Corey's Top 10 Movies of 2016

10. Swiss Army Man

An uplifting tale of a suicidal man and the farting corpse that saved his life. This first cinematic blast of absurdity from the Daniels team is literally unlike anything you've ever seen. Completely polarizing and uncompromisingly original, it's also lucky enough to have a career-best perf from Daniel Radcliffe. He really sells those farts.

9. Weiner

An equal parts delicious and horrific look behind the curtain of the dumpster fire that was ex-congressman Anthony Weiner's 2013 NYC mayoral run. Filmmakers Josh Kriegman (once an aid to Weiner in D.C) and Elyse Steinberg were given spectacular and abnormal access to Weiner's home life and campaign backroom, putting together an essential document of political failure. We live in an era where ego, spin and lies are facts on the ground before the truth can get out of bed.

8. I Am Not Your Negro

Raoul Peck's essay on the state of racism in America as told through the words of the great James Baldwin is an urgent call to arms; the most pressing documentary of the year. Using an unfinished manuscript of Baldwin's for narration (through the powerful voice of Samuel L. Jackson) and unearthed archival footage of the author speaking to issues still deeply felt and experienced by many Americans, Peck fashions a cinematic argument that is as infuriating as it is inspiring.

7. The Witch

Though it divided mainstream audiences and horror heads alike, Robert Eggers' first feature creeped the hell out of me. A decidedly slow burning, but incredibly detailed and unnervingly tragic tale of a family's haunting in rural 17th Century New England, Eggers lays the dread on thick, leading up to a shockingly violent conclusion, after which you may never look at goats in the same way ever again.

6. Arrival

Quebecker Denis Villeneuve's streak of world-class genre exercises continues with Arrival, a refreshingly intelligent, surprisingly emotional and lovingly crafted sci-fi suspense odyssey. Amy Adams is in top form here as Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist tapped by the Pentagon to engage with extra-terrestrial beings who've mysteriously touched down on Earth. Grounded in real world geopolitical intrigue and unafraid to plumb the depths of the mind and the heart, Villeneuve again delivers a technical marvel that proves he's got the steadiest cinematic hand in Hollywood. Bring on Blade Runner 2049!

5. Green Room

But as far as genre exercises go, Jeremy Saulnier's gory neo-nazi punk rock thriller is as expertly calibrated as they come. By carefully ratcheting up the tension and letting the absolute shit hit the fan when you're not expecting it, Saulnier proves that he is the real deal, creating a stomach-churning but wholly satisfying escape-from-hell flick that should stand the test of time. Also has the last memorable leading turn from Anton Yelchin, one of 2016's most dearly departed casualties.

4. 13th

Ava DuVernay’s fiercely argued teardown of the racial prejudices in the American criminal justice system and the cyclical forces of establishment politics that threaten to repeat past injustices, is the best documentary of the year. With budgetary and editorial carte blanche (thanks to financier Netflix) and interviews from heavyweights on both sides of the ideological aisle, DuVernay constructs an incredibly engaging narrative of how the legal system has ravaged the bodies and minds of African-Americans since reconstruction.

3. The Red Turtle

Belgian director Michael Dudok De Wit, working with legendary Japanese animators at Studio Ghibli, create a wordless fable for the ages with The Red Turtle, a stunningly gorgeous and deeply felt experience that will leave you emotionally raw. A man washes up on a deserted island and forges a life-long relationship with the titular red turtle - that’s all you need to know. So truthful in its exploration of the human heart and real about the connections that sustain it that, for the first time in ages, I cried in a movie theatre.

