The Hot Docs International Film Festival wrapped up this past Sunday in Toronto, after eleven days of showcasing documentaries from all around the world. This 2017 edition, the festival’s 24th year, boasted record-breaking audiences of 215,000, with over 450 public screenings of 218 films. In addition to the regular public screening series, Hot Docs featured a broad slate of guest appearances, discussions, live performances, networking events conferences, and workshops. They also ran the Docs for Schools program, an educational initiative that serves an estimated 95,000 students with screenings throughout the festival run. With so much to see I was only able to a get to a small selection of it, which I’ll detail further down, but first let’s look a few other highly-acclaimed films of the Fest. Read more…
GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM (2016) review
produced by: Jedd Wider and Todd Wider
directed by: Jedd Wider and Todd Wider
rating: unrated
runtime: 97 min.
U.S. release date: April 7, 2016 (Cleveland International Film Festival) & May 5, 2017 – May 11, 2017 (Facets Multimedia, Chicago, IL)
“God Knows Where I Am” should make you think (perhaps rethink) about certain people you encounter repeatedly in your life. The kind of people in our lives that we see all the time, yet we just don’t know that much about. They could be a co-worker, a fellow student, a neighbor or someone we always see as we go about our day. He or she may be outgoing and helpful or socially inept and withdrawn. I thought of these people and what little I knew of them while watching this documentary from directors Jedd Wider and Todd Wider (“Taxi to the Dark Side”; “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”), which focuses on Linda Bishop, a homeless woman whose dead body was found in May 2008 in an abandoned farmhouse in New Hampshire, months after she had died alone. What happened here? What was this person’s life like? What were her hopes and dreams in life? How did she end up like this?
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (2017) review
written by: James Gunn
produced by: Kevin Feige
directed by: James Gunn
rated: PG-13 (for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language, and brief suggestive content)
runtime: 136 min.
U.S. release date: May 5, 2016
If you recall, 2014 was a great year for Marvel Studios movies. If you don’t recall, it was a year that gave us the Russo brothers-helmed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” in May (the official kickoff month of the summer movie season) and “Guardians of the Galaxy” in August from writer/director James Gunn. The sci-fi action/adventure comedy wound up being the studio’s biggest gamble since “Thor”, launching audiences into outer space, where blue and green-skinned aliens brushing teaming-up with a tree creature and sarcastic anthropomorphic raccoon, was no big deal. Gunn’s energy was contagious and his clever and subversive approach won me over, blowing up the box-office and proving that audiences would rally around and delight in unfamiliar characters. So, in the spirit of not ruining a good thing, Gunn brings more of the same three years later in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2” and I mean that in the best possible way. Read more…
THE DEVIL’S CANDY (2015) review
written by: Sean Byrne
produced by: Jesse Calder and Keith Calder
directed by: Sean Byrne
rated: unrated
runtime: 79 min.
U.S. release date: March 17, 2017 & April 21, 2017 (limited), also available on iTunes, Amazon & VOD
“The Devil’s Candy” is finally here and there’s a bit of both a trick and a treat. The horror flick is the first film in seven years from Australian writer/director Sean Byrne, who’s feature-length debut “The Loved Ones” has received a certain amount of cult status. His latest premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival back in 2015 and worked the festival circuit until it was available digitally last month and will perhaps eventually become something of a midnight mainstay in arthouse theaters nationwide. It deserves to because of what it does with familiar horror tropes and how Byrne delivers another legitimately unsettling, creepy thriller with some great performances. That’s the trick and the treat of it. Read more…
Season IV of the Asian Pop-Up Cinema closes in Chicago at AMC River North THIS WEDNESDAY at 7pm (CST). If you’re not aware, this seasonal series is programmed by Sophia’s Choice , a non-profit organization “with the multiple missions of cultivating the general public’s interest in Asian culture via diverse offerings of Asian films; connecting the Asian film industry with local industry for both professional & educational exchanges; and promoting Chicago as a destination for Asian film company production”. The closing film is Korean director Heung-Sik Park’s latest “Love, Lies”, which opened in South Korea just over a year ago. Read more…
THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (2017) review
written by: Chris Morgan
produced by: Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Michael Fottrell & Chris Morgan
directed by: F. Gary Gray
rated: PG-13 (for prolonged sequences of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language)
runtime: 136 min.
