film review: Greta

Directed by Neil Jordan
Written by Ray Wright and Neil Jordan
  
ChinoKino score: C

Review by Allan Tong

Greta is entertaining for the wrong reasons. The new Neil Jordan film is supposed to be a thriller-horror about a stalker (along the lines of Misery), but winds up being an uninentional parody. Pity, because it stars world-class talent Isabelle Huppert and the fine, young actress Chloe Grace Moretz.

The story boils down to older Greta (Huppert in an English-speaking role), ensnaring young Frances (Moretz). Lonely widow Greta turns Frances into her surrogate daughter while Frances recently lost her mother. Both women are disconnected from their families, so they befriend each other spending evenings where Greta teaches Frances the piano among other things. Frances prefers to hang out with this older French-Hungarian woman than younger women her age.

The Artist Project showcases Canadian art this weekend in Toronto

Jason Soule reimagines Hollywood through an indigenous lens

Story and photos by Allan Tong

Art lovers braved the icy sidewalks to bask in art by over 300 Canadians at the annual Artist Project, running through tomorrow, Feb. 24. Opening night on Thursday in the Better Living Centre was a party with food and drink stations offering samples of Between the Lines wine and Just Craft Soda among others. Line-ups were longer for the food, requring 5-10 minutes for a falafel ball or a bag of popcorn. Crowds were heavy and matched last year's traffic. Whether the art was better is a matter of personal taste, but I felt it equalled last year's. Below are are my picks.

Jackie Lee was happy to show off her prints and screenprinting

film review: Cold War (Zimna wojna)

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Written by Pawel Pawlikowski and Janusz Głowacki with Piotr Borkowski
  
ChinoKino score: A-

Review by Allan Tong

One of the best films of 2018 is Cold War from Poland. Sure, act three takes a few questionable turns, but Cold War boasts the best cinematography I have seen in a long time, shot in gorgeous black-and-white by Lukasz Zal and unusually framed in 4x3. The film is also driven by strong performances by Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot.

They play turbulent lovers in postwar Poland after Wictor (Kot) hires Zula (Kulig) to sing and dance in a folk music ensemble that crosses Communist Europe. They spark at first sight. Zula is emotional and impulsive. The stoic and handsome Wictor flees to Paris at the height of the Cold War and waits for Zula to join him. What happens after that is unpredictable and is satisfying depending on whether you believe the choices the lovers make (not entirely for me).

IDS 2019: bigger but better?

Story by Allan Tong / Photos by Sally Warburton

IDS, the Interior Design Show, returns to frosty Toronto this week (through January 20), in the bigger south building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This year's IDS absorbs IIDEX, the beloved design and architecture expo. As usual, IDS kicked off with a party Thursday night complete with DJ, dance floor, food stations and bubbly pouring from various booths. The food, while delicious, was harder to find in past years, because it was spread out more, though there was no shortage of champagne, beer and wine.

film review: Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku)

Directed by: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Written by: Hirokazu Kore-eda

ChinoKino score: B-

Review by Allan Tong

In ultra-conformist Japan, one family rebels against society by stealing anywhere from grocery shops to the backseats of cars. On the outskirts of Tokyo, Osamu (Lily Franky) and his son Shota (Kairi Jyo) shoplift. Meanwhile, his wife (Sakura Ando), an aunt (Mayu Matsuoka) and grandma (the late Kilin Kiki) chip in by scamming and performing in private peep-shows. Their lives turn one night when Osamu and Shota come upon a tiny girl named Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) in the cold. They take her into their family and groom her to be a shoplifter.

film review: Border (Gräns)

Directed by: Ali Abbasi
Written by:  Ali Abbasi, Isabella Eklöf and John Ajvide Lindqvist (based on a short story by Lindqvist)

ChinoKino score: B+

Review by Allan Tong

What the hell did I just watch?

