Author: Derrick Murray

We are live on the ground at the Toronto International Film Festival, filling our days with cinema from around the world! Premieres and Gala events and red carpets fill the streets of downtown, the hustle and bustle of cinephiles has never been more alive! With so many films to see, we are spending as much time as we can in the theater to bring you coverage from as many as we can see in a single day! So let’s take a look at some of the films we’ve seen so far! “By The Stream” Hong Sang Soo is a special…

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” feels tiresome at times, almost exhausting in how manic and disconnected and incoherent everything is and slows to a crawl any time Keaton isn’t on screen.

It’s time for another round of Venice Film Festival premieres! So many great films with such diverse visions to choose from, and we’re hoping to highlight some hidden gems to put on your international cinema radar! So without further ado, let’s take a look at 4 more films we saw from Venice! “Maldoror” I’m such a sucker for a good crime thriller, and “Maldoror” fits all the molds of things that are made for me. Botched investigations, conspiracies, and of course, criminals of the highest order. Loosely based on true events surrounding a serial killer and rapist in Belgium in…

We may not be on the ground in Venice, but fall film Festival season is in full swing and we are working hard to bring you as much coverage from all festivals as we can! Of course, larger, premiere releases require in person attendance, so we’re here to shed light on some of the smaller, out of competition international features that round out the slate. Let’s take a look at some new films that had their World Premieres at Venice! “Familia” Based on the memoir “Non sarà sempre così” (translated in English to “It won’t Always Be Like This” by Luigi…

Sometimes all you need is Adèle Exarchopoulos as your film’s star and that’s enough to get me seated. One of the best international performers working today, Exarchopoulos’ latest feature “Planet B” is a bit of a mixed bag, delivering an abundance of sci-fi thriller elements you’ve seen before in a slick package that – despite its misgivings- never stops being entertaining. Sci-fi is one of those genres that is often easy to make but very difficult make well. It falls somewhere in the middle, the kind of experience that at first glance leaves you feeling excited and satisfied but the…

I’m one of the few people who actually managed to sit through 2016 “Dark Crimes” starring Jim Carrey. It very well may be one of the worse films ever made, so you can imagine my hesitation with a new film by Alexandros Avranas. Thankfully, Avranas has learned from his mistakes, and creates a heartbreaking but beautiful story with “Quiet Life.” Most immigrant or refugee stories follow the turmoil of escape or the world they’re fleeing from, immersing the audience in trauma with very little respite. It is rare that we tell stories of asylum seekers after the escape, and even…

“Blink Twice” trades out narrative conclusiveness for parabolic social commentary, but unfortunately doesn’t have anything new to say about any of the myriad of topics it wants to discuss.

“Strange Darling” takes all the familiarity of erotic crime thrillers into unfamiliar territory, giving you something you know in a package you haven’t seen. It is never restricted by anything which allows “Strange Darling” to do everything

“Romulus” thrives in its visuals, and while some of its homages are a bit on the nose, it manages to use them as an advantage to ratchet up the tension with each new horrifying scenario the characters find themselves in.

We’re fast approaching the Fall Festival season, which is often an overload of newly released and unreleased films as well as a plethora of late Oscar contenders. To pave the way for my return to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) later this year, I decided to take a break for my blindspot watches and catch up with a few newly released films. Major flops, surprise unnecessary prequels, and a drug fueled Irish rap music biopic are all part of my current movie binge. Most of these films are currently playing in theaters or available on VOD, so there won’t…