Raquel Stecher
I'm a film writer
I specialize in classic films and have been running the blog Out of the Past for 10 years. I recently started a site devoted to new movies, especially indie film, quellemovies.com
PROJECTS
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Colette
Colette
dir. Wash Westmoreland
starring Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Denise Gough,
Review:
Colette was a woman ahead of her time.
Wash Westmoreland’s biopic follows Colette (Keira Knightley) from the age of 18 to 34; the pivotal years when she was married to writer Henry Gauthier-Villars, also known by his nom de plume Willy (Dominic West). Colette starts her married life as a dutiful wife, helping Willy out with his business which involves hiring writers to create stories to be published u...
Medium
The Good Girls / Las niñas bien (2018)
The Good Girls / Las niñas bien (2018)
This is a guest post written by Raquel, author of the blog Out of the Past and the website Quelle Movies.
What a difference it makes when a female centric story is told by a group of female filmmakers. Mexican director Alejandra Márquez Abella’s newest film “The Good Girls / Las niñas bien” is just that: a story about women told by women.
Set in 1982, “Las niñas bien” follows Sofía (Ilse Salas), a wealthy housewife living with her businessman husband Fer...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: The Wedding Guest
The Wedding Guest
dir. Michael Winterbottom
starring Dev Patel, Radhika Apte, Jim Sarbh
Review:
It’s seems like a disservice to you, the reader, for me to summarize the plot of this movie. The greatest joy I experienced while watching this film at the Toronto International Film Festival was going into it knowing nothing. With no trailer and only a vague description, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I found myself enveloped in this world, not knowing what was going on or who these...
quellemovies.com
TIFF ’18 Recap
And just like that TIFF was over.
During my 5 days at TIFF, I watched 12 movies and one television mini-series, attended the Share Her Journey rally and went to two press conferences. I spent hours fine-tuning a very carefully arranged itinerary that included screenings and events with plenty of back-ups and a few breaks for writing, eating and sleeping. I was lucky enough to have gotten into every event I wanted to. Thanks to my extensive training at six different TCM Classic Film Festivals,...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: The Man Who Feels No Pain
The Man Who Feels No Pain (Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota)
dir. Vasan Bala
starring: Abhimanyu Dassani, Radhika Madan
Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. Google it.
Surya is a man who feels no pain. Born with a rare condition, newborn Surya survives a chain-snatcher attack that leaves his mother dead and his father and grandfather injured. It’s up to the patriarchs in the family to protect Surya. Because he can’t feel pain, he has to wear goggles to protect his eyes (he won’t notice a foreign object s...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Red Joan
Red Joan
dir. Trevor Nunn
Starring Judi Dench, Sophie Cookson, Tom Hughes
Review:
Trevor Nunn’s latest film Red Joan is a mishmash of history and fiction. Inspired by the true story of British KGB agent Melita Norwood but mostly fictionalized, the story follows Joan Stanley, a chemist whose smarts land her a spot on the scientific team developing the technology for a nuclear bomb. On that journey she meets Sonya (Tereza Srbova) whose brother Leo (Tom Hughes) is an outspoken Communist activist...
outofthepastblog.com
The Girl on the Balcony by Olivia Hussey
The Girl on the Balcony
Olivia Hussey Finds Life After Romeo & Juliet
by Olivia Hussey
Kensington Publishing
Hardcover ISBN: 9781496717078
320 pages
July 2018
Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Powells
"Juliet: It's the defining role of my life... It changed everything, and you would define my life in ways I never could have imagined."
At the tender age of 15, Olivia Hussey landed the role of a lifetime: Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968). Alongside newcomer Leonard Whiting, the d...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: The Old Man & the Gun
The Old Man & the Gun
dir. David Lowery
starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tom Waits, Casey Affleck, Elisabeth Moss
Review:
Say it isn’t so Robert Redford? This can’t be your last film! And if it is, what a way to go. Not with a whimper but with a bang!
With a nod to classic Hollywood filmmaking, The Old Man & the Gun is a superb final entry in Robert Redford’s legendary career and thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. Redford stars as Forrest Tucker, if that’s his rea...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Prosecuting Evil
Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz
dir. Barry Avrich
Review:
99-year-old Ben Ferencz is the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor. At the tender age of 27 and at the very beginning of his career as a lawyer, Ferencz went head-to head with some of the most notorious Nazi criminals of WWII. Born in Romania to Hungarian Jews, Ferencz and his family fled Transylvania for asylum in the United States. Raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, teachers quickly took noticed of t...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Belmonte
Belmonte
dir. Federico Veiroj
Starring Gonzalo Delgado
Review:
Belmonte is a man in crisis. A celebrated artist, he paints surreal images of naked men on oversize canvases. Belmonte sells his paintings to wealthy patrons but bemoans the commercialization of his work. When he’s not dealing with the art world he’s a single dad making an effort to have a meaningful relationship with his daughter Celeste (Olivia Molinaro Eijo). But his ex-wife is about to have a new child and when Belmonte asks h...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Tell It to the Bees
Tell It to the Bees
dir. Annabel Jankel
starring Anna Paquin and Holliday Grainger
“You should tell the bees your secrets. Then they won’t fly away.”
Set in 1950s Scotland, Tell It to the Bees is the story of two women who must face a society that isn’t ready or willing to accept them. Dr. Jean Markham (Anna Paquin) has returned home to her small town to take over her father’s practice. A secret about her past still lingers among the tight knit community. Jean meets Charlie (Gregor Selkirk), ...
quellemovies.com
Ask Me Anything: TIFF Edition
Jessica @HollywoodComet on Twitter:
How is it different from other festivals you have attended? (processes of attending movies, etc.)
Raquel: My festival experience is solely comprised of classic film ones so to attend one focused on new films was a whole other ball game. TIFF is a mix of press and industry events and public events. There are over 240 feature films plus over 50 shorts screened and, unlike other festivals I’ve attended, the feature films get multiple screenings. On average eac...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
dir. Marielle Heller
starring Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Jane Curtin, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone
Review:
Based on the real life story of author turned forger Lee Israel, director Marielle Heller’s film dives into the literary world of 1990s NYC, a golden era in publishing and literary artifacts. The story follows the once celebrated biographer (Melissa McCarthy) as she finds herself in dire straits. Her agent Marjorie (Jane Curtin) isn’t returning her phone cal...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: The Quietude
La quietud
dir. Pablo Trapero
Starring: Martina Gusman, Bérénice Bejo, Edgar Ramírez, Graciela Borges
Review:
Set in a country estate in Argentina, The Quietude tells the story of two sisters Mia (Martina Gusman) and Eugenia (Bérénice Bejo). Eugenia travels back from Paris to The Quietude, the family’s expansive estate, when their father suffers a debilitating stroke. As the two pick up where they left off secrets start to bubble up to the surface: a pregnancy, extra marital affairs, fraud, t...
quellemovies.com
TIFF Review: Assassination Nation
Assassination Nation
dir. Sam Levinson
starring: Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Suki Waterhouse, Abra, Joel McHale, Bella Thorne, Bill Skarsgard, Maude Apatow
“You had it coming, America.”
When a movie starts with a preview of trigger warnings you know you’ll be in for a wild ride. Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation was one of my most anticipated films of TIFF and it delivered on many fronts. This modern take on the Salem witch trials is dark, twisted, raunchy and violent. It follows the story of f...