Spencer Le Fou: A film blog of sorts.

Samba is the follow up from directing duo Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, whose last film, The Intouchables , was a film that was filled with touching moments, lots of laughs, and had two amazing leads. Nakache and Toledano's are collaborating again with Omar Sy, who plays the title role. Omar Sy and Charlotte Gainsbourg both command every scene that they are in, bringing many laughs, and are one of the main strengths of Samba . In this outing, the directors still bring plenty of the same charm, as well as some more dramatic material to play with, although I did not find myself quite as engaged as I was with The Intouchables . The chemistry between Sy and Gainsbourg is strong, but I feel the more dramatic elements present could have played a much bigger part. While the abundant humour and more crowd pleasing elements of the film (mostly) worked, I would have liked to see a bit more weight given to the issues with France's immigration laws instead of the romantic aspects ...

Kill Me Three Times , directed by Kriv Stenders, reminded me of the close-knit noir-ish thrillers of the 90's like Red Rock West , U-Turn , or The Last Seduction , with the exception that Stenders' film is set against a lush Australian backdrop and I enjoyed this film much more than the others mentioned. Along with the aforementioned titles, Kill Me Three Times also feels like the works of Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino, with a bit of Stenders' own polished touch as well. The fact that Stenders' film feels like familiar territory in style, that is one of the film's few detractors. James McFarland's script is filled with twists and turns that push his backstabbing and conniving characters in directions you don't always expect. While the performances are all solid, the two standouts are Simon Pegg playing a clumsy, but cool hitman and Teresa Palmer as an irritable and equally evil housewife. To give much in the way of plot details would spoil the fun, but...

Big Game , Jalmari Helander's follow up to Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale , is a wholly enjoyable sendback to the action-adventure movies that filled my childhood. During the first 10 minutes, I will admit I thought I was going to be in for a straight-to-DVD quality action movie with the initial setup and extremely exposition-heavy dialogue. Luckily, Helander cuts to the action pretty quick after that, and his vision became clear. Instead of attempting anything really serious, Helander knows exactly the movie he is making and throws logic out the window after the twenty minute mark. From there, things only got better. By far the most fun I have had at the festival so far, Samuel Jackson (as the president of the United States) and Onni Tommila have a good bit of chemistry bouncing back at each other throughout the movie. While the sheer lack of plausibility might deter some, I recommend embracing the ludicrousness of the scenario Helander has presented. There is plenty of humour, ...

Eden , the new film by Mia Hansen-Løve, may be formally described as the life of a young DJ (Félix de Givry) and his part in creating French house music (specifically "Garage"). However, I felt that the film was much more about Paul's passion for the music he was creating and his stubbornness to move on as he grows up. Eden 's pacing mixed with Mia's reserved directional style, affected my viewing experience for better and for worse In another director's hands, some of the events in Paul's life, like breakups or his drug addictions, could have been depicted in a more melodramatic or sensational way, but here, Mia never spends very long dwelling on any of this. While refreshing to see her approach, the same approach never made me feel like anything affected Paul all that much. Not to say that Félix's or anyone else's performances were poor, but I found myself wanting to stick around a bit longer when Paul is with his friends or his ex-lover(s). ...

While TIFF last night may have opened with a few high-profile films such as The Judge and Clouds of Sils Maria , I doubt any were as fun as Sion Sono's hip-hop musical brawler, Tokyo Tribe . From the opening crane shot to the final brawl, Sono kept the energy up and the bass pounding for much of the film's two-hour runtime. About twenty minutes in, it is clear that Sono is not interested in ever sticking to one character's story for too long nor should we really have to care about anyone involved in the all-out gang war that will inevitably commence in the film's last quarter. I came to accept the madness pretty quickly, but with so many characters popping up left and right, spouting their (sometimes catchy and always exposition heavy) rhymes, the film could get overwhelming or even tiresome for some as it storms forward. Part of the fun of Tokyo Tribe is seeing that all the actors (many of which are real rappers) and crew are game for the entirety of the product...