Border plays like an art-house European drama but veers into sci-fi, noir and even romance. At times, it unwinds drily, while at others, Border mesmerizes. Throughout, it is unsettling.

Border follows Tina (Eva Melander) as a lonely, cold customs agent. Tina looks part-animal with a big forehead, fang-like teeth, heavy body hair and scars galore. She looks repulsive, and has drawn scorn all her life, from schoolyard bullies to adults who openly call her an "ugly bitch." Naturally, she has developed a thick emotional shell. She isn't warm. She's guarded, and hard to know--and like. Meanwhile, her father (Jörgen Thorsson ) is falling into dementia while her boyfriend (Sten Ljunggren ) leeches off her in a loveless relationship.

film review: Science Fair

Directed by: Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster
Written by:  Cristina Costantini, Darren Foster and Jeff Plunkett

ChinoKino score: B

Review by Allan Tong

It's a good idea for a documentary: follow nine bright high school students from the States as well as Brazil and Germany as they build innovative science projects to compete at the 2017 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in L.A. This Superbowl of science pits 1,700 of the smartest teens from 78 countries to battle for the US$75,000 top prize.

Co-director Cristina Costantini knows first-hand what these science geeks are feeling: she herself is a two-time alumna of ISEF. Costantini and her team deftly capture the personalities who star in this film. The most engaging is Anjali (above), a 13-year-old child prodigy from Louisville, Kentucky, who's built an arsenic-testing device that could save millions of lives. Anjali is confident, articulate, but also nervous at competition time. She wins us over instantly.

film review: Transformer

Directed by: Michael Del Monte
Written by:  Michael Del Monte, Paul Kemp
Featuring:  Janae Marie Kroczaleski

ChinoKino score: A-

Review by Allan Tong

There are many documentaries about bodybuilders and, more recently, trans-people undergoing gender re-assignment, but Transformer is both.

Director Del Monte strikes documentarian gold in profiling Janae Marie Kroczaleski, who is/was Matt, a world record powerlifter. As a child, Matt added muscle to ward off bullies, and now as an adult with three children of his own, he still doesn't feel comfortable in her own skin. It's revealing when she says that most bodybuilders, with their ripped biceps and calves of steel, suffer low self-esteem. That insecurity is the thread that runs through Transformer.

film review on VOD: The King

Written and Directed by: Eugene Jarecki
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Chuck D, Ethan Hawke, Emmylou Harris, James Carville

ChinoKino score: A

Review by Allan Tong

There are countless documentaries about Elvis Presley, but nothing like The King. 

It's a simple premise: drive Elvis' Rolls-Royce across America, and have guests in the backseat tell his life story. But--and here's the difference--reflect on race, class, democracy and militarism in the King's time and today. The effect is puzzling at first, sometimes brilliant and surprisingly insightful about Elvis himself.

Elvis was a poor kid who made it big, the embodiment of the American Dream. But campaign strategist James Carville laments that that dream has vanished, because the disparity between rich and poor has widened too far. That poverty is starkly seen when Elvis' Rolls rolls into his hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi where poor blacks as well as whites feel forgotten.

film review on VOD: Mary Shelley

Written & Directed by: Haifaa Al-Mansour
Featuring: Elle Fanning, Maisie Williams, Bel Powley, Douglas Booth

ChinoKino score: B-

Review by Allan Tong

When this biopic about the 19th-century author of Frankenstein unspooled in theatres last year, it was greeted with apathy, if not disdain. However, it deserves another look on VOD. Elle Fanning carries this uneven film as teenage Mary Shelley, who rebels against her parents by eloping with the flighty, hedonist poet, Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth). Leading a life of excess, she arrives at wisdom--and a landmark novel.

