Alcohol takes on different shapes throughout our lives. When you’re a child, it’s a mystic and forbidden signifier of adulthood. When you’re coming of age, it’s a bitterly effective inlet to your best and worst moments. But somewhere along these lines, as we amass boozy, immodest, and irrevocably honest souvenirs of our former selves, our…

The Toronto International Film Festival has always been a champion of emerging filmmakers, and the 2020 edition of the festival proves to be no exception. With Violation and Beans, coming from Canadian filmmakers Madeleine Sims-Fewer/Dusty Mancinelli and Tracey Deer, respectively, the festival has programmed two films that examine traumatic experiences in vastly different ways. Both…

Director Ayumu Watanabe’s adaptation of a manga by Daisuke Igarashi, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, Children of the Sea is a stunningly beautiful and deeply philosophical story chronicling one young girl’s saltwater-soaked summer. Featuring comets crashing into the sea, boys raised by dugongs, and enough kaleidoscopic imagery to power your next drug trip, Children…

There are few things more powerful to a cause than a symbol. Think of any movement, any product, any company, and you will likely be able to conjure an image associated with it. The reason these symbols are so powerful is because they can convey a multitude of things in one succinct image that can…

The name’s Bond. Bondathon. With 24 official James Bond films to conquer before No Time To Die hits theaters (someday!), Bond fan Anna Swanson and Bond newbie Meg Shields are diving deep on 007. With shaken martinis and beluga caviar in hand, the Double Take duo is making their way through the Bond corpus by…

We sat down with Italo-Slovenian director Martin Turk following the screening of his latest Don’t Forget to Breathe at this year’s online edition of the Sarajevo Film Festival. In this interview, he discusses the sanguine aftertaste of young love, his complex identity, and the challenges of cinema in the COVID-era. Don’t Forget to Breathe, his second feature is a…

Jim Carrey is a performer who can capture vastly different audiences through his performances, be them on more dramatic or comedic fronts. His work as an actor has always shown a wonderful level of range. Since his early roles leading to working on In Living Color, Jim Carrey has been a great comedic voice, and…

Malaise is a hard rut to get out of. We all slide too far into the numbing sameness of life sometimes, perhaps because we’ve been overloaded and are trying to pare things down or we’re simply confused about where to go next. It’s a disconcerting feeling that can make life seem slightly out of reach,…

With COVID-19 delaying practically ever film and TV premiere – much of which has only just begun filming or has been moved to 2021 altogether – many have been left without their most anticipated and their most ritualistic. American Horror Story is one of those series that was unable to escape the pandemic’s effects, its…

“Cultural Awareness 101,” says the scrappy chalkboard as two eccentric figures dance their way through a sex lesson that widely resembles a Discovery Channel documentary on wild animal mating rituals. Their audience is a group of bewildered foreigners who have been bundled together into a classroom in the middle of the Scottish Outer Hebrides, the…

Commencing it’s North American festival run at the forty-fifth edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, One Night In Miami represents Academy-Award winning actress Regina King’s feature-length directorial debut, and is based on the titular play by Kemp Powers. Set primarily in a single motel room the night after Cassius Clay’s world championship win, the…

The world is under a floofy but serious attack in Save Yourselves!, the feature debut of writing and directing team Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. Su and Jack are not prepared for this. No one is, really, but as a couple of very plugged in millennials who can barely boil a pot of water without…

In our new column Color Code, Luke Hicks chooses a handful of shots from a favorite film in order to draw out the meaning behind color and how it plays into both the scene and the film as a whole. For his third entry, he analyzes Jane Campion’s In the Cut. “She didn’t care what happened,…

My Neighbor Totoro may come to mind for many when considering the greatest anime film of all time. Even for those that it doesn’t, the film is undeniably a classic, offering exceptional animation and a digestible, heartwarming tale of two sisters. For as simple as the narrative is, however, the film is rich in culture…

In their feature directorial debut, Violation, Canadian filmmakers Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli have crafted a technically astute narrative exploration of trauma that is both visceral and meditative. Screening as part of the 2020 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, the two filmmakers – with Sims-Fewer also playing the leading role – spoke with Film Inquiry…

Though a raw coronavirus documentary may not be at the top of anyone’s “to do” list right now, a pandemic-laden film festival wouldn’t be complete without at least one pandemic-focused film. That spot has been designated to 76 Days, the erratic, yet compassionate frontline documentary composed by one filmmaker – New York-based Hao Wu –…

Everything and everyone was changed by World War II. Whether you were a soldier at war, a nurse in the Medic tents, a parent fearful of the loss of a son or a child left parentless, these effects did not end with the conclusion of the war, rather they were carried long after. In the…

It feels like forever has passed since spurs were swapped for pedals. Well-stomped paths and pikes were buried by cement and even something as bountiful and elegant as sunlight became hampered by pockets of skyscrapers. The horse, once man’s primary vessel and whose back helped guide and secure our civilizations, was escorted away, begging the…

You’re not dreaming. We are going back to Manderley thanks to Rebecca, the latest from director Ben Wheatley. Yes, this is that Rebecca. Again. But hey, the Daphne du Maurier novel keeps being revisited because it’s that good. Its twisty tale of loves new and recently gone has it all: class-defying romance, a lavish estate,…

Streaming might be the future, but physical media is still the present. It’s also awesome, depending on the title, the label, and the release, so each week we take a look at the new Blu-rays and DVDs making their way into the world. Welcome to this week in Home Video for September 15th, 2020 where we…

If Bob Fosse ever taught us anything, it’s that musicals don’t always need to end happily. Even behind all the glitz and glamour that trademarks the genre – words, actions and more importantly songs, can often reflect an entirely different meaning when hinging on the notion of unavoidable tragedy. We saw it with the unshakable…