Category Archives: International

Infinity Pool review — Gleeful bad-trip movie goes off the deep end

January 30, 2023 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Brandon Cronenberg | 117 min | ▲▲▲△△ | In Cinemas I'm not the first critic to recognize the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree with the younger Cronenberg, son of David. Consider his first two features — Antiviral and the remarkable Possessor. The son's thematic concerns are similar to…Read More

Broker review — Easy-going road movie takes the scenic route

January 14, 2023 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda | 129 min | ▲▲▲△△ A version of this review was posted in September 2022 from the Toronto International Film Festival. Back in 2019 Hirokazu Koreeda’s Shoplifters got a lot of approbation and awards. It's solid in a lot of ways, and it's overlong and dramatically delicate. This new…Read More

Holy Spider review — Ruthless serial killer movie supersedes genre

January 13, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Ali Abbasi | Written by Abbasi and Afshin Kamran Bahrami | 116 min | ▲▲▲▲△ An earlier version of this review was posted from the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2022. Holy Spider is a pitch-black serial killer thriller from the Swedish-Iranian director of 2018's fantasy love story, Border. This is a…Read More

Shin Ultraman review — Bizarro bombast from Japan

January 12, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Shinji Higuchi | Written by Hideaki Anno | 118 min | ▲▲▲△△ | In Cinemas (Cineplex Event Screen) I wasn't especially familiar with the Japanese Ultraman series beyond knowing it showed up in the 1960s in the genre shared with Godzilla (Toho Studios is a producer here) with all those radioactive monsters known…Read More

Empire of Light review — A flawed but gorgeous film

December 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Empire Of Light | Written and Directed by Sam Mendes | 119 min | ▲▲▲▲△ A version of this review appeared on FITI in September from the Toronto International Film Festival Here's another semi-autobiographical drama from a garlanded filmmaker, following Belfast and The Fabelmans, both of which were lovely and intimate, if not exactly world-changing…Read More

Aftersun review — Haunted memories of a Turkish holiday

December 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Charlotte Wells | 102 min | ▲▲▲△△ | On VOD Hard to think of a more original debut recently from a new filmmaker, and how many movies have you seen that devote their entire running time to the relationship between a father and daughter? Aftersun is opaque and as such is…Read More

RRR review — The year’s best superhero movie, and more

December 19, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by SS Rajamouli | Written by Rajamouli, Vijayendra Prasad, and Sai Madhav Burra | 187 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Netflix Apparently based on the lives of actual freedom fighters in pre-independence India, it's fair to say this picture has a delightfully loose relationship with historical accuracy — as well as physics. RRR is a…Read More

Stars At Noon review — Margaret Qualley makes it worth seeing

December 13, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Claire Denis | Written by Denis and Andrew Litvack, from a novel by Denis Johnson | 135 min | ▲▲▲△△ | On Digital and VOD Claire Denis is having a good month. Her film Beau Travail is Top 10 on Sight And Sound's Greatest Films of All Time, and her second English-language feature…Read More

Your Christmas Or Mine? review — Sweet Brit Christmas tale surprisingly original

December 6, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Jim O'Hanlon | Written by Tom Parry | 95 min | ▲▲▲△△ | Amazon Prime To the best of my knowledge this particular scenario has never been done before — young lovers get stuck at each others' families with very different holiday traditions — and for that reason alone I'd recommend Your Christmas…Read More

The Swimmers review — Syrian sisters’ story of survival

December 4, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Sally El Hosaini | Written by El Hosaini and Jack Thorne | 134 min |▲▲▲△△ | Netflix A version of this review was posted on FITI during the Toronto International Film Festival. The Swimmers had the honour of being the Opening Night Gala at Toronto International Film Festival, which might be a testament…Read More