Boy Erased etches sketch of family versus faith into film history
Movie Review: Boy Erased
Director-actor Joel Edgerton brings Garrard Conley’s memoir of his time in conversion-therapy to the big screen with a cast of powerful voices. Veterans, and fellow Aussies, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman form the harmony and chorus, while Lucas Hedges performs a heartbreaking solo as the son of a Baptist minister struggling with sexual identity. The combination of all three is close to a religious experience, writes critic Katherine Monk.
#VIFF2018: A big fattie of a film festival that will alter perception
Movies: Vancouver International Film Festival, #VIFF2018
Boasting more than 216 feature films from 55 countries, The Vancouver International Film Festival is one of the beefiest film smorgasbords on the circuit. It can all be a little overwhelming, but veteran critic Katherine Monk offers five vetted bets to get your cinema season started.
Hey, Gringo! This One Is For You!
Movie review: Gringo
Nash Edgerton's dark comedy features David Oyelowo as a hapless businessman struggling to stay alive in Mexico after a botched kidnapping, a bad drug deal and festering marital issues leave him deliriously endangered.
Red Sparrow Flutters, Flaps, Finally Flies
Movie Review: Red Sparrow
Jennifer Lawrence has trouble with a Slavic accent, but she nails the emotional conflict and physicality of a ballet dancer turned sex spy in Francis Lawrence's Cold War thriller that feels like a return to the good old bad days
It Comes at Night Lacks Climax
Movie Review: It Comes at Night
Viral contagion, zombie apocalypse and family values smoke and smoulder for a creepy mood, but Trey Edward Shults's End-of-Days story gets buried in a shallow grave
Let Midnight Special shine a light on you
Movie review: Midnight Special
Jeff Nichols throws Michael Shannon back into the mental wringer as a father trying to save his gifted son from a cult leader, the FBI and comic books
Black Mass: A Whiter Shade of Noir
Johnny Depp's performance as real-life criminal James 'Whitey' Bulger is just another anemic reflection of film noir, the once-virile genre that gave birth to the gangster as American antihero and offered a cautionary tale for the collective subconscious
The Gift you weren’t expecting
Aussie actor Joel Edgerton creates a kooky mixture of thoughtful psychodrama and cheesy horror in this interesting examination of the ghosts that haunt us from high school
