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I sat at the beautiful Princess of Wales theatre with a large crowd of film fans while watching Driver's Ed, and realized, this was probably the first time in years that I've actually seen a comedy in a packed theatre. Driver's Ed seems to have been picked up by Amazon Prime, so most people's experience of this movie will be at home, and not with hundreds of other strangers. And to me, that's a shame.

Yes, there's a bit of TIFFlation with how I view this movie, but I can't help but feel like iconic comedy mastermind Bob Farelly, who directed this film, hit the nail on the head that we simply "don't see films like this anymore."

There's something proudly retro about Driver's Ed, a solid little teen comedy that feels authentic to Gen Z, is honestly very funny and yet, doesn't veer into the more "off colour" and sometimes mean spirited tropes we associate with raunchy teen comedies. Maybe it's a sign of the times - today's youth isn't as gung ho about gross out and sex scenes anymore - but that doesn't mean we can't laugh.

Driver's Ed really works because its core four actors - Sam Nivola, Aidan Laprete, Sophie Telegadis, and Mohana Krishnan - have electric chemistry. Following Nivola's Jeremy, a film obsessed high school senior (take a shot if you've heard that before) who impulsively steals a student driver car to see his new-to-college girlfriend Sam (Lilah Pate) and takes the other three along with him (completely unintentionally), Driver's Ed is essentially a road movie.

The film wears its micro budget on its sleeve; as Farelly admitted, they spent a small $100,000 on this thing, and it does show. We have a lot of drone footage of the car driving, only a couple sets, some wacky interactions here and there, but really, a lot of time spent with these four characters in a car. The movie works because it's hard not to like these characters.

Aidan Laprete's Yoshi absolutely steals the show here and has most of the film's funniest lines and is behind its best moments. His comic timing is fantastic and his stoner slacker character - to borrow a term from the youth - gets to cook. The other travellers - Telegadis' Evie (a former popular girl who's fell out with her crew) and Krishnahan's Aparna (the classic over achiever) don't get nearly as much to do, although their presence never hurts the film.

I felt like there was a lot missing from the film; sub plots that weren't explored, relationships that were only briefly touched on. This is a movie that is purely set out to make you, the audience, feel good and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It doesn't have much to say, even though I feel like it could've: the characters - like most high schoolers - know each other despite not really being friends, just by virtue of essentially growing up together. I wish this dynamic could've been explored a bit more.

At times, Driver's Ed feels like it's struggling to fill its run time, even with really fun side characters like Molly Shannon's Principal (who, naturally, detests children) and Kumail Nanjiani's strangely named "Mr. Rivers", quite possibly the worst Driver's Ed teacher ever. These adult characters are appropriately goofy and fun, and honestly, it's great to just spend time with them in what is essentially, a relatively low stakes movie.

The final set piece at the unamed Chapel Hill, North Carolina university is pretty great (and likely where a lot of the budget was spent). It reminded me of how few party movies we have nowadays; it often feels like we never get to see Gen Z have fun anymore, and it was honestly nice to.

There are some things here and there that felt a little weird or picked up and dropped just a bit too quickly to work for me; I'm squarely thinking of Aparna and Evie's subplots; but I get it. You get $100K to make a movie, you don't want it to be too long, and ultimately, the laughs are what matters.

I really hope Driver's Ed does well, finds an audience, and as Farelly expressed at my showing, we get more movies just like it.

Dangerous Animals sounds like it'd be perfect as a schlock fest, but honestly, the film takes itself way more seriously than I expected it to be.

This is a tight and intense little killer that quickly makes it clear that the eponymous "dangerous animal" is Jai Countney's shark obsessed serial killer and not necessarily the sharks under the water. Courtney really shines here; swinging from pathetic to genuinely terrifying from scene to scene. For an actor known for being "generic white guy in action movie with bad American accent," it's telling that his best roles have always been when he lets that Aussie accent breathe. The dude was just never meant for Hollywood.

Hassie Harrison is a solid final girl and protagonist; I like how it's established early that she's troubled, but extremely capable and this is ultimately why she's able to go toe to toe with Courtney. I did roll my eyes a bit at the somewhat cliched "foster home to horror movie action hero" pipeline, and I do wish we learned more about her, but she's fine. The romance she has with Josh Hueston's Moses is cute, but feels a bit too lightly developed to have such a large part to play in the film.

I also felt the movie was a bit unevenly paced and felt like it was missing a bit of background context. Courtney gives such a great performance here that it felt like a shame we didn't learn more about him either.

And while this may be an entirely personal thing, but I was a bit disappointed with how little a role the sharks actually has here. Maybe Courtney cackling as he explains each shark and its attributes would have veered into cartoon territory, but come on. That's what people wanted to see.

I feel like the film's greatest strength - its grounded and gritty demeanour - is also what holds it back: it never quite *goes* there and leans into the silliness of the concept. But, all things considered, it's much better than it has any right to be.

I saw the Act of Killing probably a decade ago, but it's one of the most iconic, and frankly, memorable documentaries I've ever seen. There are things about the movie I remember till this day, and still consider it one of the great documentaries of the 21st century.

The Look of Silence doesn't hit quite as hard; it's not as wacky a premise and lacks the emotional walloping its spiritual predecessor has. Yet, it works really well as a companion piece, and a bit of a gratifying follow up to the haunting original.

The Look of Silence follows Adi, an optometrist whose life has had the shadow of his brother Ramli's brutal murder at the hands of anti-communist militias hang over him. His parents, sickly and old, have never quite healed from the trauma.

Adi meets the perpetrators under the guise of appointments, only to confront them about their deeds. Some of the stuff these men say are legitimately terrifying; the callous and almost cavalier nature of their evil shows the human capacity to compartmentalize and justify almost anything. The reactions range from denial to dismissal to justification to outright threats made to Adi for sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.

We think of Indonesia as a fairly stable democratic nation, but this film reveals how this is built of a facade of violence and persecution. Anti-communism is as potent an ideology today as it was in the past, and the perpetrators - whom most would consider objectively evil - are lionized as heroes.

There's a lot to think about with The Look of Silence; the capacity of people to harm others, how we mythologize atrocities, how trauma is a wound that sometimes takes decades to close. It's a profound film that doesn't overstay its welcome.

However, unlike The Act of Killing, I felt this film was a bit more repetitive and slower,and felt less like a fully developed film and more like a companion you'd watch immediately after the first one. It doesn't quite hit the same and by the end, I felt like all the juice from this particular stone was squeezed.

That's not to say The Look of Silence is well worth a watch. It is. I really admire Oppenheimer's dedication to this subject and finding the universal meaning in a story that most of us wouldn't have taken the time to examine ourselves.