Female Film Critics 24/375
At age 40, Clara (beautifully portrayed by Wendy Chinchilla Araya) lives in an almost childlike state, trapped there by her mother, Fresia (Flor Maria Vargas Chavez), who so dominates her daughter’ life that she won’t even allow Clara the spinal surgery that would relieve her of lifelong pain.
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Taking place only months after the bank robbery/hostage situation that inspired Dog Day Afternoon, the January 1973 incident at John and Al’s Sporting Goods in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, went on far longer – lasting nearly four days – and resulted in the death of a cop. It is also the event credited with ushering in the modern age of hostage negotiation. And it is has been pretty much lost to history – until now with coverage in Stefan Forbes’ Hold Your Fire, a riveting documentary on the subject.
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Pam & Tommy is tabloid television given an elegant veneer by its A-list cast and the fig leaf of feminism offered by the women on the production team and women like Lake Bell who direct some of the episodes. But nearly 30 years after all of this first started, this show is really just the latest chapter in the ongoing exploitation of Pamela Anderson, a woman who does not deserve it.
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“Nature documentary” is a genre unto itself and at first glance, The Velvet Queen might appear to be just that as photographer Vincent Munier and writer Sylvain Tesson hike through Tibet in search of the rare and elusive snow leopard. But this film by Munier and co-director Marie Amiguet is so much more than a mere record of an expedition and the fauna that the travelers encounter on their quest. It is a poem, an ode to nature at its most elemental.
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The most curious alteration director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner make to the American musical classic West Side Story in their hotly anticipated remake is to take away from the central couple Tony and Maria their tragic theme, “Somewhere,” a song of longing for a brighter future when all seems lost. Instead, they give it to Valentina, the elderly owner of the drug store, where Tony’s gang, the Jets, hang out.
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Joyously dancing around her Cornwall home to Peter and Gordon’s 1964 chart-topper, A World Without Love, clad in a dress fashioned out of newspapers, Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) is the picture of a happy, effervescent teenager. And this opening scene in Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho suggests a lively coming-of-age story is about to unfold. That Edgar, such a tease! No happy-go-lucky tale this as what gradually unfolds, instead, evolves into a chilling, time-traveling blend of Repulsion, The Shining, and Blow-Up.
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Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond that began 15 years ago with the elegant Casino Royale, ushering in a tough, charismatic 007 ends five films later on more of a whimper than a bang. Entertaining, if overlong, a weak villain and a third act that could have used a rewrite that put some thought into where you might go when you’ve written yourself into a corner betrays Craig’s swan song. He deserves better than this; so, does Bond.
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Taking place only months after the bank robbery/hostage situation that inspired Dog Day Afternoon, the January 1973 incident at John and Al’s Sporting Goods in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, went on far longer – lasting nearly four days – and resulted in the death of a cop. It is also the event credited with ushering in the modern age of hostage negotiation. And it is has been pretty much lost to history – until now with the Toronto International Film Festival world premiere of Stefan Forbes’ Hold Your Fire, a riveting documentary on the subject.
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Twenty years after his breakthrough film, Training Day, Antoine Fuqua returns to the environs of the Los Angeles Police Department to deliver a very different, more subdued drama. A remake of a 2018 Danish thriller of the same name and shot under COVID protocols, it is a film where interest never flags but one that is hampered by its shaky night-in-the-life-of scenario, delivering a too shallow portrayal of the life of a troubled man.
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Apocalyptic stories are no strangers at the Toronto International Film Festival, my favorite of all time (granted one that predates my time at the festival) being Don McKellar’s TIFF award-winning Last Night, in which the Toronto native imagines how a group of city residents count down humanity’s final hours and emerges with a drama that is captivating and oddly, beautifully romantic. This year, the festival chose writer/director Camille Griffin’s Silent Night, another end-of-the-world story that like McKellar’s film tries to strike a tone beyond pure horror, but one doesn’t quite work with pieces that don’t quite fit. Griffin deserves credit for taking the risk, but it is one in which pay off proves elusive.
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