Drama
Viggo Mortensen’s Falling Offers Repetition and Expletives, But No Payoff: TIFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. The Pitch: In Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut, gay Air Force pilot John (Mortensen) struggles to care for his ailing conservative father, Willis (Lance Henriksen). Malcontent and never afraid to shy away from a racist, homophobic or sexist rant, Willis offends everyone from John’s husband Eric (Terry Chen) to his daughter Sarah (Laura Linney), all while he slips in and out of flashbacks, including his two marriages to wives Gwen (Hannah Gross) and Jill (Bracken Burns). Grumpy Old Man: Early in Falling, as the relationship between John and Willis is being established, it’s clear that Henriksen is exceptional in the role. Willis is the kind of curmudgeonly character whose edges are too often softened in ...
Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are Lingers on the Limbo of Adolescence: Review
The Pitch: Adolescence is rough enough in the best of circumstances; hormones rage, rebellion rises, and you’re left wondering about the state of the world you’re growing into. But try growing up on a military base in a foreign country during the 2016 election — surrounded by conformity in a terrifying year for budding authoritarianism — with the promise of joy and freedom just one town over. That’s the world in which rebellious iconoclast Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) lives, his mother, Sarah (Chloë Sevigny), having just been promoted to the commander of a US military base in Italy. He bristles against the move, taking out that frustration in exasperated shrugs and outbursts at both Sarah and her partner, a fellow soldier named Maggie (Alice Braga), who tries to negotiate their dysfunct...
Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf Stand Out In the Shrugworthy Pieces of a Woman: TIFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: Pregnant couple Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and Martha (Vanessa Kirby) go through a dangerous labor with a new midwife, Eva (Molly Parker), only for the worst possible outcome to occur. In the months that follow, they each process their grief and anger in different ways. Meanwhile, Martha’s mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), pushes for legal justice that may or may not offer the closure that the family needs. Labour Pains: When people discuss Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman, the discussion will inevitably be broken into two parts. Most will focus on the film’s first 33 minutes, which takes place entirely on September 17th and follows – in one long, mostly uninterrupted take – the night that Martha...
10 Almost Famous Quotes You Probably Say All the Time
When Cameron Crowe put us on the tour bus with William Miller, Penny Lane, and Stillwater 20 years ago, he did more than just make us a fly on the wall for the circus, pump us full of great music, and make us believe that we’re cool. After we came back to the real world after 122 minutes of thinkpieces, Band Aids, and golden gods, we had a new language to describe our own realities — and love of music. So, here we are, two decades later, long after Doris has been retired; drunk on the booze of friendship; dark and mysterious as ever; totally, utterly uncool; and still tossing about the following lines as if we first saw Almost Famous just yesterday. Don’t “fecking” judge us. Anyway, it’s all happening. “One day … you’ll be cool.” <img data-attachment-id="1069223" data-permalin...
Frances McDormand Walks Right Into the Oscars With Nomadland: TIFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival . The Pitch: Based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction novel, Nomadland follows 60-something Fern (Frances McDormand) over the course of a year as she moves from place to place, working odd jobs and living in her van. Throughout her journey, Fern comes across a multitude of communities: some who accept her as she is, others who try to pin her down and keep her stationary. These series of experiences offer a character study of a head-strong, mature woman working through her grief and searching for herself. Authentic Experiences: Over the course of four features, director Chloé Zhao has repeatedly returned to stories of marginalized people, living on the fringes of conventional society. She favors stories of...
I’m Thinking of Ending Things “Explained”
If you’re reading this, you’ve likely finished Charlie Kaufman’s i’m thinking of ending things, and you’re probably wondering what the hell you just watched. You’re not alone. The general consensus from everyone who’s seen the film is that it’s a dense, labyrinthine meditation on, well, a lot of things. The film chews on memory, ego, grief, time, loss, and the laundry list of existential woes rattles on. It’s all permeable enough that the takeaways to be had are nothing short of infinite, and the film is very self-aware about that notion, so much so that one could argue that was Kaufman’s meta intent. But that’s always been par for the course when it comes to Kaufman. His ironclad resume speaks to a cinematic tradition of turning everyone’s minds into puzzle pieces — and that’s why anythin...