U.S. release date: April 14, 2016
Eight films in and with already mixed returns, “The Fast and the Furious” series didn’t peak until film “Fast Five” after hitting its low point with film the first sequel. All this franchise has to do to keep me in the passenger seat at this point is keep coming up with great action set pieces, and stick to its code: family is everything. “The Fate of the Furious” does both. Read more…
DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE (2016) review
produced by: Jon Nguyen, Jason S., Sabrina S. Sutherland
directed by: Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm
rated: NR (some language and adult imagery)
runtime: 88 min.
U.S. release date: March 31, 2017 (limited) and April 28, 2017 (the Music Box Theatre, Chicago, IL)
“All I wanted to do was paint. It was like I couldn’t control it.”
Equal parts memoir and metaphor, “David Lynch: The Art Life” is ostensibly a documentary about the notoriously cagey director’s lifelong obsession with painting. Having emerged from the other side of it, however, I can state for the record that it’s more candid and heartwarming than I ever expected. I also know more about David Lynch’s formative years as an artist than I ever thought I would. What a bizarre combination of elements swirling around in my head, but such is ninety minutes spent in the company of America’s most esoteric director. Read more…
GRADUATION (2016) review
written by: Cristian Mungiu
produced by: Cristian Mungiu
directed by: Cristian Mungiu
rated: R (for some language)
runtime: 128 min.
U.S. release date: April 7, 2017 & April 21, 2017 (limited)
With his latest drama, “Graduation”, writer/director Cristian Mungiu continues his intent study of human behavior that put him on the map in 2007 with the challenging “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and his last film, 2012’s “Beyond the Hills”. The award-winning Romanian filmmaker is concerned with the motivations and repercussions involving corruption and the temptation that comes when just enough leverage is within reach. It’s yet another Romanian film where the phantom cloud of Ceausescu hangs low over the post-communist atmosphere, leading well-intended characters to make desperate decisions that snowballs into an irreversible place of moral decay. Regardless of the place and the predicaments of “Graduation” there is a universal reliability that permeates throughout this complex and absorbing story. Read more…
FREE FIRE (2017) review
written by: Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley
produced by: Andy Starke
directed by: Ben Wheatley
rated: R (for strong violence, pervasive language, sexual references and drug use)
runtime: 90 min.
U.S. release date: April 21, 2017 (limited)
“Free Fire” feels like a comic book from the 70s or like action porn where all the porn is action or like a live-action cartoon. If that doesn’t make sense, that’s okay, because the latest film by director Ben Wheatley is less concerned with making sense and more concerned with the absurdity and stupidity of violence, particularly the kind that involved bullets. This is a shoot-em-up flick of the B-movie variety. In fact, such an assessment accounts for 85% of the movie and while Wheatley is a filmmaker known for his proclivity for showing the infliction of physical pain, “Free Fire” is certainly not as dark, mysterious or twisted as his previous movies. That makes this probably his most accessible movie, with a cast and executive producer (Martin Scorsese) that is much more recognizable than his previous movies, one that’s vying for future cult status. Read more…
TOMMY’S HONOUR (2016) review
written by: Pamela Marin and Kevin Cook
produced by: Jim Kreutzer, Bob Last and Tim Moore
directed by: Jason Connery
rated: PG (for thematic elements, some suggestive material, language and smoking)
runtime: 117 min.
U.S. release date: April 14, 2017 (limited)
I don’t know much about golf and can count the number of times I’ve played the sport on one hand, but that doesn’t mean I can’t respect the game and those who’ve excelled at it. Still, a film that revolves around golf, will have to bring much more to the screen than impressive swings and skilled putting to hold my interest. Thankfully, director Jason Connery has done just that by focusing on one of the founding fathers of golf and his illustrious son who went on to become one of the master golfers of the 19th century. “Tommy’s Honour” is a sports bio that not only illuminates key figures in golf, but also provides specific details of the history of the sport, offering a look at a time before powered carts and golf bags. There is a heartfelt story here that surpasses the interest of fervent golfers, resonating for any viewer. Read more…
