TIFF ’24: Embeth Davidtz Directs “Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight”

By Abe Friedtanzer

Actors becoming directors can feel like an event, especially when they opt to cast themselves in their projects. Embeth Davidtz, who grew up in South Africa, takes that auspicious step with a deeply personal story set in 1980s Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), screening the film at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, where she’s in good company with her Junebug costars, Amy Adams (Nightbitch) and Alessandro Nivola (The Brutalist). She now has her most significant role since Schindler’s List, thirty-one years back...

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Best International Film: Meet the Portuguese Finalists

by Cláudio Alves

THE BURITI FLOWER is one of Portugal's five finalists.

As the Best International Film Oscar race starts to take shape, the Portuguese Academy has begun the process of choosing the country's official submission. This year's selection committee was composed of nine individuals, all of whom work in the Portuguese film industry. The group ranged from directors to a distributor, encompassing actors, producers, a writer, and even a cinematographer. They include Cristèle Alves Meira, the Listen director who won gold two years ago in Venice; Luís Gaivão Teles, whose documentation of the 1974 Revolution is a precious historical artifact; and DP José Tiago whose filmography contains the Meryl Streep-led The House of the Spirits and our first-ever Oscar submission, Manhã Submersa. 

They have selected five features in hopes of breaking Portugal's unfortunate record, but it's now up to the Portuguese Academy membership to vote on the final choice. Will we stop being the country with the most submissions without a single nomination? Oh well, hope is everlasting. In any case, let's meet the finalists…

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Almost There: Julianne Moore in "A Single Man"

by Cláudio Alves

As part of its efforts to spotlight American independent cinema, the Criterion Channel is now streaming A Single Man, that 2009 Christopher Isherwood adaptation that saw Tom Ford step away from the fashion atelier and into the film set. Terminally stylish, the picture proposes a study on grief that appears deadened itself. Stretch your senses and you'll feel the cold of cadaver skin buried under powders meant to give back the blush of life. And as much as your nose might search for rot, that stench has been suppressed. Instead, one inhales the aroma of mortuary makeup, the nostril-burning cleanness of embalming fluid, the floral notes from perfumed tissue paper stuffed inside the cheeks to fill them out, gift-like. It's all fake, yet its splendor can't be denied. 

Within this extended perfume commercial, a couple of performances shine bright. There's Colin Firth's Oscar-nominated turn as a suicidal gay man in the early 60s, while Julianne Moore plays his devoted friend, Charlotte – Charley for short…

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: Paddington (2014)

by Nick Taylor

I’m going to tell you a secret: I think the first Paddington movie is better than its more critically-adored sequel. Not in every way is this one better: There’s a couple instances of harsh overlighting that take out some shots at the knees, like a key character emerging from a phone booth as a one-sided meet-cute. You could also say that both films - but maybe especially this one - are leaning into Wes Anderson-type confectionaries, especially with the score. But Paddington’s got a lot of buoyant, colorful entertainment to recommend it, and I can’t help but feel Nicole Kidman’s delightful, icy villainess has been overlooked as one of this series’ most notable achievements, alongside the children’s-book palette, Hugh Grant’s more lauded performance in Paddington 2, and fumbling the bag on Sally Hawkins for the upcoming trip to Peru...

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Review: "The Vourdalak" is a Gothic throwback with its own soul

by Nick Taylor

We love 19th century gothic horror, don’t we folks? One of the most durable subgenres of all time. Influential to our current understanding of what horror is and how to depict it in ways so finely woven into the genre we couldn’t possibly begin to disentangle it from contemporary media.

Director Adrien Beau, making his feature film debut with The Vourdalak following a handful of spooky shorts, has created a vampire film equally indebted to the rhythms and moods of the gothic novella and the style of a Hammer horror flick. There’s no self-aware pastiche, no riffing on the genre, just an immersive attempt to bring some very particular sensibilities back from the dead. After premiering at the 80th Venice Film Festival last year, The Vourdalak is getting a theatrical release this summer. It works beautifully, mordant and sensually detailed, and it’s exactly the kind of gem folks should remember from this part of the year when we’re overwhelmed by December releases...

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