CIUT Critics Circle

Critics' Circle April 19, 2025

Interviews this week:
Daniel Garber interviews Toronto filmmaker Lena Macdonald about her film Betrayal having its world premiere at Hot Docs.
Reviews this week:
Lynn is reviewing Benevolence  plays at Tarragon Theatre.
Daniel is reviewing 2 films this week:
The Wedding Banquet a new version of Ang Lee's 1990s movie.
The Courageous a French Drama about a single mom.
 
 
 

Critics' Circle April 12, 2025

Interviews this week:
Lynn Slotkin interviews Ravi Jain and Miriam Fernandes the Co-Artistic Director of Why Not Theatre.
Reviews this week:
Daniel Garber is reviewing 3 films:
G-20 an action-thriller about The President of the US (Viola Davis) must defeat a gang of criminals with her bare hands and save the planet at the G-20 summit in Capetown. 
Drop a suspense/-mystery about a single mom on her first date in 5 years, finds herself the victim of someone in the restaurant.
Warfare directed by Alex Garland and is a biopic based on the memoirs of a soldiers during the 2nd Gulf War.

Critics' Circle April 5, 2025

Interviews this week:
Daniel Garber interviews three teenagers who are programmers for the upcoming NEXT WAVE film festival at TIFF Taf Mangwiro, Neha Hallim, Roni Harel Haber
Reviews this week:
Lynn Slotkin reviews Fully Committed at Theatre Aquarius.
Daniel Garber reviews 3 films:
The Ballad of Wallis Island, a comedy about a music star invited to perform a private concert in a remote island.
Freaky Tales a short linked stories set in Oakland California in 1987.
The Friend, a writer inherits an unwanted great Dane from her late mentor.

Critics' Circle March 29, 2025

Interviews this week:
Lynn is interviewing Kevin Matthew Wong, a playwright, climate changeactivist, producer and creator about his play Benevolence.
Reviews this week:
Lynn is reviewing Blackbird.
Daniel is reviewing 3 films this week:
Bob Trevino Likes It, a comedy directed by Tracie Laymon.
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World,  a documentary about the release of Sarin gas in Tokyo's subway in 1995 by a millenarian religious cult.
The Penguin Lessons, a bittersweet comedy starring Steve Cougan, about an English teacher with a penguin in Argentina after the 1976 coup.
 
 
 

Critics's Circle March 22, 2025

Interviews this week:
Daniel Garber is interviewing Toronto Filmmaker Ingrid Veninger about her latest movie/doc/reality showCrocodile Eyes, about birth, life, and death inher family, having its world premiere at CFF.
Reviews this week:
Lynn is reviewing Inside American Pie at the CAA Theatre.
Daniel is reviewing 3 films this week:
The Players is about a 15-year-old girl (in the 1990s) who joins a cult-like theatre group.
To the Moon East is a comedy about an exec and his daughter who move to the suburbs.
Skeet is a drama about an ex-con trying to go the straight and narrow in a rough Saint Johns neighborhood.
 
 
 

March 15, 2025 Critics' Circle

Critics' Circle March 8, 2025

Interviews this week:
Daniel Garber is interviewing Ann Marie Fleming in Vancouver about her new film Can I Get a Witness?
Reviews this week:
Lynn is reviewing Fat Ham at Canadian Stage, at the Berkeley Street Theatre.
Daniel is reviewing 3 films this week:
Bergers (Shepherds), directed by Sophie Deraspas. A Montreal advertising copywriter leaves his profession to be a shepherd in Provence.
Seven Veils, directed by Atom Egoyan. A young director tries to remount an opera production created by her former mentor.
Night of the Zoopocalypse, directed by Ricardo Curtis, Rodrigo Perez-Castro. A meteor lands on a zoo, turning some of the animals into zombies.
 

Critics' Circle March 1, 2025

Interviews this week:
Lynn Slotkin is interviewing Rena Polley the Artistic Director of The Chekhov Collective and director of the reading of A Doctor’s Visit, by Chekhov.
Reviews this week:
Lynn is reviewing Hypothetical Baby at Factory Theatre.
Daniel is reviewing 2 films opening this weekend for Black History Month:
My Dead Friend Zoe, a war vet suffering from PTSD is haunted by her best friend.
 
Exhibiting Forgiveness, a successful artist deals with his abusive, addicted father.
 

Critics' Circle February 22, 2025

Critics' Circle February 15, 2025