By John H. Foote HER SMELL (**) Elisabeth Moss is an actress who has arrived yet still continues to grow and stun with her work. I have been watching her since her days as Zoey Bartlett, daughter of the President on TV’s brilliant The West Wing, through to her sublime work on A Handmaid’s Tale,…
By John H. Foote Most of my time at TIFF is spent in screening rooms with other film critics from around the globe. Some I have gotten to know over the years and we see each other once a year, swap films we liked and did not, and move on, nodding to one another between…
By John H. Foote FIRST MAN (****) To be clear, this is one for the ages. A soaring testament to what mankind is capable of when they work for the common good. The timing is perfect because America needs to feel good about something again. There have been great films about the American space program…
By Nick Maylor (***) Vox Lux is an exploration of tragedy, both societal and personal. Raffey Cassidy stars as Celeste, a teen who witnesses (and is a surviving victim of) a school mass shooting. Using her time in rehabilitation to learn her way around a keyboard with the help of her sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin),…
By John H. Foote WHITE BOY RICK (***) Detroit has always looked and seemed dirty to me, not a great place to visit. When going south of the border, we have always breezed through the city fast, as it just never felt safe, or offered anything I was interested in. My Red Wings play there,…
By John H. Foote WIDOWS (****) Directed by Academy Award winner Steve McQueen, the guiding force behind the Oscar winning Best Picture 12 Years a Slave (2013), this high octane caper film is a twist on both heist pictures, and in its own way noir. Dark, nasty, twisting, these are not the sort of people…
By John H. Foote BEAUTIFUL BOY (***) The love of a parent is something children will never understand until they are parents themselves, should they ever be so lucky. It begins the moment we see the newborn child, a ferocious sense to protect from harm is what we father’s feel, to love and nurture what…
By Nick Maylor (***) Joel Edgerton’s sophomoric directorial outing is a quintessential coming-of-age story that while very much steeped in Americana, should have a global appeal due to its intrinsic human themes. Starring alongside Edgerton (in a supporting role) are his fellow-Australians Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman; playing a Baptist pastor and his wife who…
By John H. Foote DESTROYER (***) Nicole Kidman looks rancid, moldy as the tough detective in Destroyer. Never before has the actress allowed herself to look so rough for a film, it is as though she is rotting from the inside out, the corruption attached to her very soul. Her skin is sallow, blotchy, her…
By John H. Foote A STAR IS BORN (****) Wow! Talk about knocking it out of the park! In his directorial debut Bradley Cooper creates the finest of A Star is Born films, far surpassing the 1976 version and eking by the Judy Garland version. Further, he gives the finest performance of his career as…