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“The Last Showgirl” : A Modern Sunset Boulevard

©Courtesy of Roadside Attractions Aging for a woman is tough. If she works in show business even more. Gia Coppola’s latest film — The Last Showgirl — shows this condition through an outstanding performance by Pamela Anderson. Shelley (Pamela Anderson), is a seasoned showgirl who has been working at Le Razzle Dazzle, in Las Vegas,…

TIFF: ‘My Sunshine’ is an Affecting Story of Young Love and Skill

There are many reasons that people might enter the world of sports. Often it’s true talent or the support – or enthusiastic encouragement, however warranted by ability – of a family member, friend, or coach. It can also just be the oldest and most basic motivation of all, to be close to and impress someone…

TIFF: Walking to Keep Going in ‘The Salt Path’

People walk long trails for a variety of reasons. In many cases, it’s to work through and get past something traumatic, extracting a person from a triggering environment to give them some time to heal. In others, however, it’s out of necessity since they simply have no place to live. The Salt Path tells the…

TIFF: Paying for the Past in Japan’s Oscar Entry ‘Cloud’

Actions are rarely without consequences, even if takes a while for them to materialize. One unfortunate or regrettable decision may bring with it an undue and disproportionate response, but a pattern of illegal or unethical behavior will eventually incur some sort of justice, even if it’s merely cosmic and not literal or cut-and-dry. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s…

TIFF: Modern-Day Old School Antics in ‘Young Werther’

Can a popular book from the eighteenth century be adapted into a modern-day movie? That’s the question that filmmaker José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço explores in Young Werther, based on what the film introduces in its opening titles as the 1774 hit novel comparable to Beatlemania, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther….

TIFF: Playing the Hero in ‘Sharp Corner’

There’s a popular expression which describes how it’s impossible to look away from a car crash. No one wants to be the victim, and a combination of horror and genuine curiosity often lead to increased traffic around the site of an accident as drivers slow to see what could have happened to them but instead…

TIFF: Forging Her Own Path in ‘Bird’

The home in which a person is raised can have a strong effect on building character. Positive role models and attentive parents may produce a child who is well-behaved and capable, though potentially less used to doing things on their own if too much is done for them. When there isn’t someone who is putting…

TIFF: A Harsh Homecoming for Odysseus in ‘The Return’

Returning home after a long time away with no communication is always uncomfortable. In the age of cell phones and emails, not being in touch feels like a deliberate choice, but in the time of the Trojan War long before the advent of modern technology, failure to send word was considerably more excusable. Literature fans…

TIFF: Couple Dynamics in ‘Millers in Marriage’

Not all relationships are built to last. People can also change over time and want and need different things than they did at first. If everyone involved pays attention and alters their behavior appropriately, everything should work out, but if the effort is only one-way, it may be doomed to fail. Millers in Marriage checks…

Toronto International Film Festival : A Father’s Love in ‘A Missing Part’

The relationship between a parent and a child is something that can be truly influential, whether for good or bad. The absence of that bond, for whatever reason, can be equally damaging. For the child, they may think they have been abandoned but never actually understand the circumstances that prohibited them from having contact, while…

TIFF: A Confusing Picture of a Man in ‘Oh, Canada’

It’s hard to know how to distinguish fact from fiction, especially when someone else is telling the story. Details tend to play into the believability of a particular tale, and while specifics can make something seem realer, they can also reveal rehearsed inventions that have no basis in truth. Paul Schrader’s latest film Oh, Canada…