Category Archives: Drama

#AFF2016 — The Rehearsal, Paterson, Below Her Mouth reviews

September 22, 2016 flawintheiris

The Rehearsal Directed by Alison Maclean | Written by Maclean and Emily Perkins, adapting the novel by Eleanor Catton | 102 min The Rehearsal is an unexpected pleasure, a New Zealand picture about drama school students that goes interesting places. Stanley (James Rolleston) is 18 and one of those students. He's a little awkward, but the classes…Read More

#AFF2016 — Land Of Mine, My Life So Far, A Man Called Ove, Denial reviews

September 21, 2016 flawintheiris

Land Of Mine (Under Sandet) Written and Directed by Martin Zandvliet | 100 min It was announced the other day that Land of Mine will be the Danish submission for consideration as the Best Foreign Language film at next year's Academy Awards. (So was A Man Called Ove last week declared for Sweden, making today a Scandinavian…Read More

#AFF2016 — The Salesman (Forushande), A Song For You, Unless reviews

September 20, 2016 flawintheiris

The Salesman (Forushande) Written and Directed by Asghar Farhadi | 125 min Farhadi is a genius storyteller. He's a filmmaker whose work I stumbled only a few years ago but have followed keenly since. I loved A Separation and The Past, and The Salesman compares favourably to both. In it he returns to Tehran, telling the story…Read More

#AFF2016 — Women Who Kill, L’Avenir (Things To Come) reviews

September 19, 2016 flawintheiris

Women Who Kill Written and Directed by Ingrid Jungermann | 93 min Morgan (writer/director Jungermann) and Jean (Ann Carr) are ex-lovers who co-host a podcast about female serial killers and live together in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Their morbid fascination with ladies who deal death isn't entirely explained, but it does bind them together in ways…Read More

Sully review — Moustaches help, but there’s something off in Eastwood’s plane crash drama

September 19, 2016 flawintheiris

Directed by Clint Eastwood | Written by Todd Komarnicki, adapting the book by Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Zaslow | 96 min | ▲▲▲△△ A filmmaker in his 80s, Eastwood is someone whose public persona has been getting crustier and more conservative as he's aged. It's tempting to read those political leanings in his filmmaking choices as many…Read More

#AFF2016 — Personal Shopper, American Honey, Operation Avalanche reviews

September 18, 2016 flawintheiris

Personal Shopper Written and Directed by Oliver Assayas | 105 min Personal Shopper is a film that refuses to pay off, but in the most delightful way. Assayas directed Stewart in The Clouds of Sils Maria, and once again creates a character for Kristen Stewart that's in a position of subservience to someone famous, though this…Read More

#AFF2016 — Moonlight, Toni Erdmann reviews

September 17, 2016 flawintheiris

Moonlight Directed by Barry Jenkins | Written by Jenkins and Tarell McCraney | 110 min The story of a boy who becomes a teen who becomes a man, but this isn't a coming-of-age movie. It's a cultural snapshot in three chapters. Little (Alex R. Hibbert) is a black boy living in Miami. He's beaten up…Read More

Snowden review — Stone chooses drama over suspense

September 16, 2016 flawintheiris

Directed by Oliver Stone | Written by Stone and Keiran Fitzgerald, based on books by Anatoly Kucherena and Luke Harding | 134 min | ▲▲△△△ I have to own my bias on this one, just as I did with Pawn Sacrifice and another Joseph Gordon Levitt feature The Walk: These movies are all fictionalized takes on real…Read More

Atlantic Film Festival 2016 Preview

September 15, 2016 flawintheiris

Here we are again, that moment in September when Halifax goes movie crazy. I've been attending The Atlantic Film Festival since 2003. That year the festival programmers screened some of the biggest and most beloved films of the year (Lost In Translation) along with the obscure, but no less delightful, gems ( such as Wilbur Wants To…Read More

The Light Between Oceans review — Quality Melodrama Dashed on the Rocks

September 6, 2016 flawintheiris

Directed by Derek Cianfrance | Written by Cianfrance, adapting the novel by ML Stedman | 133 min | On Demand | ▲▲▲△△ The arrival of a good melodrama is like the blooming of a corpse flower. It's rare enough to be a surprise, but it's still not something that's all together welcome—many don't appreciate them. (You know, because…Read More