A Place at the Table | Directors Kristi Jacobson & Lori Silverbush | Score: 6.3 If you’re feeling up to it, you could pretty effectively encapsulate the neglect this country heaps on its children via a punishing double-feature of societal…
Life Itself | Director Steve James | Score: 7.4 Over the last few years of his life, his body ravaged by cancer to the point where he couldn’t eat, drink or speak, Roger Ebert went from porcine, preening TV icon…
Tim’s Vermeer | Director Teller | Score: 5.8 There is in human beings the desire to believe in the direct power of an almighty, in ways that go far beyond the strict tenements of faith and consecration. After all, you…
In Secret | Director Charlie Stratton | Score: 4.7 I had to smother my amusement when a fellow film critic companion, after a long, hard day at TIFF, slogging though difficult, archly depressing films, decided to join me for this…
Gloria | Director Sebastián Lelio | Score: 6.5 There is a moment late in Sebastián Lelio ‘s film where our titular heroine, a 50-something divorcee played exquisitely by Paulina García, wakes up on a beach outside Santiago, hung over, bewildered…
Labor Day | Director Jason Reitman | Score: 2.5 Bad prose commits many offenses, but its worst sin is one of trite convenience: Things happen not because they make character sense, they happen because they make things easier on the…
Her | Director Spike Jonze | Score: 7.8 So for once, we have a vision of the near future that doesn’t involve a dystopian, post-nuclear holocaust, or filthy beggars in dirty shrouds preaching about the new god they made. No,…
The Best (& Worst) Films of 2013 It was a cinematic year that saw a singular devotion to the idea of survival — be it from a disabled yacht, cataclysmic space debris storm, or the alienation from your entire community…
American Hustle | Director David O. Russell | Score: 7.2 The ’70s were about many things, of course, many of which have already been so well documented as to become little more than a litany of tacky clichés and good…
Out of the Furnace | Director Scott Cooper | Score: 5.0 Here’s a helpful tip for all you burgeoning film directors who would dearly love some big names for your next low-budget indie: Just make sure your last film —…