Fall Film Festival Reviews. Below, we reveal the highlights and lowlights of the fall festival circuit by gathering the responses from professional critics to films screening at the just- completed Toronto International Film Festival, as well as festivals earlier this month in Venice and Telluride. Each year, these prestigious events are where many Oscar best picture nominees first premiere, and you can expect to see many of these films in theaters before the end of the year. Omitted from the list below are films that first debuted at other major festivals earlier this year which were previously covered in our 2. Cannes Recap and our 2. Sundance Recap. By combining a story about double agents during Japan’s occupation of Korea with inventive action set- pieces, the film earned South Korea’s slot in the Oscar race for best foreign- language film and Cine. Vue’s approval as a “bloody and breathtaking piece of filmmaking.”Described as a “thrill- deprived thriller” by THR, the latest film from director Marc Forster (World War Z) stars Blake Lively as a blind woman whose marriage suffers when she gets her sight back. Jason Clarke plays Lively’s husband, but neither actor (nor Forster’s occasionally inventive visual and aural representations of blindness) can save “the bumpy plot and underwhelming ending,” according to Screen Daily. With his feature directing debut, Ewan Mc. Gregor set himself a difficult task: adapting Philip Roth’s 1. Pulitzer Prize- winning novel. Story of Your Life has been retitled Arrival and is set to be released in U.S. The project has been in the. Roth has been notoriously difficult to translate to the big screen, but James Schamus found success earlier this year with Indignation, so there was some hope that Mc. Gregor might accomplish the same. Unfortunately, many critics think the troubles with this story of a successful Newark Jew (Mc. Gregor), his shiksa wife (Jennifer Connelly), and their radicalized daughter begin with Mc. Gregor casting himself in the lead role. Nor does his direction escape criticism, with the A. V. Dowd calling it a “bafflingly tone- deaf directorial debut.”Director Denis Villeneuve’s success with this sci- fi story about a language expert (Amy Adams) brought in to work with a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) in communicating with an alien species bodes well for sci- fi fans looking forward to the director’s Blade Runner sequel. Tasha Spillett discuss Indigenous learning on the land instead of a classroom Unreserved. JoBlo.com's Chris Bumbray reviews Denis Villeneuve's ARRIVAL from TIFF! When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team - lead by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) - is brought together to. Dowd and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of the A. V. Club give the film a “B+” with Dowd praising Villeneuve’s ability to go “sentimental without losing his chilly craftsmanship.”In reviewing writer- director Ana Lily Amirpour’s follow- up to A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, almost every critic mentions how great and suspenseful the first 2. As in her first film, Amirpour (who won a Special Jury Prize in Venice) creates a unique world for her main character—a girl (played by Suki Waterhouse) who is cast out into a desert wasteland populated by bodybuilding cannibals (including one played by Jason Momoa), a cult leader known as The Dream (Keanu Reeves), and a mute scavenger played by Jim Carrey. THR’s David Rooney writes, “Even when the dramatic momentum slackens, the movie's grindhouse world remains vividly rendered and immersive.” And Glenn Kenny of Roger. Ebert. com deems it his “favorite American picture of 2. Throughout his film career, acclaimed Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has adapted to different genres, and his latest feature, Arrival, is no exception. Title: Arrival (2016) 8.6 /10. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? When a dozen extraterrestrial pods enter the atmosphere, the government brings in an esteemed linguist. Arrival is already a strong contender for the best science fiction film of 2016. Written by Adam Mansbach and directed by Vikram Gandhi, this biopic looks at 2. Barack Obama’s first year as a transfer student at Columbia University. Like Southside with You, Barry is a glimpse at the man before he became president, but as portrayed by Australian actor Devon Terrell (in a lauded performance), he’s still searching and still calling himself Barry as he tries to find his place in 1. New York City. The Witch’s Anya Taylor- Joy plays Charlotte, a composite of three women Obama dated in college, and Boyhood’s Ellar Coltrane shows up as Obama’s roommate. Justin Chang of the LA Times praises the film, writing, “Barry is the rare biographical drama that, rather than giving us a bland recitation of accomplishments, takes the formation of identity as its very subject — and has the confidence to acknowledge that the process of formation will continue well past the closing credits.”Adapted from Peter Handke’s stage play, the latest feature from Wim Wenders received a similar reception as 2. Every Thing Will Be Fine. Variety claims the film has “less of a pulse than the already inert Every Thing Will Be Fine,” and the A. V. Club believes it “seems to exist only to prove that Wenders can do worse than Every Thing Will Be Fine.”Miles Teller stars as boxer Vinny “The Pazmanian Devil” Pazienza in this biopic from director Ben Younger (Boiler Room). Against doctors' orders, he attempts a comeback with the help of trainer Kevin Rooney (Aaron Eckhart). A solid but not spectacular boxing movie, Bleed for This is being compared by some critics to the recent Southpaw, but Variety liked it a bit more, praising Teller’s “terrific” performance. Just don't confuse it with the other new boxing movie with a similar title .. The success of this biopic about Chuck Wepner, “The Bayonne Bleeder” and inspiration for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky, succeeds as a “boxing movie” because it doesn’t focus on the boxing. Cine. Vue writes, “This affectionate portrait in failure is more in the tone of Darren Aronofsky's Venice winner The Wrestler, carried mainly by a brilliantly swollen performance by . Her titular Carrie Pilby is a genius who graduated from Harvard at 1. Now 1. 