Toronto International Film Festival 2004

Wilby Wonderful Just Sappy Enough

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 11:29 am
Quirky dark comedies with ensemble casts are quickly becoming a Canadian cinema cliche, but Wilby Wonderful manages to feel like much more than the same old thing. Observing the trials and tribulations of a number of loosely connected islanders over the course of a day, it's sort of like a small town Magnolia with a local scandal looming, instead...
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Tarnation Is Awkward Therapy

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 11:27 am
There's one nice thing you can say about Jonathan Caouette: reportedly making Tarnation for just over $200, he's clearly resourceful. The rest, however, is up for debate. Tarnation is being heralded as an experimental film, but there's really nothing new about the collage of home movies, film clips, photos and narration or the way that they're...
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Siblings Is Acceptable Black Comedy

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 11:20 am
Although cool and somewhat funny, Siblings isn't quite as wickedly hilarious as its premise would suggest. A black comedy about a group of step-siblings that sort-of-accidentally kill their evil stepparents and have to cover it up to receive their inheritance (played with malevolent fun by Sonja Smits and Nicholas Campbell), the film pulls no...
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Saw's Gore Ain't A Masterpiece

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 11:08 am
Take Seven and add a dash of Cube. Now add lots of blood and gore. No, even more than that. Still more. The pitch for this film probably sounded a lot like that. Two men wake up in a dank and dirty cell to find themselves chained to opposite ends. There's a dead body in the middle holding a tape player and each man has a tape in his pocket. While...
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Primer Is Strictly For Nerds

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 11:01 am
When you have $7,000 to make a sci-fi thriller, you have to compensate for your lack of special effects with an intelligent and engaging story. Engineer-cum-Director/Writer/Star Shane Carruth gets it half right with Primer. With a plot that digs deeply into the ramifications of inventing a time-travel device, Primer is definitely an intelligent...
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Phil The Alien Is Silly Fun

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 10:58 am
Phil The Alien is definitely an absurd film, but it manages to play its subject matter just straight enough to keep from devolving into pure silliness. After his spaceship crashes on Earth, Phil shape shifts into human form. He soon develops a drinking problem and befriends a talking beaver. Eventually, he finds Jesus and joins a band to spread...
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Mondovino Has Spirit(s)

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By Joel McConvey (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 10:55 am
Despite its lengthy running time, Mondovino is one of the most agreeable films to come out of this year's fest. Filmmaker and sommelier Jonathan Nossiter takes his hand-held camera from Burgundy to the Napa Valley in California, profiling a variety of colourful characters from the wine world. The lovely scenery, light mood and plenitude of random...
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The Limb Salesman Too Bad To Be Good

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 10:50 am
Years from now, people might look back on The Limb Salesman as a classic so-bad-it's-good B movie in the grand tradition of Plan 9 and The Bad Seed. The concept of water as a rare delicacy will be seen as charmingly ridiculous instead of annoyingly stupid. Viewers might just chuckle at it, instead of wondering why no one's dead or the least bit...
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Kontroll Could Be Better

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By Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack) November 16, 2008 10:44 am
Big budget Hollywood films aren't the only ones that suffer from the problem of style over substance. While Kontroll has absolutely stunning cinematography (the architecture of Budapest's subway system is used to full effect here), likeable characters and a cool, throbbing techno soundtrack, the weak plot keeps it from becoming more than the sum...
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