TIFF: The Greek Theatre of "Sacred Deer"

by Chris Feil

Is it better to have good friends or a large number of friends? It’s a question asked casually in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer that hosts some of its more loaded themes: social connection, the difference between acquiring and appreciating, the futile pursuit of a nuclear unit. As discussed between odd teenager Martin and adult Steven, played by Barry Keoghan and Colin Farrell, it carries even more terrifying subtext for their unsettling relationship.

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The Greatest Party Photo of Our Time

Dame Helen, Divine Emma, Irresistible KST, and Queen Kidman at TIFF 2017.

P.S. I would like to thank whichever publicist did not invite me to this party thereby saving me from spontaneous combustion; I will live to see another movie.

Happy Birthday Herzog

by Jason Adams

Film director Werner Herzog is marking three quarters of a century on this planet today - a planet that he has probably explored the weirdness hidden away at every single obscure corner of. We should cherish him while we have him, people - even if some of his more recent efforts have been iffier than most. Go see every damn one, reviews be damned.

Funnily enough last night I was reading a review of the Twin Peaks finale (no spoilers here, don't worry!) that called that series mastermind David Lynch "American pop culture's answer to Werner Herzog," and I got to thinking about these two directors in relation to each other. Besides Herzog and Lynch easily making my list of Top Five Greatest Living Film-makers I don't usually think about them in relation to each other, but it's not an invalid point.

So here, for Werner's birthday, let's latch him onto the zeitgeist's momentarily hottest art-house auteur, and list three similarities, with one glaring dissimilarity...

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Boy Erased Adds Xavier Dolan, Cherry Jones

by Ilich Mejía

Ilich here (I'm new! Say hi). Earlier this summer, Joel Edgerton signed on to write and direct Focus Features' Boy Erased, a timely drama based on Garrard Conley's namesake memoir. The story dives into Conley's experience with gay conversion therapy. Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, and Lucas Hedges were initially cast as the film's central, fundamentalist family. Now, the film has added the Red Hot Chilli Pepper's Michael Balzary, YouTube star Troye Sivan, Cherry Jones (!), and Xavier Dolan (!!) to the already astral cast...

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Emmy Review: Best Actress, Limited Series or Movie

We've been reviewing Emmy categories. Voting concludes next Monday with the ceremony on September 17th.

by Eric Blume

Entertainment writers have been crowing for a while about this category, claiming that it looks more like a Best Actress Oscar list than it does an Emmy list.  And it’s true, this year’s six nominees include four women who have already won that Oscar, along with two of television’s biggest names.  It’s an embarrassment of riches: six interesting, surprising, deep performances from six formidable actors...

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