Roger Ebert once said that “a good movie is never long enough and a bad movie is never short enough,” and if those words hold as much resonance as I feel they do, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Endless Poetry is a 128 minute endurance test. Would bamboo chutes underneath one’s fingernails be as agonizing? Well, maybe, but […]
VIFF 2016 Review
The Love Witch – VIFF 2016 Review
“I’m scared,” admits Wayne (Jeffrey Vincent Parise), “I’m not used to feeling things so strongly.” Poor, clueless, not-long-for-this-world Wayne, for Elaine (Samantha Robinson, excellent), a vivacious young witch, has already seduced and worked her brand black magic on him in Anna Biller’s amazingly audacious second feature, The Love Witch. Wayne’s not the first, nor will […]
Julieta – VIFF 2016 Review
Gestating since 2009 when Pedro Almodóvar acquired the rights to a trio of celebrated Canadian writer Alice Munro’s short stories (they all come from the same 2004 collection, “Runaway”), Julieta marks the provocative Spanish filmmakers 20th feature. Alternately beautiful and sad, Julieta is also obvious and self-indulgent, but is nonetheless a ravishing cinematic experience where […]
American Honey – VIFF 2016 Review
“What’s your dream?” asks an even-tempered cattle-truck driver to Star (Sasha Lane) as they drive down the highway. She’s surprised by this near-stranger’s charitable question and says, “Nobody’s ever asked me that before.” There’s many moments like this in a film that seems to move from one desultory random moment to the next; arranged with […]
Maliglutit (Searchers) – VIFF 2016 Review
Canadian Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kununk is still best known for his first film from 2001, the epic Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (amongst its many accolades is the 2001 Cannes Caméra d’or) and his most recent film, Maliglutit, returns to epic territory with this tale of revenge set in the 1930s in the icy arctic. “We […]
Paterson – VIFF 2016 Review
A charming glorification of the everyday and the quotidian grace and delicacy all around us flutters at the generous heart of Paterson, Jim Jarmusch’s latest and twelfth feature film. Centering on an excellent Adam Driver in the eponymous role as a working-class poet in the wee Jersey hamlet that shares his name, he relates to […]