Festivals Reviews

On Swift Horses charts a midcentury yearning for modern identities

I suppose it’s kinda cool that the Hollywood’s hottest young stars now establish their acting cred by the rite of passage of playing gay on the big screen. At least Jacob Elordi and Daisy Edgar Jones avoid tragic weepy stereotypes in Daniel Minahan’s handsome literary take (an adaptation Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel) on queer identities in the 1950s American West.

Festivals Reviews

TIFF 2024: Nightbitch

Amy Adams is phenomenal as an artist who set her career aside to raise an adorable child; she sells the madness of isolation as her identity attempts to reclaim itself with hallucinations (maybe) that she’s turning into a dog.

Festivals Reviews

TIFF 2024: The Life of Chuck

Told in three acts in reverse, Mike Flanagan has made a lovely little Stephen King adaptation about how Tom Hiddleston came to be an exceptional dancer who contains multitudes.

Festivals Reviews

TIFF 2024: Eden

Ron Howard dives into the dark scheming heart of humanity in recounting a true story of self-promotional Galapagos settlers in the 1930s.

Reviews

Glen Powell is a hilarious master of disguise in Hit Man

Richard Linklater serves up a very tasty slice of an incredibly loopy premise. Glen Powell gobbles it up and makes it work through the power of pure, unrelenting, leading man handsomeness. Nothing wrong with pairing a director who knows how to have a good time with an actor who’s ascending to movie star supernova. Here the daffy vaguely-true story meshes with an intensely charming performance into a delightful gumbo.