TIFF 2018: reviews and reports from the Toronto International Film Festival – The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2019-09-12T15:17:25+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/stream/17604389 https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[Freaks is a thrilling science fiction film worth knowing nothing about]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/11/17846252/freaks-review-trailer-bruce-dern-emile-hirsch-lexy-kolker-tiff-2018 2019-09-12T11:17:25-04:00 2019-09-12T11:17:25-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been updated for the film's Netflix release.

One of the upsides of our wired world is that it's easy to get information. Anyone with a smartphone who wants to know how to gap a spark plug, make 12 different kinds of quiche, avoid traffic on the way to a destination, or charge up a phone can readily find that information in seconds. But there are complementary downsides: personal information about us is similarly easy to find and exploit, and it …

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]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[Outlaw King is a purposeful but empty bid for Netflix’s filmmaking legitimacy]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/10/17840440/outlaw-king-review-chris-pine-david-mackenzie-netflix-tiff-2018 2018-11-09T12:06:31-05:00 2018-11-09T12:06:31-05:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review was originally posted in September, in conjunction with the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been updated for the film's November 9th Netflix release.

Netflix is currently fighting a battle on at least three fronts. Even in the wake of a huge number of freshly launched competitors, the streaming giant has a serious advantage in the war to carve out and retain a sizable paying audience. Its owners got into the streaming business early, achieved a high rate of public awareness, and built a str …

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]]> Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[The new Halloween is a slasher movie with an actual message]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/10/17838130/halloween-movie-review-jamie-lee-curtis-michael-myers-david-gordon-green-tiff-2018 2018-10-19T11:41:16-04:00 2018-10-19T11:41:16-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been revised for the film's wide theatrical release.

Warning: mild spoilers for the Halloween franchise below.

Horror movie franchises aren't necessarily known for their thoughtfulness. Films that spawn decades of sequels initially become part of the zeitgeist for a reason, no doubt, and broad trends in the genre often reflect the cultural anxieties of the moment. But by the time a film franchise hits installment five or six, there usually is …

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]]> Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[First Man is one of the most intense space movies of all time]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17848838/first-man-movie-review-ryan-gosling-damien-chazelle-neil-armstrong-tiff-2018 2018-10-11T12:47:28-04:00 2018-10-11T12:47:28-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. It has been updated and reposted for the film's October 12th wide theatrical release.

Over the course of a short but already notable career, director Damien Chazelle has shown a penchant for stripping away romanticized idealism to expose the more honest, human truths hidden underneath. Whiplash is the story of an incredibly talented musician who realizes his potential, not due to feel-good monologues or platitudes about trying his best, but because he …

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]]> Tasha Robinson <![CDATA[Netflix’s Hold the Dark throws Jeffrey Wright to the wolves]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/13/17854354/hold-the-dark-review-netflix-jeremy-saulnier-jeffrey-wright-alexander-skarsgard 2018-09-28T10:34:05-04:00 2018-09-28T10:34:05-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the Toronto International Film Festival.

Director Jeremy Saulnier specializes in dragging his characters out of their worlds and leaving them out of their depths. Over the course of his three previous films - Murder Party, Blue Ruin, and Green Room - he's developed a reputation for intense stories punctuated with startling violence, but none of the intensity would be possible and none of the violence would be meaningful if he weren't so focused on stories about people who are ill-equipped to hand …

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]]> Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[Destroyer is a guilt-ridden detective story made by one incredible director]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/22/17888446/destroyer-movie-review-nicole-kidman-tiff-2018 2018-09-22T15:11:01-04:00 2018-09-22T15:11:01-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

Tackling the leap from directing low-budget indies to tentpole features is no easy feat, and Hollywood has a history of being particularly unforgiving when the filmmakers are women. Case in point: director Karyn Kusama, who burst onto the filmmaking scene in 2000 with her debut feature, Girlfight. Five years later, she took on the feature-film adaptation of Aeon Flux, but the movie ended in disaster. After a studio regime change, Paramount Pictures ba …

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]]> Tasha Robinson Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[Lessons from TIFF on the next year in film]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878816/tiff-2018-upcoming-films-sisters-brothers-halloween-a24-life-itself-chris-pine 2018-09-19T13:06:13-04:00 2018-09-19T13:06:13-04:00

This year, the Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 6th through the 16th - 10 days of public screenings, industry events, symposiums and lectures, red carpets, and nighttime parties. That may not sound like much, but over the course of those 10 days, TIFF hosted more than 200 films from around the world, from major upcoming awards contenders like Damien Chazelle's Neil Armstrong biopic First Man to weird little horror indies looking for a probable home on a streaming service somewhere. It's impossible for anyone to come close to seeing everything at TIFF, even with screenings taking over a dozen venues, typically starting a …

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]]> Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[A Star is Born proves some Hollywood stories are timeless for a reason]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/10/17840204/a-star-is-born-movie-review-lady-gaga-bradley-cooper-tiff-2018 2018-09-10T09:30:02-04:00 2018-09-10T09:30:02-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

It's easy to lament Hollywood's love of reboots, remakes, and sequels as a sign of modern-day creative stagnation, but the truth is that the entertainment industry has always loved retelling the same stories. Whether filmmakers are recycling familiar genre archetypes or giving an old classic a modern update, revivals have been a movie staple since the beginning of the industry - and sometimes, those remakes can become classics in their own right. (Jus …

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]]> Bryan Bishop <![CDATA[The Predator could have been the franchise’s chance to finally have an identity]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/8/17834008/the-predator-review-shane-black-tiff-2018 2018-09-08T09:00:49-04:00 2018-09-08T09:00:49-04:00

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Warning: mild spoilers ahead.

Movie series often take strange twists and turns over their lifetimes, but the Predator franchise has always been its own uniquely bizarre case. John McTiernan's 1987 original was an Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle that pitted a group of military commandos against an interstellar hunter that picked them off one by one. It brought with it all the one-liners, alpha-male posturing, and explosions that the decade demande …

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