An okay film, Unless you read the book
Movie review: Unless
This disappointing film adaptation of Carol Shields' final novel turns a meditation on who we are into a melodramatic puzzle with a conventional solution
The Lovers & The Despot a bizarre thriller
Movie review: The Lovers & the Despot
Documentary tells how a South Korean movie star and a director were kidnapped by North Korea's autocratic leader to help kick start his nation's film industry
The Promise not worth keeping
#TIFF16: Critic's Dispatches
A bad old-fashioned historical drama about the Armenian genocide revisits final days of Ottoman Empire while La La Land and few gin and gingers quench artistic thirst
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — They threw a party last night at the Toronto International Film Festival where they served a delicious drink made of gin and ginger ale, and you could have as many as you want.
When I regained consciousness, it was time for The Promise, a bad old-fashioned historical drama in which the troubles of three little people — in this case, an Armenian apothecary (Oscar Isaac), a comely dance teacher (Charlotte Le Bon) and an American journalist (Christian Bale) — don’t amount to a hill of beans when they’re cast across the vast and clichéd canvas of tragedy during the First World War. Fusillades of exposition fly across the screen, capturing our doomed heroes in a crossfire of clunky dialogue, tired movie tropes, and earnest over-acting. Pass the gin and ...
On American Pastoral and Canadian Shields
Movies: #TIFF16 American Pastoral press conference
Ewan McGregor's adaptation of Phillip Roth's novel points out the problems in bringing internal narrative to the big screen, but the actor-turned director faced the same challenge as those who braved the work of Carol Shields
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Here’s something pretty interesting: in the Carol Shields book Unless (now a motion picture at the Toronto International Film Festival), a sensitive teenage girl sees a monk setting himself on fire and is inspired to drop out of society and become a mute beggar in front of Honest Ed’s discount emporium in Toronto. In the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral (also a movie at TIFF), a sensitive teenage girl sees a monk setting himself on fire and is inspired to drop out of society and become a domestic terrorist.
This tells us something about Canada and the United States — or perhaps just something about Carol Shields and Philip Roth, and about the film industry in general. ...
In Praise of Amy Adams
Movies: Toronto International Film Festival
A veteran movie critic spends the day with Amy Adams and concludes she's Oscar bait, as well as a reminder of what Nicole Kidman used to look like before Botox
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Let us now praise Amy Adams, and all who sail on her. I recently spent a morning with the actress — she was on screen in two movies at the Toronto International Film Festival and I was in the audience, but still — and I concluded that a) she reminds me of what Nicole Kidman would look like if she had more common sense, and b) she might be in line for a couple of Oscar nominations this fall for roles in which she plays troubled women in unhappy second marriages with doomed daughters but, nonetheless, beautiful houses with large windows overlooking vastly photogenic scenery.
Both movies — Nocturnal Animals and Arrival — have all that in them, but Adams herself couldn’t be more different and you have to remind yourself that she was also, among ...
Toronto festival buzz or bust?
Movies: TIFF 16 - First Looks
Jay Stone checks out a handful of the early buzz-makers at the Toronto International Film Festival, and keeps it real and offers this tip "longer is not always better"
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Two things about a film festival are buzz (what is everyone talking about?) and more importantly, time (how long to I have to spend so that I can talk about it too?) After all, if life were eternal, you wouldn’t worry about it. Indeed, if life were eternal, you could afford to go to see a German movie called Toni Erdmann. But more about that later.
First the buzz. Well, actually, first the fact that the escalator at the downtown theatre where Toronto International Film Festival screenings are held for the press was broken on opening day. Thus, you walk up 105 stairs (by my count) before you can even join the crowds. In film-going — as in film directing, they tell me — the knees go first.
We’re here to sample three movies on our first day, all of ...
Jay Stone picks his TIFF16 ponies
Movies: #TIFF16
The Toronto International Film Festival offers 400 film titles, two Ryan Gosling movies, a Denis Villeneuve Arrival and if you're lucky, free chips
By Jay Stone
There are many things to look forward to at the Toronto International Film Festival, including that party they have every year to celebrate Canadian cinema where they hand out bags of potato chips and chocolate bars, although this year I hear they’re not having the chocolate bars. But we soldier on. Getting through a film festival requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice.
And oh yes: the films. There are about 400 of them here, and if you play your cards right, you can see a couple of dozen and still have time to pick up enough bags of complimentary potato chips to get you through to lunch, although some chocolate bars would have been a nice addition. You know. For dessert.
Where was I? Right: the films. Here, in no particular order, are some that I’m looking forward to.
Arrival
A sci-fi film ...