2. The Lobster

Love and relationships are incredibly weird and, at times, push us to bouts of illogical, unexplainable behavior. Well, if that doesn’t make sense to you, then maybe you need to take on Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest descent into deranged banality, The Lobster. In a world where the failure to court a partner results in the forced transformation into an animal of one’s choice, Colin Farrell (sporting one of film’s best moustaches) and Rachel Weisz must navigate a choppy, evil society that reflects on the worst of ours. Delightfully twisted but meticulously composed, this is a truly great anti-romantic anti-comedy

1. Moonlight

Barry Jenkins’ second film, despite all the accolades and laurels that the critical community has heaped on it, is still an absolute treasure; a beautiful philosophical journey and reflection on class, race, sex and identity. Hidden behind the three tumultuous periods in Chiron’s life growing up black and gay in modern Miami - as played by three unknown, but enormously generous actors - is a masterclass in colour and composition, editorial patience and sumptuous sound design. At my screening of the film during TIFF 2016, a man stood up during the Q&A to tell Jenkins “we wouldn’t have sat down from that standing ovation if you didn’t tell us to.” That man was Jonathan Demme. Another couple notes on Moonlight: here’s hoping Mahershala Ali wins for this one; he’s got a towering and tough role, executed brilliantly. Also, any film that’s got The Supreme Jubilees on the soundtrack just...wins.

Corey's Top 10 Movie Flicks of 2015

10. Best of Enemies

In the midst of the amorphous blend of politics and reality television that has - and will continue to - engulf the 2016 US presidential race, Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon's look at ABC's revolutionary debates between conservative William F. Buckley and liberal Gore Vidal is an eye-opening reminder of the staying power of sensational politics. 

9. Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

Another all-too unsettling reminder of cyclical history, Stanley Nelson Jr.'s documentary of the rise and fall of the much-aligned but mostly misunderstood (and violently broken) Black Panther movement that gripped America in the 1960s is electric, angry and honest. Worth watching, if only for the fascinating parallels to today's Black Lives Matter movement.

8. Spotlight

Instantly (and rightfully) heralded as this generation's All The President's Men, Tom McCarthy's journalistic procedural of the Boston Globe's 2001 explosive expose on the Catholic Church's cover-up and complacence of an epidemic of sexual abuse slow-burns its righteous and contemplative energy and offers up tremendous ensemble acting. Yes, Spotlight is critically adored and important, but it is also demanding of our philosophical curiosity and attention. 

7. The Big Short

Adam McKay has always been willing to infuse his absurd comedies with sly political commentary, but with The Big Short, he finally lets his finely sharpened political claws draw blood. A furious and very funny indictment of the financial institutions, regulators, snake-oil salesmen and greed-mongers that nearly took down the world economy with shit-laden securities, McKay and Co's unorthodox film about the unorthodox men that saw through the finance world's pre-2008 parade of delusion is a surprisingly crackerjack entertainment. Memorable, fuming performances from Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling. 

6. Phoenix

In this year's most measured, complex and controlled performance, Nina Hoss commands the screen as a unrecognizable survivor of the Nazi death machine in German director Christian Petzold's wonderful World War II drama, Phoenix. A story of confused identities, allegiances and emotions, this deceptively simple, yet emotionally lush and gripping movie builds to a jaw-dropping climax that you will not see coming. 

5. Amy

With Amy, Asif Kapadia establishes himself as a bonafide documentary auteur, with a style all his own (that utilizes archival footage and voiceover) and a keen eye for what makes us all so tragically human. This, the best documentary I saw in 2015, is a brutally raw exploration of the demons that powered Ms. Winehouse's voice and songwriting, and ultimately led to her untimely demise. Having plumbed the depths of every frame of video and every paparazzi's flash, Kapadia finds the moments that endear us to the lost singer; the passions and convictions we never knew, or perhaps, never thought to notice. 

4. Anomalisa

The word "meticulous" gets bandied about by the film world often when describing particularly well-made films. But there is no other film - animated or live-action - from 2015 that deserves such a descriptor like Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's stunning Anomalisa. The exceptionally slow art of stop-motion animation and detailed facial and kinetic puppetry bring to life the simple story of a depressed author's serendipitous encounter with a woman, unsparing in its wealth of real, raw emotion. There has not been (and perhaps will not ever be) a more beautifully awkward sex scene in an animated movie. 

