TIFF: Austria’s Oscar entry ‘Corsage’ starring Vicky Krieps

By Abe Friedtanzer

Actress Vicky Krieps, who was introduced to American audiences in a big way in a performance that should have earned her an Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread, is getting a lot of work lately. She had a prominent role in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old and stars in Mathieu Amalric’s Hold Me Tight, which is now playing in theaters. Most notably, she tied for the best performance prize in the 'Un Certain Regard' section at Cannes this summer for Corsage. It's a movie she both conceived of and executive produced, and now it's become Austria’s official Oscar entry.

Krieps plays Elisabeth, the Empress of Austria in 1878. The popular royal figurehead is turning forty, and she’s also watching her life slip away as her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister), relegates her to uninteresting duties that don’t serve any true purpose...

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TIFF: Adelaide Clemens impresses with ‘The Swearing Jar’

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s wonderful when a film serves as a showcase to a performer you’ve appreciated seeing before and had hoped would get another terrific part. Australian actress Adelaide Clemens, who has done plenty of TV work in her home country, delivered a very affecting turn in the underrated SundanceTV series Rectify as a soft-spoken spouse learning to find her own voice. She also recently appeared as the wife of Andrew Garfield’s Mormon detective in Under the Banner of Heaven. In just the opening scene of the Canadian film The Swearing Jar, it’s clear that Clemens is doing something altogether different and harbors tremendous untapped talent…

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Your moviegoing options this weekend ~ Pick one!

It's Friday which means NEW STUFF. There's quite a lot arriving today in US theaters so are you moviegoing this weekend? Here's what's playing. If there's a link we've reviewed it. 

NEW ON IMAX SCREENS 

• Moonage Daydream - Glenn calls this David Bowie experiential doc "exhilarating" and we have our tickets in hand for tonight (albeit at one of those fake IMAX screens...sigh. The real ones are so few and hard to get good seats for.) 

NEW IN WIDE RELEASE...

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7 new Oscar submissions for Best International Feature

We're now up to 40 submissions in the upcoming Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. You can see the full charts here but if that's too much all at once for you, here are the latest countries to announce from Armenia to Slovakia, some going with films that are currently playing at TIFF...

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TIFF: Florence Pugh in ‘The Wonder’

By Abe Friedtanzer

 

It’s much easier to expose a lie in today’s technology-driven world than it was in past centuries, when something that seemed supernatural or inexplicable might have been taken at face value rather than properly investigated. The Wonder, based on the novel by Room screenwriter Emma Donoghue, centers on an eleven-year-old girl in Ireland who hasn’t eaten in four months yet somehow remains alive and well, and the town committee that brings in an observer with the apparent purpose of verifying some sort of divine intervention rather than unveiling a deception…

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