Category Archives: Recommended

Exit 8 review — Nightmare of the eternal loop

April 8, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Genki Kawamura | Written by Kawamura, Kentaro Hirase, adapting the video game by Kotake Create | 95 min | ▲▲▲▲ | In Cinemas An average guy (Kazunari Ninomiya) takes the subway, presumably in Tokyo. He notices another man freaking out at a woman whose baby is wailing, insisting she get the baby to…Read More

The Drama review — Secrets, lies, and cringe delights

April 4, 2026 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Kristoffer Borgli | 105 min | ▲▲▲▲ | In Cinemas There's a tradition of Scandi cringe comedy that's like freebasing crack versus the straight-ahead cocaine of the brand elsewhere in the world. Consider the excruciating, dark humour of The Celebration, Force Majeure, Riders of Justice, or Another Round. Norwegian filmmaker Borgli…Read More

The President’s Cake review — Dessert life

March 12, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Hasan Hadi | Written by Hadi and Eric Roth | 105 min | ▲▲▲▲ An extraordinary film for a few reasons, one of which is this is a story about people in Iraq that's actually shot on location, featuring scenes on the Mesopotamian marshes and the streets of Baghdad. Set during the 1990s,…Read More

Pillion review — Wheelies of love and adoration

March 1, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Harry Lighton | Written by Lighton, based on the book Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones | 106 min | ▲▲▲▲ Colin (Harry Melling) is a quiet, queer young man who lives with his parents, Douglas and Peggy (Douglas Hodge and Lesley Sharp) in suburban Bromley, South London, and sings with Douglas in a…Read More

When The Light Breaks review — Beautiful Icelandic film explores love and grief

February 24, 2026 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Rúnar Rúnarsson | 82 min | ▲▲▲▲ | On VOD An earlier version of this review appeared on FITI during the Atlantic International Film Festival 2024. Here's a film that came and went in the 2024 festival season, but never got a theatrical release here in Nova Scotia. More's the shame…Read More

Crime 101 review — An exceptional, slickly made thriller

February 16, 2026 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Bart Layton, based on the novella by Don Winslow | 139 min | ▲▲▲▲ What a pleasure to watch a masterfully crafted thriller, one that feels like the product of another era when these kinds of movies appeared regularly at the multiplex. Critics before me have compared it to Heat, which is…Read More

A Private Life review — Jodie Foster shines in Parisienne mystery

January 28, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski | Written by Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé | 103 min | ▲▲▲1/2 An earlier version of this review ran on the blog during the Toronto International Film Festival 2025 The main draw here — though the film has a number of supplementary pleasures — is Jodie Foster performing in…Read More

Is This Thing On? review — Divorcing dad stands up

January 18, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Bradley Cooper | Written by Cooper, Will Arnett, and Mark Chappell | 121 min | ▲▲▲1/2 This film had the whiff of Oscar bait — from actor-turned-director Cooper, whose potent first two efforts were lauded with nominations — but this one has been ignored this season. Maybe it's too intimate, not universal enough.…Read More

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple review — Post-Apocalypse Now

January 18, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Nia DaCosta | Written by Alex Garland | 109 min | ▲▲▲1/2 For those reading this who wonder how I felt about the previous films in the franchise — the Danny Boyle original from 2002 is a genre classic, of course, that introduced us to fast zombies. 28 Weeks Later was a better than-it-needed-to-be…Read More

Dead Man’s Wire review — Double-barrelled justice?

January 14, 2026 flawintheiris

Directed by Gus Van Sant | Written by Austin Kolodney, based on the 2018 documentary Dead Man’s Line | ▲▲▲1/2 We've got a brand new Gus Van Sant in theatres, which in itself is a reason to celebrate — the filmmaker who gave us Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting, and Last Days…Read More