Dragging along her younger sister (finely played by Bel Powley), Mary journeys through a world of casual sex and earthly pleasures without a thought (or penny) for tomorrow. The Romantics, as the Shelleys and their ilk were called, were the hippies of early-1800's England, reacting against the uptight rationality and tradition that had straightjacketed England.

film review for VOD: After Everything

Written and Directed by: Hannah Marks, Joey Power
Featuring: Jeremy Allen White, Maika Monroe, Marisa Tomei, Joe Keery 

ChinoKino score: B-

Review by Allan Tong

A young New York couple fall in love, except that he comes down with cancer. Not exactly your typical romantic film. This is a brave film for exploring the devotion and anguish that drives these difficult relationships. A solid idea for a movie, but told from whose point of view?

My bet is hers, Mia, a no-nonsense young woman who works in a cubicle at a marketing firm. Maika Monroe does a good job of fleshing out Mia as she falls in love with the aimless yet flirtatious Elliot (Jeremy Allen White). Mia then nurses him through endless rounds of chemotherapy. If you've ever accompanied a loved one to chemo, then you now how wrenching this experience is for both parties. This film captures that pain. Further, Mia keeps the relationship alive, working for them both, and carrying the strain of balancing work and his cancer therapy.

film review: Fahrenheit 11/9

Michael Moore with fan, Jared Kushner

Director: Michael Moore
Writers: Michael Moore

ChinoKino score: A

Review by Allan Tong

Left or right, you know where you stand with a Michael Moore film and Fahrenheit 11/9 is definitely no exception.

Moore's latest, which premiered at the start of TIFF, is a troubling snapshot of the United States, a country driven to ruin by despot Donald Trump, whom Moore compares to Hitler. Naturally, Trump supporters will despise this film, but surprisingly Democrats will cringe at Moore's shots at the Clintons over their "compromise" liberal politics and the Democratic machine that this film claims stole the party nomination from Bernie Sanders.

The message: both sides of the aisle have forsaken ordinary working Americans and it's time to take democracy back--or it'll disappear.

Film and glamour: Birks and Telefilm honour six women at TIFF

Actor Pascale Bussières glams it up on the red carpet

Canadians aren't known for glamour, but Monday at TIFF, they dazzled in dresses and sparkled on the red carpet at the sixth Birks Diamond Tribute to the Year’s Women in Film. Birks and Telefilm saluted six women: documentary director Nettie Wild; actors Tantoo Cardinal and Pascale Bussières; screenwriter Susan Coyne; and emerging directors Stella Meghie and Jeanne Leblanc.

The Grizzlies director Miranda de Pencier, honouree and producer Alethea Arnaquq-Naril, star Emerald MacDonald, star Paul Nutarariaq and producer Stacey Aglok MacDonald

French cinema champions diversity at TIFF 2018

Cities of Last Things - Alexis Perrin, Winnie Lau, Ho Wi Ding, Hong Chi-Lee, Louise Grinberg 

France's 28 feature-length and short films at TIFF this year herald gender and racial diversity like no other country. Films include Eva Husson's controversial women's war drama, Girls of the Sun, and the China-Taiwan-U.S.-France co-pro, Cities of Last Things. Here are images from the Unifrance reception at TIFF:

Her Job: Marisha Triantyfilidon, Nikos Labot and Dounia Sichov 

High Life director Claire Denis

Mammoth Art of Banksy retrospective opens in Toronto

Story & photos by Allan Tong

The Art of Banksy opens tonight in what will likely be the art event of Toronto's summer, perhaps the year.

The anonymous British street artist known only as "Banksy" enjoys a lavish retrospective of 80 artworks, almost all of them gallery pieces, with a handful of  works lifted from the streets of east London over the past two decades. The show runs June 13-July 11 at 213 Sterling Road after tonight's private opening party.

The Art of Banksy is a greatest hits package of one of the most successful artists in the world, including the iconic Balloon Girl, Flag Wall (top) and Laugh Now. It showcases riot police with happy faces, sardonic monkees, rioters hurling flowers, and spray-painting rats, which all reflect Banksy's leftist politics.