3. Sicario

Easily the most ulcer-inducing movie experience of the year was thanks to Denis Villeneuve's Sicario, a thoughtful, beautifully rendered suspense flick. Villeneuve, a good Canadian boy whose careful, (*ahem*) meticulous film craft has catapulted him to the top tier of directors specializing in mature, R-rated fare - he will soon do Blade Runner 2. In this one, Emily Blunt is dragged into a classified mission to take down a powerful Mexican drug cartel, or is she? A ripping flick complete with powerful, expertly designed set pieces and a stellar turn from a near-wordless Benicio Del Toro.

2. Ex-Machina

28 Days Later scribe Alex Garland's first foray into directing is a mind-bender of the highest order; a science fiction that blends real anxieties about artificial intelligence, the evolution of our symbiosis with machines and the sexual allure of it all. Alicia Vikander puts in dominant, captivaing work as an android whose mad genius creator (Oscar Isaac) sets her up as a test subject for Domnhall Gleeson's wide-eyed programmer. Unexpectedly intelligent in the best ways possible, Ex-Machina signals the arrival of a badly needed voice in the world of original, ambitious cinema. 

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

The most pure, thrilling, enjoyable cinematic experience of the year, George Miller's magnum opus is the best action flick of this century so far. Adrenaline pumps like nitrous oxide through my veins as I watch this movie. It is complete sensory nirvana as George Miller fills every frame with colour, dirt, grime, fire and the roar of machines coming directly at us. We even give a crap about the plight of our heroes, played with assured, confident badassery by an unstoppable Charlize Theron and a primitive Tom Hardy. Singular images and moments from this movie are so original and crazy but make total sense given the dirty, post-apocalyptic universe; every detail is grounded by sound creative logic. Please: Hollywood and Mr. Miller, make more of this. Thanks.

Top 10 Movies of 2014

10. Gone Girl
David Fincher's deceptively sly, disturbing adaptation of Gillian Flynn's novel is a consistently delicious meditation on sex, lies and media iconography. Rosamund Pike completely commits herself to a layered, deranged role.

9. Inherent Vice
Offering the closest thing you might get to a theatrical contact-high, PTA's Pynchon adaptation does justice to the author's penchant for absurd comedy, nonsensical plotting and poignant historical commentary. Worth watching, if only for Martin Short's scene stealing cameo as a cocaine-snorting Dentist.

8. Guardians of the Galaxy
A huge win for Disney/Marvel/nerds, James Gunn's space-action comedy was the top box-office grosser of the year and for good reason. Fully realized and filled with real soul (as truly evidenced by the funk-soaked soundtrack of 70's hits), this is the rare hollywood film that takes as much time for inventive space battles as it does for hilarious, endearing dialogue between CGI and human characters. The cinematic minting of Chris Pratt (a funny, funny, amazing man) has been one of the best surprises of the year.

7. The Lego Movie
Easily the best animated film of the year, The Lego Movie's limitless comic, visual and aural imagination amounts to a sheer a blast of cinematic joy. Lord/Miller, currently the top comedic writing/directing team in the biz, also inject a necessary nostalgia and anti-conformist spirit that infuses the breathlessly told story with actual weight. An instant classic.

6. Concerning Violence 
Hugo Goran Olsson's largely unseen follow up to The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (only having been screened in London and New York) is one of the most searing indictments of European (and American) atrocities in Africa committed to film. Using the words of Frantz Fanon's anti-imperialist The Wretched of the Earth and documentary footage from Swedish news archives (which makes up 95% of the film's footage), Olsson presents a clear and present case for the formulas that create armed resistance to occupation.

