(Same explanation I gave in 2012.) I will update this till the festival ends. I did the same for D'Angelo's 2014 Cannes coverage.

Mike D'Angelo (http://www.panix.com/~dangelo/) has covered Cannes and Toronto for at least ten years (I think he just said for Toronto it was his 15th). His Twitter thumbnail reviews come out shortly after he sees each film. You find them here: https://twitter.com/gemko. He writes day-by-day Cannes reports for AV Club. Toronto he has shared daily bulletins of on THE DISSOLVE with several colleagues.

Note: 50 is average in D'Angelo's system. W/O (walkout), presumably not worth rating, but this is somewhat like grading "on a curve." He says before he gives a "W/O" rating he stays through the second reel if it's a print or 40 minutes if it's digital. What follow are exclusively D'Angelo's words copied and pasted from his Twitter stream rearranged with highest rated first.


Still from Heaven Knows What

The Duke of Burgundy (Strickland): 91. One of the most beautiful love stories I've ever seen.

Breathe (Laurent): 72. Not sure I've ever seen this before: a portrait of an abusive relationship that's neither romantic nor familial.

Heaven Knows What (Safdies): 70. Sustains an assaultive mode longer than I would have thought possible. Wish it ended rather than stopped.

Not My Type [Pas son genre] (Belvaux): 69. Admirably complex treatment of what seems like a simplistic scenario. Perhaps the 2 best perfs I've seen in '14.

The Drop (Roskam): 68. Really enjoy exploring Lehane's seedy little worlds (w/o Eastwood as a guide). The Golden Age of Hardy continues.

'71 (Demange): 67. Well that was intense. Piles on the cynicism a bit thick in the home stretch, but as a pure action movie it's aces.

National Gallery (Wiseman): 66. I'd happily have watched three hours devoted exclusively to restoration techniques.

Hill of Freedom (Hong): 65. One of his enjoyable trifles, which is too bad because the scrambled-letters conceit merits something more.

Far From Men (Oelhoffen): 64. Sturdy neo-Western set at the start of the Algerian War. Stunning vistas, strong perfs, solidly conventional.

Nightcrawler (Gilroy): 63. Lays the cynicism on too thick, but Gyllenhaal is great—as if Max Fischer grew up to be Chuck Tatum.

The Imitation Game (Tyldum): 58. Hokey approach makes for a very exciting codebreaking saga. Treatment of Turing's personal life: ugh.

Goodnight Mommy (Franz & Fiala*): 57. More like AUDITION than like Seidl. Expertly disturbing/grueling, not sure to what subtextual purpose.

Over Your Dead Body (Miike): 56. Apparently he saw CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA and thought "Not bad, but it needs a woman eating her own fetus."

Phoenix (Petzold): 56. I submit that this is a case where people are mistaking a great final scene for a great film. Too VERTIGOoey overall.

Wild (Vallée): 56. Given that I'm not big on tales of self-actualization or expository flashbacks, this was pleasantly painless.

Ned Rifle (Hartley): 55. Title character of zero interest, but Thomas Jay Ryan as Henry Fool remains an endless source of amusement.

(Andersson): 54. Light on tours de force, surprisingly preachy. Some sublime bits, but feels like he's exhausted this particular mode. [Title was too long for Twitter: A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence.]

The New Girlfriend (Ozon): 53. Didn't really find this offensive, but it can't seem to decide whose story it's telling. Very muddled.

Alléluia (Du Welz): 52. Still haven't seen THE HONEYMOON KILLERS, shamefully, but I prefer DEEP CRIMSON to this overly repetitive take.

Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Broomfield): 51. Starts out in exoneration mode, but that goes nowhere, so "racist LAPD" it is. Not revelatory?

Spring (Benson & Moorhead): 51. . Apparent horror movie's stealth mission of earnestness is at once refreshing and a tad dull.

The 50 Year Argument (Scorsese & Tedeschi): 50. "How can we make the NYRB visually compelling?" "Eh, let's not even bother." "Cool."

Two Shots Fired (Rejtman): 49. Really liked MAGIC GLOVES, but I don't get what's he's aiming for w/this one. Drollery for drollery's sake.

Manglehorn (Green): 48. I could have lived the rest of my life quite happily without seeing Harmony Korine dancing to Rich Homie Quan.

Pasolini (Ferrara): 49. Would much rather have seen Ferrara (Pasolini). Appreciate the tight focus, but art & martyrdom never converge.

This Is Where I Leave You (Levy): 47. Dismal when trying to be funny/farcical, surprisingly tolerable when more serious/thoughtful.

While We're Young (LaBute [Noah Baumbach]): 42. I don't understand how he keeps getting $ to make these films. COMPANY OF MEN was 17 years ago. Wait, what?

Return to Ithaca (Cantet): 40. Cuban BIG CHILL starts off Farley-insufferable ("Remember that time we...?"), improves to mediocre.

Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2 (To): 35. Sadly, a typical sequel: jettisons everything that made the original special, rehashes the crap.

Horse Money (Costa): 31. A series of gorgeous images to which I could make no other connection whatsoever. Costa's project ain't for me.

Tusk (Smith): 28. This movie's stupid.

The Lesson (Grozeva & Valchanov): W/O. Bulgarian attempt at a Dardennes film duplicates the words, whiffs the melody. The usual, basically.

Also did some channel-surfing yesterday, with W/Os for RUN (Lacôte) and A DREAM OF IRON (Park). Nothing much to say about either.

Meet Me in Montenegro (Holdridge & Saasen): W/O. ...where there are no indie films about the love lives of struggling indie filmmakers.

Her Place (Shin): W/O. That was one long, pointless game of keep-away (nearly 40 mins) with a premise that isn't all that arresting.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.