of Jews…

Like La Rafle, The Zookeeper’s Wife, and A Hidden Life, this film centers on someone who was not Jewish but who found herself significantly disenfranchised when the Nazis invaded her country...

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TIFF ’23: A Bastard’s Revenge and an Artist’s Farewell

by Cláudio Alves

Vast wild landscapes dominated the latter half of my second day at TIFF. First came Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land, fresh off its Venice premiere and inflated by high expectations. Then, it was time for Snow Leopard, the last completed film of Pema Tseden, the remarkable Tibetan director who dedicated himself to expressing his country’s specificities on the big screen. He died in May at 53, leaving behind a body of work that felt like it was just entering its golden age with titles like Jinpa and Balloon. And so, an air of mournfulness enveloped the screening of his leopard-loving film, a poem of snowy peaks and the beasts that share them...

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TIFF '23: "Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World" is one wild ride

by Cláudio Alves

So many films wear the label of "provocative" as a medal of honor, boasting about their challenges to the audience and engaging shock. Yet, most of those reveal themselves as anything but, their provocation an empty buzzword  for a press release. Because disappointment is so common, it feels doubly refreshing when a genuinely provocative film comes about, like a punch to the solar plexus that makes you smile and beg for more. That's the case of Radu Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, a Locarno prize-winner recently announced as Romania's official submission for the 96th Academy Awards. Pardon the vulgarity, but it's a fucking masterpiece...

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