5. Life Itself 
Master documentarian Steve James lends a careful, meticulous but satisfyingly soulful touch to the life story of Roger Ebert, the world's most famous film critic. Not one to shy away from difficult themes or imagery, James smartly puts us bedside with Ebert as his health deteriorates, all the while building a convincing case for a perfectly flawed, but brilliant man who battled with alcoholism, ego and weight. But what shines through most is Ebert's true love for film, family and the joys of a fully-lived life.

4. Boyhood
For most of Richard Linklater's magnum opus, we see people. And as the film - following 12-years in the life of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his family - progresses and the actors begin to show their age, we start to see ourselves. I think the unanimous adoration for Boyhood comes from a very real place; it is not borne out of nostalgia for a more precious, innocent time, but from Linklater's ability to capture the thrills, melancholy and joy inherent in the twists and turns of growing older.

3. Interstellar 
Painting on the grandest of all cinematic canvasses, visionary director Christopher Nolan literally swings for the moon with his latest, a space exploration that literally transcends time and place. Admittedly, this is Nolan at his messiest and it deserves all the critical dissection it has received, but for sheer awe and thought-inspiring spectacle, Interstellar belongs on the very same shelf as Kubrick's 2001 and Kaufman's The Right Stuff.

2. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Minute for minute, the most pleasurable film of the year, Wes Anderson's comic caper is at once a sumptuous cinematic feast, hilarious heist flick and richly moving ode to an era of irrevocable change. Anderson's films have been described as being only for those with taste's similar to the director's, an opinion I have always met with derision. But with each passing film, he has been (literally) showing us his evolution from maker of meticulously framed and planned filmic storybooks to an auteur that commands a serious grasp of all the available cinematic tools as well as a keen sense of the intricacies of the human heart. 

1. Keep On Keepin On / Whiplash / We Are The Best! 
From Boyhood, through to The Lego Movie and many other films released this year, I kept seeing the theme of human expression, be it artistic, scientific or wholly creative in nature. In my own life, music has been my most significant form of expression. To me, the freedom and satisfaction that comes along with creating, practicing and playing music for an audience are wholly tangible; almost vital. The three best movies of the year, for me, managed to capture this same feeling in - virtually unidentical - cinematic bubbles all their own.

 

Keep on Keepin On is a remarkable documentary (perhaps still pending a proper theatrical, streaming or DVD release) that follows the burgeoning, fruitful relationship between Clark Terry, an ailing, legendary jazz trumpeter and 23-year-old blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin, just as Kauflin prepares to compete in an elite, international competition. First time director Alan Hicks draws on his years as a drummer to portray, accurately and intimately, the remarkable bonds created between fellow musicians.

Whiplash is wunderkind director Damien Chazelle's intense cinematic exploration of fiery artistic ambition that happens to be played with sticks. But I found it less of a realistic portrayal of the modern jazz drummer's struggle than a breakneck, machismo-fueled celebration of the almost violent passion in the foundations of the (film and musical) genre. So bruising that some of the (permanent) calluses on my hands began to harden as I gripped the seat.

And finally we come to We Are The Best, Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's latest, following three unapologetically shit-disturbing 12-year-old girls in 1982 Stockholm aspiring to start a punk band - with almost zero musical talent. Hilarious, rebellious and heartfelt, this is one for the heralded canon of punk rock cinema. Moodysson directs with an honest, unflinchingly critical eye toward Swedish society in the early eighties, a time that was fraught with Cold War-imbued paranoid rage towards the political other; a time where to be punk was to embrace a dead art form.

Those that choose to express themselves through music, in all of its structures, practices and century-old traditions, know that how and why we choose to play is more important than the playing itself. Today, it is increasingly difficult to have ourselves truly heard in the growing and crowded cacophony of digital voices. For this reason, it seems only natural that we gravitate to cinema that so beautifully offers artistic solace amidst an uncertain future.

Top 10 Movies of 2013

 10. Evil Dead

Easily the most technically impressive horror film of the year, Director Fede Alvarez orchestrates a sumptuous symphony of gore and with his Raimi-approved reimagining of the classic low budget scarefest. Jane Levy delivers an uncompromisingly brutal, memorable performance as the heroin junkie turned Necronomicon-inhabited demon girl. Definitely for those of us who enjoy sitting in the dark and watching young people get shot with nail guns.

