Above Suspicion: Reality-based, Kentucky fried noir is a curious failure and an overreach for Emilia Clarke
ReviewJim SlotekMovies set among Southern drug dealers, Above Suspicion, Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone, Phillip Noyce, Jack Huston, Johnny Knoxville, Ozark, Justified, Austin Hébert, Thora Birch, Sophie Lowe, Chris Gerolmo, Joe Sharkey
Crisis: Drama About the Opioid Calamity Less Intense than Real Headlines
Review, PreviewJim SlotekCrisis, Drama, Opioid crisis, Nicholas Jarecki, Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Lily-Rose Depp, Michelle Rodriguez, Kid Cudi, fact-based drama
F.T.A.: Fonda and Sutherland's '72 anti-USO show holds up as companion piece to today's Vietnam film flashbacks
Review, ViewsJim SlotekF.T.A., Jane Fonda, Anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the army, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Judas and the Black Messiah, Da Five Bloods, Donald Sutherland, Dalton Trumbo’s 1938 anti-war novel, Johnny Got His Gun., Alan Myerson, The Committee, Holly Near, Rita Martinson, Pamela Donegan, Len Chandler, Francine Parker
Sacrilege: Strong Female Characters get Wasted (Literally) in Suspense-less Horror
Review, PreviewJim SlotekSacrilege, Horror, David Creed, Tamaryn Payne, Emily Wyatt, Sian Abrams, Naomi Willow, Paganism, Nightmares, British, Thriller, Midsommar
Hawk and Rev Vampire Slayers: Proving Even Super Low-Budget Can be Super-Fun
Come True: Unforgettable nightmare imagery in this 'dream-logic' twist on Elm Street
ReviewJim SlotekDream-based horror movies, Canadian horror movies, Come True, Anthony Scott Burns, Vincenzo Natali, Cube, Splice, Nightmare on Elm Street, Julia Sarah Stone, Christopher Heatherington, Landon Liboiron, Depictions of hell, Hieronymus Bosch
Death of a Ladies’ Man: Nice Try but Alas, Only Leonard Cohen Gets to be Leonard Cohen
Praise for Cloris Leachman’s Outstanding Final Role in Jump, Darling
By Linda Barnard
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Review, PreviewJim SlotekJump Darling, Cloris Leachman, Jayne Eastwood, Thomas Duplessie, Drag Queens, Price Edward County, Canadian movies, Phil Connell, Comedy, Drama, Family, Aging, Actors' final performances
My Salinger Year: Memoir-Based Drama about Catcher in the Rye Writer Blurry As its Subject
Review, PreviewJim SlotekMy Salinger Year, Memoir adaptation, Phillipe Falardeau, Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver, J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Canadian film, Tim Post
Radical - Exiting Extremism: Film series seeks answers to the question, 'Why are terrible political ideas so contagious?'
Review, PreviewJim SlotekRadical – Exiting Extremism film series, Wild Heart, Jan “Monchi” Gorkow, Goethe-Institut, Toronto Jewish Film Society, The Renegades — Long Way from Home, Mariam Nouri, Lisa Maria Hagen, Combat Girls, Alina Levshin, Films about the contagion of extremism, Jella Haase, David Wnendt, Digital TIFF Bell Lightbox
Land: Robin Wright Navigates Bereavement and Bears in Modest Directorial Debut
Coming 2 America: Warm and Indoors with Eddie Murphy… Isn’t That Enough?
Review, PreviewJim SlotekComing 2 America, Sequel, Comedy, Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Craig Brewer, Leslie Jones, James Earl Jones, Black films, Jermaine Fowler
No Visible Trauma: Hot Docs' free 'For Viola' screening series calls out what may be Canada's most lethal police force
The Affair: Europudding in a Lovely Real-Life Terrarium
Review, PreviewJim SlotekThe Affair, Clae, Julius Sevcik, Hanna Alström, WWII, architecture, Ludwig Mies van de Rohe, Czech Republic, Nazis, Historical drama, Lesbian love story, Carice van Houten, Villa Tugendhat, adaptation, The Glass Room
Stray: A day in the life of an Istanbul street dog speaks as much to human activity as to canine
ReviewJim SlotekDocumentaries about stray dogs, Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings, Street dogs in Istanbul, Elizabeth Lo, Stray, Zeytin, Syrian street kids in Istanbul, Taksim Square, Diogenes, Pariah Dog, Rescuing Rex
The United States vs. Billie Holiday: A magnetic performance in a mess of a biopic
ReviewJim SlotekBillie Holiday, Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Golden Globe winner, Awards season movies, Lee Daniels, Strange Fruit, Diana Ross in Lady Sings the Blues, John Szwed, Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, Harry Anslinger, Suzan-Lori Parks, Johann Hari’s Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, Abel Meeropol, James Baldwin, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, The Burning of Will Brown’s Body, Natasha Lyonne, Tallulah Bankhead, Garrett Hedlund, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Miss Lawrence
Notturno: Images say it all in haunting documentary about the survivors of ISIS's brutal 'caliphate'
By Karen Gordon
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The Vigil: Chilling Jewish folklore proves Catholics don't have a monopoly on religious-based horror
ReviewJim SlotekJewish supernatural legends, Golem, Dybbuk, Keith Thomas, The Vigil, Shomer, Dave Davis, Menashe Lustig, Lynn Cohen, The Limehouse Golem, The Possession
The Mauritanian: A nightmarish ordeal gets second billing to a less compelling tale of legal wrangling
ReviewJim SlotekThe Mauritanian, Guantánamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Bob Dylan’s The Man in Me, 9/11, Kevin Macdonald, The Last King of Scotland, Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley, Tahar Rahim, Benedict Cumberbatch
Minari: Heart and playful moments in this tale of South Koreans seeking the American Dream in Arkansas dirt
By Karen Gordon
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ReviewJim SlotekMinari water celery, Minari film, Lee Isaac Chung, Immigrant farmers, Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, Alan S. Kim, Noel Cho, Yuh-jung Youn, South Korean immigrant experience, Award season films
