Articles by Chris Luciantonio

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  'Boys vs. Girls' Is an Outdated Battle-of-the-Sexes Comedy, and Not in a Fun Way

  Directed by Michael Stasko

  PUBLISHED Dec 21, 2020

  Can you remember the last time when the "battle of the sexes" formula for a comedy felt in vogue or even felt relatively fresh? One's mind...

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  TIFF Review: 'Violation' Is Unflinching in Its Complex Portrayal of Revenge

  Directed by Dusty Mancinelli and Madeleine Sims-Fewer

  PUBLISHED Sep 16, 2020

  Like Gaspar Noé's Irréversible before it, Violation masterfully plays with the promise of catharsis supposedly ingrained in the "rape and r...

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  'My Days of Mercy' Is a Tragic Romance About Reaching Across the Aisle

  Directed by Tali Shalom Ezer

  PUBLISHED Aug 24, 2020

  Putting the personal over the political is at the heart of Tali Shalom Ezer's moving tale of a star-crossed romance bridging the two sides...

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  'Judy & Punch' Has as Little Depth as the Puppet Show That Inspired It

  Directed by Mirrah Foulkes

  PUBLISHED Jun 5, 2020

  Mirrah Foulkes's black dramedy Judy & Punch takes the crude oral tradition of Punch and Judy's crass slapstick puppet shows and subverts th...

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  CFF Review: 'Clapboard Jungle' Is a Collective Sigh Aimed at the Independent Film Industry

  Directed by Justin McConnell

  PUBLISHED Jun 4, 2020

  Shot over a turbulent five years of trying to get a project of the ground and into a theatre, Justin McConnell's Clapboard Jungle is an eye...

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  Hot Docs Review: 'The Dakota Entrapment Tapes' Approaches the True Crime Genre with Empathy

  Directed by Trevor Birney

  PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020

  The discovery of the body of college student Andrew Sadek in the Red River of sleepy North Dakotan town Wahpeton rightfully shocked the pop...

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  Hot Docs Review: 'The Earth Is Blue as an Orange' Is a Powerful Account of Art During Wartime

  Directed by Iryna Tsylik

  PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020

  It is the height of the Russian-Ukranian conflict in 2015, and in the small town of Krasnohorivka, the Trofymchuk family are huddled in the...

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  Hot Docs Review: 'The Forbidden Reel' Is an Essential Crash Course in Afghani History as Told Through Its Cinema

  Directed by Ariel Nasr

  PUBLISHED Jun 3, 2020

  The Afghan Film Organization was, at one point in time, the last respite for the preservation of Afghanistan's rich yet underexposed cinema...