Hey, yesterday was Friday, wasn’t it? And Friday is new movie day! Specifically:
“Date Night“: Steve Carell and Tina Fey make a terrific — and completely credible — couple in Shawn Levy’s otherwise generic farce. If you like ’em, you’ll enjoy watching them. If you don’t, well … seriously, what’s wrong with you?
“The Eclipse“: Conor McPherson, who wrote the exceptional “I Went Down” back in the late 1990s, brings his utter disregard for the conventions of genre to a tale of a widowed teacher (Ciaran Hinds) struggling with some very unnatural things during an Irish authors’ festival.
“The Misfortunates“: Growing up Flemish in the 1980s couldn’t have been easy at the best of times, but factor in being raised by a quartet of drunken, anarchic idiots, and you’ve got yourself some scars. Felix Van Groeningen’s grotty comedy-drama may not stand up to “My Queen Karo“, with which it shared screen space at last year’s TIFF, but it has its moments.
“A Shine of Rainbows”: Aidan Quinn, who plays a key role in “The Eclipse”, fares less well in Vic Sarin’s mawkish tale of a childless Irish couple who take in an orphaned boy. Rad rightly calls it out for its forced melodramatics.
“The Wild Hunt“: Though it’s hobbled by a tonal shift it can’t quite pull off, there are some really terrific things in Alexandre Franchi’s no-budget tale of a Montrealer who invades a live-action role-playing game to retrieve his unfaithful girlfriend, including a balls-out performance by Mark Antony Krupa and some very incisive observations about the appeal of fantasy in contemporary life.
There, that gets us back on track …
Reeling from the fact that A SHINE OF RAINBOWS actually got released. Sarin must have incriminating photos of someone high up.
I’d have thought “Deluxe Combo Platter” and “Partition” were even less releaseable than this one. Never bet against the house when Telefilm money is involved.