9, Carrie, with the guidance of her therapist (Nathan Lane), sets out to get her life together. Crossing paths with characters played by Jason Ritter, Vanessa Bayer, and Colin O'Donoghue, Powley shines, but the film as a whole is not as successful as Diary. The Guardian comments, “Carrie Pilby the film is 1. Carrie Pilby the character, a living quirk machine that in a lesser actor’s hands might be insufferable.”. Catfightdate tbd ? Then Catfight is the film for you. In fact, writer- director Onur Tukel (Summer of Blood) has them fight three times in this ungainly combination of ferocious physical comedy and savage satire. According to THR, both women give “balls- to- the- wall performances,” while Amy Nicholson of MTV News calls them “the best action stars of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.”. Colossaldate tbd . This tantalizing set- up doesn ’t quite pay off for most critics (despite a good performance by Hathaway), but in his “B+” review, Eric Kohn of Indiewire praises the “director’s anarchic approach, which dares to blur the lines between silliness and genuine behavior.”On April 2. Deepwater Horizon, an oil- drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico—events that are chronicled in this new thriller. With a cast that includes Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Kate Hudson, Gina Rodriguez, and Dylan O’Brien, director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor) once again shows his ability to capture solid performances amidst spectacular action, but some critics wish for more depth and substance in a film based on a tragedy that impacted so many. Rachel Weisz stars as Deborah E. Lipstadt in this adaptation of her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier. Timothy Spall plays David Irving, who accused Lipstadt of libel when she called him a Holocaust denier in her 1. Denying the Holocaust. This courtroom drama is earning mixed reviews due to Mick Jackson’s uninspired direction and a rare differing of opinion on the performance of the usually strong Weisz. In the feature debut for writer- director Kelly Fremon Craig, the life of high school junior Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) only gets worse when her older brother Darian (Blake Jenner) starts dating her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson). This standard coming- of- age story is “full- hearted and graced with a beautifully modulated lead turn by Hailee Steinfeld,” according to THR, and is a “wryly hilarious and unflinchingly honest film,” in the eyes of Indiewire’s David Ehrlich. Frantzdate tbd . Paula Beer was named best young actress at the Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of Anna, a German woman mourning the death of her fianc. When a Frenchman arrives at her fianc. It’s another intriguing film in the director’s eclectic filmography; one that Screen Daily calls “intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying.”Filmmaker Ben Wheatley (High Rise) kicked off the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival with this violent/comedic take on a weapons deal gone wrong. Starring Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, Sharlto Copley, Cillian Murphy, Noah Taylor, Jack Reynor, and Sam Riley, the film is finding success with critics thanks to its offbeat comedy and zany action. But those fans expecting something a bit more perverse (or substantial) from Wheatley may be left wanting. Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort since 2. Apocalypto is based on the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), who saved 7. Okinawa in WWII. As an army medic, Doss became the first conscientious objector awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Gibson’s obsessions—faith, violence, courage—are in abundance here. The result is a gory work that The Telegraph calls “fantastically moving and bruising,” but finds to be “less a celebration of humanist convictions than a glorification of religious intransigence and a declaration of the moral superiority of the faithful over the faithless.”Critics are universally praising Kasper Collin’s (My Name Is Albert Ayler) documentary about the legendary and tragic relationship between the remarkable trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common- law wife Helen. The Film Stage claims I Called Him Morgan “hooks you from the first moments and glides effortlessly toward an emotionally impacting and enigmatic conclusion,” and The Guardian calls it “spellbinding, mercurial, hallucinatory, exuberant.”After premiering the unique biopic Neruda at Cannes earlier this year, director Pablo Larra. The film follows Jacqueline Kennedy (Natalie Portman) in the aftermath of her husband’s assassination.
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