 9. 12 O’Clock Boys

Sold as “The Wire with Wheelies”, young director Lotfy Nathan’s first feature documentary is a visually sublime, testosterone-laden look at what constitutes modern escape for poor black youth in America. Embedded within a Baltimore urban dirt bike gang, Nathan follows the formative years of Pug, a suave 13-year-old who lusts for greatness and the chance to fly - with one wheel high in the sky - among the legends of the street. A chase film with actual human poignancy.

 8. Stories We Tell

We knew before “Stories we Tell” that Sarah Polley is a national treasure. But here, in her most (literally) introspective film yet, Polley constructs the tragic, salacious, fascinating fabric of her family’s history with an almost emotionally forensic focus. With this, her first documentary, Polley establishes herself as a wholly Canadian storyteller: vulnerable, yet determined; grounded, yet self-analytical. 

 7. Dallas Buyers Club

Who knew Quebec’s Jean-Marc Vallee finally would make his mark with this, an AIDS drama starring a never-better Matthew McConaughey as Ron Woodruff, a hard-drinking, fightin’, womanizin’ HIV-positive cowboy. Co-starring Jared Leto in easily the best supporting performance of the year as the transsexual addict Rayon, Vallee has constructed an air-tight, hardened but emotionally-affecting story out of a man’s journey from self-interested destruction, to selfless enlightenment.

 

6. Gravity

The best directed special effects spectacle of the year, Alfonso Cuaron and his brilliant crew have truly cemented their names in the annals of cinematic wizardry. An intimate tale of survival told on the broadest scale imaginable, Cuaron still manages to find a beating, human heart amongst the debris of a wrecked space station in the form of Sandra Bullock, who, in likely her most arduous and compelling role to date, is the real source of seat-gripping suspense up on that IMAX screen. Those with self-admitted iron nerves should apply within.

 5. The Act of Killing

A surreal and almost unbelievable piece of documentary filmmaking, Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” is an unflinching, strangely enjoyable look inside the minds of murderers. Following the lives of former Indonesian death squad leaders as they attempt to stage hollywood-style re-enactments of their past atrocities, Oppenheimer has delivered a film that defies categorization. A must-see for those looking for a breathtakingly challenging view of what constitutes truth in non-fiction filmmaking.

4. 12 Years A Slave

Steve McQueen’s adaptation of Solomon Northup’s hellish odyssey into slavery is simultaneously one of the most powerful and artful films in recent memory. With a stellar cast anchored by an absolutely perfect Chiwetel Ejiofor, sumptuous cinematography and an at times intensely shocking brutality, McQueen has created a searingly memorable work that will live on as an important, but sublime slave drama.

3. American Hustle

David O. Russell flexes his filmic muscles and throws in every trick in the book to make a slick, smart and enormously thoughtful caper based on the infamous ABSCAM sting of the 1970s. This is Christian Bale with a combover and a beer belly; Jennifer Lawrence as a vain, volatile and agoraphobic housewife, Bradley Cooper living in his mother’s house with a perm and an exceedingly voluptuous Amy Adams. Pretty much ‘nuff said. 

2. Her

The most romantically melancholic and aesthetically fascinating slice of science fiction in recent memory, Spike Jonze further cements his auteur status with “Her”, easily his most assured, but mature film yet. Featuring another impressive leading performance from Joaquin Phoenix that is reserved but wholly lovable, this is not just a quirky love story between a man and his operating system, but also an intelligent comment on the fragility of the human heart and the need for connection, regardless of physical form.

