The Small Side Of TIFF: Films Worth Recommending

Hundreds of thousands of moviegoers, press, and industry players descend on Canada every year for the Toronto International Film Festival. Eleven days of red carpets, screenings, junkets, and presentations cause a gluttonous amount of content to stream out of the city, covering everything from awards season contenders to fashion faux pas. It’s difficult to imagine anything getting missed by the avalanche, but those who attend know just how immense the festival is.

DETOURS: A Slow-Paced & Awkward Road Trip
DETOURS: A Slow-Paced & Awkward Road Trip

Sometimes when a movie starts off slow, it picks up and has a good pay off in the end which makes the slow and boring parts forgivable. That’s not the case for Detours, written by Mara Lesemann and directed by Robert McCaskill. The film stars Tara Westwood and Carlo Fiorletta with cameo appearances by Paul Sorvino and Phyllis Somerville.

#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 30: RESOLVE TO BE READY (Online Premiere)
#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 30: RESOLVE TO BE READY (Online Premiere)

It’s the final day of our #ShortFilmADay challenge (more here), if you will believe it! I, for one, hardly can – these thirty days have gone by so fast and we’ve seen so many amazing short films! But you didn’t think we wouldn’t go into October without some final fireworks, right?

ORDINARY WORLD Trailer

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has done a few acting gigs in recent years, but nothing with the heft and screen time of Ordinary World. In the film, Armstrong stars as a rocker in the midst of a mid-life crisis, and his presence is surprising not only as an actor but as a normally aging adult. His character has left the stage behind for normal family life, and with that comes greying hair and a basic style.

JANUARY HYMN: An Odic Tour Of Grief
JANUARY HYMN: An Odic Tour Of Grief

“Sure, I’ll see you again before either of us knows it”. It’s a sentiment resonating with most of us after the passing of a loved one. This line opens the beautiful, bleak, January Hymn, written and directed by Katherine Canty.

DEEPWATER HORIZON: An Environmental Blockbuster
DEEPWATER HORIZON: An Apolitical Environmental Blockbuster

Preservation of the environment shouldn’t be a political issue, let alone a controversial one. Yet the right wing governments of the western world are frequently abandoning environmental and climate change issues, even building entire grand-standing platforms on how the entire act of climate change is a mere myth. The masses no longer trust “experts”, no matter how many facts they have on their side about the devastating realities of our changing environment.

#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 29: OUTSIDE
#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 29: OUTSIDE

With the #ShortFilmADay challenge, Film Inquiry promotes the watching of short films, and supports indie film and filmmakers! It’s never to late to join! Find more information about the challenge here.

Movies Opening In Cinemas On October 28 - Inferno
INFERNO Trailer

Inferno bumps the Robert Langdon film series up to a trilogy, as the symbologist is again swept up in a globetrotting mystery. While not as controversial as the series’ previous entries, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, the film stills deals heavily with Catholic mythology, this time centering on Dante’s Inferno and its formative influence on the modern idea of hell. It’s not surprising that the series, taken from books of the same name by Dan Brown, have such enduring popularity.

Film Inquiry Recommends: The Cinema Of Alex Cox
Film Inquiry Recommends: The Cinema Of Alex Cox

Over at our official Facebook page, we are currently posting daily film recommendations with each week being a different theme.This week’s theme is the films of British cult director Alex Cox, and this article is a collection of those recommendations! The definition of the “cult movie” director, Alex Cox has had an incredibly interesting career, flirting with both studio and independent filmmaking – imprinting his own unique anarchic vision with each film he makes.

BLAIR WITCH: An Unimaginative, Unnecessary Sequel
BLAIR WITCH: An Unimaginative, Unnecessary Sequel

The idea of the “secret sequel” seems to be a new marketing scheme in horror cinema as of late. Earlier this year, a sequel to the film Cloverfield came out, called 10 Cloverfield Lane, yet nobody knew it was a sequel until a couple months before its premiere. In similar fashion, Blair Witch, the sequel to 1999’s seminal horror The Blair Witch Project, was originally filmed under the fake title “The Woods” so as to hide its true intentions.

#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 28: A LONG WALK
#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 28: A LONG WALK

With the #ShortFilmADay challenge, Film Inquiry promotes the watching of short films, and supports indie film and filmmakers! It’s never to late to join! Find more information about the challenge here.

PASSENGERS Trailer
PASSENGERS Trailer

At long last, we have footage for Passengers. Most people have been waiting for this since mid-2015 when news hit that Sony was green lighting a sci-fi romance led by two of the hottest actors in the game. Christ Pratt was flying high off of The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Jurassic World at the time, while Jennifer Lawrence was still in the midst of both The Hunger Games and X-Men series.

Three Festival Short Films You Probably Missed
Three Festival Short Films You Probably Missed

With easily accessible streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, it’s easy to understand how independent short films go overlooked. However, the short film is a unique medium that provides avenues of expression to the super-indie filmmaker whose voice might otherwise be quelled in the big, bad world of explosions and monetization. Short films are the food trucks of the cinematic universe:

THE GOOD NEIGHBOR: Hidden Secrets & Haunted Truths
THE GOOD NEIGHBOR: Hidden Secrets & Haunted Truths

Do you know your neighbours? Even if you believe that you do, you might not actually know them. Although the person next door or across the street may seem normal, you only see the surface.

#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 27: SPEED DATING
#ShortFilmADay Challenge Day 27: SPEED DATING

With the #ShortFilmADay challenge, Film Inquiry promotes the watching of short films, and supports indie film and filmmakers! It’s never to late to join! Find more information about the challenge here.