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Entries in Reviews (1178)

Friday
Sep072018

Queer TIFF: "Rafiki"

by Chris Feil

Already famed for being banned in its home country of Kenya for having a positive outlook on its lesbian lovers, Rafiki is a mostly conventional coming out and of age tale. That is if you wish to divorce it from its very specific context in African cinema. A teen love story less interested in breaking narrative molds than it is environmental ones, Wanuri Kahiu’s debut stands out by presenting queer people within its own vision of contemporary Nairobi. While its expected beats and the familiarity of its narrative trajectory present some limitations to our enthusiasm, the film comes alive mostly by creating a palpably real world.

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Thursday
Sep062018

Queer TIFF: "Touch Me Not"

TIFF kicks off today!! In addition to our regular coverage, Chris Feil will be covering a sampling of the festival's LGBTQ global cinema...

Adina Pintilie’s Golden Bear-winning piece of experimentation and sexual reflection Touch Me Not opens on a landscape of the naked male body, anonymous and alien, shot with a deliberate distance that doesn’t deceive the film’s tension between curiosity, impulse, and terror. While this quickly establishes the psyche of Pintilie’s piece, it is about to become far more personal, with its players all playing themselves or versions thereof. Its fourth wall is never broken because it was never built in the first place.

The film centers largely on two emotionally stunted characters (or “characters”), struggling to experience both physical and emotional connection...

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Monday
Sep032018

Review: Searching

by Lynn Lee

At first glance, Searching has all the marks of a conventional “missing child” thriller.  Single dad’s teenage daughter goes awol, leaving signs to fear the worst; police investigation reaches dead end or obviously-wrong conclusion; dad realizes there was too much about his daughter he didn’t know but doggedly solves the mystery on his own after several red herrings and, of course, a shocking twist.  Slightly condensed, the entire film could fit into a one-hour TV crime procedural. As it is, the movie clocks in at a lean, tightly paced 102 minutes and hits all the requisite plot beats with impressive efficiency.

And yet, there is something different about Searching that distinguishes it from other examples of the genre.  Two somethings, actually...

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Thursday
Aug302018

Review: "The Little Stranger"

by Chris Feil

Adapted from the Sarah Waters novel, The Little Stranger is a ghost story in a lower register, more a delicate gothic character study than a stone cold chiller. Think of it like a Shirley Jackson tale turned inward, where the separation of class and circumstance draw the demons from within and without. It’s not a horror film to satisfy the jump hungry or the thrill seekers, but one that slowly grips you from behind and one you will unexpectedly recall vividly.

The staples of such subtle genre pieces are all present: a once lively mansion lost to decay, the somewhat reclusive family that remains, the weight of a dead child covering it all in a fine layer of dust. A local doctor Faraday pays a visit to Hundreds Hall to tend to the maid of the Ayres family. Though its residents have worn along with the estate, Faraday is still taken by the memory of when he had visited it as a boy, on the very day that the Ayres daughter Susan became deathly ill.

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Tuesday
Aug142018

Review: "Crazy Rich Asians"

by Chris Feil

Crazy Rich Asians feels like something sterling from the past, the kind of wholly satisfying and rapturous romantic comedy that we bemoan is missing from the multiplex. Director Jon M. Chu’s loving embrace of the genre pulls its influences from across the decades, infusing Doris Day/Rock Hudson rompiness with the cutting character detail of The Devil Wears Prada. It’s a high mark that the film clears and safely so, sliding with ease onto a shelf next to your rewatchable favorites - and it’s been a minute since something new joined the ranks.

The film’s massive ensemble is led by Constance Wu as Rachel Chu, a self-made economics professor set for her fated meeting with the overseas family of her charming boyfriend Nick Young, played by a painfully dashing Henry Golding. Unbeknownst to Rachel, this family wedding getaway is about to thrust her center stage in front of one of the wealthiest families in Singapore. And all of the generational expectations and deceptive opulence that entails...

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