 1. Upstream Color

Shane Carruth’s follow up to the outstanding but uncompromisingly difficult “Primer” is yet another high-minded philosophical odyssey, this time of literally the most organic kind. I cannot remember any other film this year that was as simultaneously cerebral, gorgeous and narratively complex. The plot, involving two lost souls trying to put their lives back together after having been maliciously hypnotized by a criminal using a mind controlling parasite, is - on paper - among the most confounding, but resolves itself in a thrillingly cyclical and satisfying confusion. Great films are thought provoking, but astounding, scintillatingly original films like “Upstream Color”  are a reminder that once in a while, movies have the power to change the way we think.

Review - Django Unchained (Tarantino, 2012) ****

 
In Quentin Tarantino's seventh film, the slavery-era set blaxploitation spaghetti-western Django Unchained, there is a chilly, winter-set scene where escaped slave Django (Jamie Foxx) and his German mentor Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) discuss the myth of a soldier climbing an impossible mountain to save a beautiful princess. Myth has always been a familiar motif in the two genres mashed-up to create what will probably be remembered as one of Tarantino's most powerful, funny and cinematically sumptuous opuses; we recall the swagger of the heroes in many a 70's funky action flick starring Richard Roundtree or Pam Grier and the legendary, mysterious cowboys of Sergio Leone westerns. Like a musician or DJ that can write a tune that yields a transcendent eclecticism, Tarantino writes and directs his films with a fervor that at once feels familiar but always carries the energy of a truly creative, original voice. Django Unchained is at once another reminder of Tarantino's fully formed intellect as a director of sublimely entertaining genre-subverting pleasures and an ode to the unmerciful, vengeful American hero.

At just under three hours, Django Unchained may try the patience of a fair number of filmgoers, but like Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, most will revel in the myriad of classically familiar archetypes and technical flourishes that inform the arguably-campy but shockingly brutal tone of the film. It is the epic tale of Django's excessively violent rise from slavery to save his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of her new owner, the pretentious, flamboyant and powerful Mississippi plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who delivers a stunningly memorable, award-worthy performance). Tarantino shoots among vast, desolate vistas, lensed by regular cinematographer Robert Richardson recalling The Good the Bad and the Ugly and sets scenes to an anachronistic, groove-heavy soundtrack that includes modern stars Rick Ross and John Legend alongside some old-school spaghetti-western inspired soul tunes. Django's journey is one that initially feels raw and new, but leaves us with a nostalgia that is instantly recognizable.

Tarantino's filmography has been consistently debated for its use of uncompromisingly bloody violence and harsh, sometimes intensely profane language. Here, the director outdoes himself, amounting to perhaps a self-lamentation on his own thirst for pulpy, transgressive material. In doing so, much like this year's The Cabin in the Woods, audiences will see a lot of their own bloodlust projected back onto them; accusations have already been flung, decrying Tarantino's pursuit to find new ways to explode human bodies with big guns and his extremely liberal use of the "N-word" out of the mouths of both black and white characters.

What matters most importantly is not that the film is historically "accurate" (reminder: this is the man that killed Hitler in his previous film), but that it reflects the inherently political and fundamentally American obsession with violent retribution as a means of conquering an oppressor. This is a theme that has carried through Tarantino's work since Kill Bill Vol.1, the director having now dissected the essential B-movie tropes of martial-arts films, World War II action flicks, spaghetti-westerns and blaxploitation films to unravel the underlying violence that permeates the quintessential hero's journey as a measure of their willingness to, as Django puts it so succinctly in this film, "get dirty." Django Unchained works so well and entertains so thoroughly because it wears pop-culture's absurdly twisted yearning for revenge right on its blood-splattered sleeve and asks crucial, heady questions about the cultural and historical implications of a dark time in American history.

TIFF 2012: Capsule Reviews

The Central Park Five
Dirs. Ken Burns, David McMahon, Sarah Burns
*** 

Ken Burns' documentaries have set the standard for in-depth analysis of the idiosyncratic traditions and transformative periods that have defined the socio-cultural history of the American west. But the through line that coarses through all of Burns' work has been the tumultuous, violent history of American racism, specifically the plight of African-Americans and the systemic inequalities that have informed their experience has an ethnic minority. Burns' new film,  The Central Park Five, is a straight-forward, but infuriating examination of what observers might call a modern public lynching; a story of racism set against the Crack epidemic that infected Black neighbourhoods in late 1980s New York City.

