Category: Anything and Everything
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‘Pianoforte’ Is A Compelling Group Portrait Made With Love And Curiosity – Review
The International Chopin Piano Competition, founded in 1927, has been hosted every five years since 1955 in Warsaw, where the competition’s namesake composer grew up. With the city’s historic claim to Chopin – perhaps the greatest composer for solo piano in the history of Western classical music – and its regular yet infrequent schedule, the…
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What a Time to be Alive: the Legendary Hayao Miyazaki Returns with ‘The Boy and the Heron’
Studio Ghibli Returning from his seventh retirement (yes, you read that right), the 82-year-old creator of the iconic fuzzy Totoro and the Oscar-winning Spirited Away is once again back at the helm of Studio Ghibli, a decade after releasing his biographical drama on the life of Jiro Horikoshi. The Boy and the Heron, by comparison,…
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Meg Ryan Explores Lost Love in Unconventional Rom-Com ‘What Happens Later’ – Film Review
Known for rom-coms like Sleepless In Seattle, When Harry Met Sally…, and You’ve Got Mail, Meg Ryan turns to the big screen for the first time after an almost ten-year hiatus with What Happens Later, which she also directed and co-wrote (with Steven Dietz and Kirk Lynn). The film follows Willa (Ryan) and Bill (David…
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How Comedy-Led Horror TV Helped Me Navigate My Pandemic Worries
For a long time, I wouldn’t have identified as a horror fan. It’s not that I’m afraid of blood, guts, or a suspenseful moment — rather, the inescapable darkness of the genre sometimes proves too much for me. I don’t always want to see the dark underbelly of humanity exposed. So it came as something…
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‘Borderline’ Attempts To Explore BPD And Addiction But Lacks Depth And Focus – Film Review
Borderline, as the title suggests, tells the story of Charli (Kate Lý Johnston), a young woman with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD); a severe mental illness which impacts a person’s ability to manage their emotions, thus impacting their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Writer/director Rich Mallery draws us into Charli’s emotionally volatile world right away with a…
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Revisiting ‘Smooth Talk’: A Study of Adolescence
Like Adrian Lyne’s seminal Foxes starring Jodie Foster (and a young Laura Dern among an ensemble cast), Joyce Chopra leads moments of truth and unvarnished vulnerability in 1985’s Smooth Talk, based on a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. Here, Dern is a teenager who goes through the emotional ups and downs that are universal…
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Intense Crime Thriller ‘Condition of Return’ Asks Why A Churchgoing Woman Would Commit A Mass Shooting – Film Review
The last thing anyone would want to do is relate to and humanise a mass shooter, but that’s exactly what Condition of Return, directed by Tommy Stovall and written by John Spare, does. It will be considered a controversial film by many as it explores what might drive someone to commit such a disturbing act…
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‘Copa 71’ Uncovers The Story Behind The Unofficial 1971 World Cup – TIFF23 Review
Copa 71 opens up with two-time World Cup winner Brandi Chastain being handed a tablet, and on it plays grainy old footage of a roaring football stadium. She’s asked if she knows what she’s watching, but she doesn’t. As many of us would assume, she guessed it was a clip from a men’s football match,…
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‘Cassandro’ Is A Biopic Full Of Style And Substance But Lacking Structure – Film Review
Seeing Gael García Bernal in anything is a treat, but his performance as Saúl Armendáriz is one of many career highs. Armendáriz rose to fame in the 1990s as an exótico in lucha libre – that is, in the ultra-macho world of the Mexican wrestling style, an opponent who fights in drag. What marks Cassandro,…