Mulan Strays from the Disney Formula by Adopting Marvel’s Blueprint: Review
The Pitch: Disney has remade a number of its ’90s-era animated films into live-action and/or CG blockbuster epics. Now, the 1998 favorite Mulan gets the same treatment. Its story of a young Chinese woman impersonating a man in the Imperial Army has shifted from an animated classic into a live-action tale of empowerment and self-actualization. But does the translation pay off? Breaking the Mold … Somewhat: Most of the live-action remakes from Disney follow a frustrating pattern in which A-List filmmakers and actors go through the motions of replicating magical moments from the classic films of our childhood, all while trying to make something new of those fairy tales. At the box office, these films have been largely successful, with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King all makin...
Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman to Lead Paul Thomas Anderson’s ’70s Drama
The stars are aligning for Paul Thomas Anderson. According to The Hollywood Reporter, HAIM singer-songwriter Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, will make their feature debuts in his untitled ’70s coming-of-age film. Details remain scarce, but it’s being reported that Haim and Hoffman will be the lead stars of the ensemble drama that’s set in the San Fernando Valley. Together, they join star Bradley Cooper, who was previously attached to the project. Both castings make sense. Anderson has been steadily working with HAIM since 2017’s Something to Tell You. He also has a long history with the Hoffman family, having worked with the late Oscar winner on nearly every one of his directorial efforts. Editors’ Picks This is Anderson’s first film since 2017’...
The 25 Most Anticipated Movies of Fall 2020
“New year, new decade, new films, right?” That was January, back when we were still looking ahead at 2020 with blind optimism and ill-fated excitement. Sigh, hindsight is 20/20 they say, right? Who knew. At the time, we had 50 exciting new titles we were anticipating, most of which have since been either postponed, dumped to VOD, or relegated to a limbo state. It’s been an unnerving year for the film industry, to say the least. A year fraught with shutdowns, furloughs, layoffs, bankruptcies, and re-evaluations. All of that change has prompted a seismic shift in how everything’s run across the media landscape, and no one truly has a grip on things just yet. Odds are they won’t for quite some time. Because of this, anticipating anything right now — let alone anything in pop culture — seems l...
R.I.P. Alan Parker, Director of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Commitments Dies at 76
Alan Parker, Oscar-nominated British writer and filmmaker of Fame, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, The Commitments, and Midnight Express, passed away on Friday. He was 76. The British Film Institute confirmed Parker had been battling a lengthy illness. Born into a working-class family in Islington, North London, Parker studied science at the Dame Alice Owen’s School before ditching the institution to work in the advertising field. After working his way through several agencies as a copywriter, Parker cut his teeth and made a name for himself directing several award-winning commercials. By the early ’70s, Parker had begun writing scripts and filming shorts. In 1973, he personally financed his first fictional film No Hard Feelings, a coarse love story against the Luftwaffe bombings of World War II th...
The Umbrella Academy Season 2 Swings into the ’60s: Review
The Pitch: When we last saw the super-powered, super-dysfunctional Hargreeves siblings, they had front-row seats to the end of the world — mostly because they caused it. In a last-ditch attempt to stave off the apocalypse, time-traveling Number Five (Aiden Gallagher) zaps the Umbrella Academy back to the past to stop it, only to find out he’s flung his brothers and sisters scattershot throughout different years in the early 1960s in Dallas, Texas. Each of them thinking they’re alone, they try to settle into new lives: Hulking Luther (Tom Hopper) turns to drink, despair, and bare-knuckle boxing; mind-control maven Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) gets married and embeds herself in the budding Civil Rights Movement; knife-throwing bruiser Diego (David Castañeda) is institutionalized; pansex...
What’s Streaming on HBO Max in August 2020
HBO Max has been conquering our summer quarantine, and they’re closing out the season in style this August. Below, Consequence of Sound has put together a full list of new TV and film titles heading to the network. For exclusives, subscribers can look forward to Seth Rogen’s An American Pickle, the series premiere of Lovecraft Country, new doc Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn, and finales for Perry Mason, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, and I May Destroy You. For moviegoers looking for a good marathon, you might want to Billy Madison your way through Hogwarts as all eight Harry Potter movies will be leaving the network by the end of the month. That’s right. No more Azkaban, no more Chamber, no more Goblet. Though, if magic ain’t your bag, you might try heading to Gotham City with just about ev...