Directed alongside David McMahon and Sarah Burns (Ken's daughter), The Central Park Five tells the story of five ethnic NYC youths who were scapegoated by the NYPD and DA's office and subsequently imprisoned for the rape and beating of a Wall Street banker, attacked by a serial rapist while jogging through the city's storied park. Burns and company fashion the story as a product of the paranoid racial hysteria that captured New York in the summer of 1989, with the Crack epidemic reaching a violent climax and a sensationalist media subtly stoking the fire. This is a solid, straightforwardly engaging doc that works as a historical indictment; a reminder of the brutal, uncompromising American bigotry of centuries past and the power of optimism in the face of fear.

The Hunt
Dir. Thomas Vinterberg
*****

Thomas Vinterberg's (The Celebration) The Hunt is a spellbinding Danish drama about the extremes of love and the violent, irrational fear that grips those that love too much. Cannes Best Actor award winner Mads Mikkelsen (best known for playing the blood-crying heavy in 2006's Casino Royale) is emotionally shattering as Lucas, a handsome, masculine, respected Kindergarten worker whom is wrongly accused of a sexual encounter with his best friend and hunting mate's young daughter, sparking a small-town condemnation that spirals into psychological turmoil for Lucas and his teenaged son.

Vinterberg effectively casts no doubt on Lucas' innocence and the terrifyingly identifiable moral ambiguities that inform the paranoid, violent actions of his former friends and co-workers, bringing the viewer almost directly into the main character's shoes. This is a film that inspires frustration and anger in its depiction of group-think mentality as an irrational means of protecting loved ones; a scene inside a Church during a Chrismas Eve service is viscerally affecting as Lucas suffers a complete mental breakdown, set to the chants of his young accuser, surrounded by the townsfolk who have cursed his name. Tough, measured, world-class filmmaking.

Kinshasa Kids
Dir. Marc-Henri Wajnberg
**

An interesting, but frustrating doc/dramatic look at the plight of children living in the Congolese capital, Belgian director Marc-Henri Wajnberg's Kinshasa Kids is hopeful and raw, but lacking in plot and character. Opening on a grueling, real life ceremony that sees young children accused of witchcraft being exorcized of their demons by village witch doctors, the film follows young Jose, a Congolese boy who flees the ceremony and his family to live in Kinshasa, where he falls in with a gang of street-kids who find solace in song and spend their days hustling and stealing, trying to eke out enough money to eat and survive in the dirty, mean streets. The kids, aged somewhere between seven and eleven years old, join forces with Bebson, an eccentric but talented and connected singer / bandleader to start a band that would see them escape the misery and destitution of the slums.

As a naturalist snapshot of life in Kinshasa, Wajnberg's film for the most part is successful, but there just isn't enough substance or plot to keep us emotionally invested in the tribulations of Bebson and the kids, or even fill out its less than 90 minute run time. It's your standard underdog tale of discovering hope in the most unlikely of places, and there are real moments of fun, even joy amidst the misery, with a few crackling musical sequences and funny character quirks (a street-kid that has the moves of Michael Jackson is particularly memorable) but instead of the rousing, uplifting climax we expect, we're left with something of a dramatic slight.

