Cinema Scope 48 Preview: Monsieur Lazhar (Philippe Falardeau, Canada) By Jason Anderson Few lives go untouched by some form of trauma or catastrophe, yet compassion is often the last thing we spare for the people who cross our paths, especially when there’s no obvious indication they might need anything from us. This point was elegantly…

Cinema Scope 48 Preview: Nicolas Winding Refn and the Search for a Real Hero By Robert Koehler “Hey, do you wanna see somethin’?”—Driver in Drive In the middle of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, a film punctuated by extreme flourishes of violence and vengeance, there is a period of peace. It occurs when Driver (Ryan Gosling),…

The Toronto International Film Festival is not the epicentre of film culture, though it sure feels like it every year for two weeks in September. (If you live in Toronto, it becomes the epicentre of culture, period, for better or worse.) Usually, Cinema Scope limits its coverage of TIFF premieres to features and reviews in…