Toronto film festival 2017

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo. . .

Lean On Pete (Haigh): 70. Flirts with doing something extraordinary, can't quite commit. But terrific detail even at its most conventional.

Who We Are Now (Newton): 68. I'm now convinced this guy has a great film in him. Just needs to rid himself of a few Syd Field-y habits.

Lady Bird (Gerwig): 62. A tad earnest for my taste (esp. its dedication of an ending), but a warmly funny “spiritual prequel” to FRANCES HA.

Caniba (Paravel & Castaing-Taylor): 8. A deeply unpleasant experience offering virtually nothing in the way of insight or formal interest.

The Globe and Mail calls Caniba festival's most confrontational film." It's about a Japanese cannibal, who does self-mutilation. I'm wondering how this fits in with the Harvard Sensory Ethnology Lab work, in any way? Or the careful environmental observational methods of Sweetgrass and Leviathan that I came to admire.

Lean on Pete got high marks from the Guardian reported here earlier, 4 OUT OF 5 STARS from Xian Brooks at Venice.

"Who We Are Now is a 2017 American drama film directed and written by Matthew Newton. It stars Julianne Nicholson, Emma Roberts, and Zachary Quinto. It screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festiva" -Wikipedia. "Matthew Newton's well-turned indie drama follows an ex-con who seeks custody of her son after a 10-year prison stint" - Scott Tobias, Variety.

Here D'Angelo seems to have forgotten a numerical rating (amid the other numbers):

BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 takes 45 (terrific) mins just to get to a prison, over 90 (terrific) mins to get to Cell Block 99. I love this guy.