TIFF 2012: Seven Psychopaths / Place Beyond The Pines

Seven Psychopaths 
Dir. Martin McDonagh
**** 

On paper, Seven Psychopaths, the follow up to playwright-turned-filmmaker Martin McDonagh's brilliant feature debut In Bruges seems overstuffed, being that it is essentially a tragi-comic-meta-meditation on the nature of movie violence and real violence. For me though, it was a bloody, subversive blast and arguably the funniest film I have seen thus far in 2012. Reuniting McDonagh with In Bruges lead Colin Farrell as Marty, an aloof, alcoholically driven screenwriter struggling to put words to the page for his latest script, convieniently called "Seven Psychopaths", the film finds buddies Farrell, loose cannon Billy (an unhinged Sam Rockwell) and stoic con-man Hans (Christopher Walken) as they traverse a metaphysical journey on the run from rabid gangster Charles Costello (a hilarious and equally unhinged Woody Harrelson) whose beloved Shih-Tzu Billy and Hans have kidnapped, while simultaneously searching for the right psychopaths for Marty's script.

McDonagh throws in lots of gunplay and his script overflows with witty, quotable quips, flashbacks and hugely likeable characters, despite their homicidal tendiences. But it's in the director's deconstruction of the abnormal but laudable ethics of his murderers that elevates the material from bloody, metaphysical satire into something more subversive. Each character, save for Farrell and the female characters in the film (whom, interestingly enough, are explicitly ackowledged to have been given the dramatic shaft) harbors a twisted backstory that exists to make sly commentary on the futility and deranged reality of violence itself.

A subplot that involves a wonderful turn by Tom Waits as a reformed serial killer-killer - or as he puts it, a "killer that kills people that go around the country killing people" - looking to see his wholly American tales of bloody vigilante justice turned into big screen fodder doesn't actually play into the main narrative arc, but is indicative of the tragic, but hilariously cruel ironies inherent in both In Bruges as well as this film. Here, McDonagh has a decidedly lighter touch, striving for something more palatable but perhaps less cohesive. Regardless, Seven Psychopaths is hugely layered, smart and satisfying entertainment.


The Place Beyond The Pines
Dir. Derek Cianfrance
***1/2 

Derek Cianfrance's latest is a taut, finely measured multi-generation crime saga that crackles with dramatic tension, uniformly excellent performances and a confident visual style to boot. His second film starring Ryan Gosling following Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond The Pines is a story about the fires of passion and violence passed down from fathers to sons and the moral ambiguities that haunt those who rely on the mantra of justice and "doing the right thing." To give away too much about the plot would be to ruin the shock and awe of some of the film's dramatic twists, but here Gosling plays Luke, a talented motorcycle stunt driver who opts to rob banks, desperately trying to provide for a bastard son conceived with Romina (Eva Mendes) in Schenectady, New York. Luke eventually comes crashing head-on with a Schenectady cop by the name of Avery Cross, played by Bradley Cooper. Their lives of both men, as well as the histories of their respective families feel the ripples of their confrontation for decades to come.

Ryan Gosling delivers another iconic performance here, creating a character that pulses with life, love and a dangerous passion that sometimes manifests itself in extreme violence. It's as if his character from last year's Drive was given tattoos, a ripped Metallica t-shirt, hormone injections, set loose in upstate New York and given an actual soul. Cooper too is at his very best, playing a man whose belief in justice strattles the line between idealistic and pragmatic but is forever shattered and ultimately blinded by regret. Also, a supporting turn by the chameleonic Ben Mendelsohn as Luke's accomplice is simply exceptional, cementing his place as one of the most talented rising stars in Hollywood.

This is a film that has already begun dividing critics, but mostly enthralled audiences and prospective buyers at its TIFF world premiere (as it is the most high profile film to enter this year's festival without a distributor). If you read what has been written about the film so far, reaction has swung from utter dismay at the film's treatment of its blue collar characters, accusations of pretention and over-reaching ambition, to staunch praise for its moving performances and willingness to explore the genetics of sin, regret and justice. And while some of the negative criticism is warranted, even the harshest of critics will succumb to the fact that this is a fully realized and emotionally powerful film, as undoubtedly unorthodox as it is in narrative, setting and character. For those that it does connect with, The Place Beyond The Pines will have seared a lasting burn on their hearts, as well as their minds.