Watched two movies from Zip yesterday; the first I got from a “most overlooked movies of the 90s” list, the second won acclaim at last year’s TIFF.

• State Of Grace starred Sean Penn, Ed Harris, Gary Oldman, John Turturro, John C. Reilly & Robin Wright…quite a cast. Oldman was a little over the top, and missed the accent entirely, but Penn and Wright were great. The story’s been done to death, there were no surprising twists — except maybe that Wright’s character didn’t become a cliche — and I didn’t buy Ed Harris as the chief badass, but it was a good movie. Overlooked, certainly.
• Love, Sex and Eating The Bones got a lot of attention at the festival last year, and it starred Hill Harper (who we’d grown to like from his role on The Handler). It was funny, it was realistic…I love movies like this. It was just a love story, but funny & silly & just dumb enough to be like real life.

Hotel Rwanda, a film about a courageous Rwandan hotel manager who saved more than 1,000 people from being massacred by Hutu extremists in 1994, took the AGF People’s Choice Award at the 29th Toronto International Film Festival.

Hotel Rwanda, directed by Northern Irish director Terry George (Some Mother’s Son), stars American actor Don Cheadle as real-life hotelier Paul Rusesabagina, who attended the premiere in Toronto on Sept. 11. At yesterday’s awards brunch, held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, festival director Piers Handling (this year sharing the duties for the first time with co-director Noah Cowan) read a message from filmmaker George, who said he would pass the award on to Rusesabagina, “who told me after the audience reception that we received in Toronto that it was the best night of his life.”

from The Globe & Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040920.wxtiffaw20/BNStory/Entertainment/)
By LIAM LACEY

It shall be called the “Pepsi Indicent”.

This afternoon my wife bought a bottle of Pepsi and put it in the freezer to let it cool down. She forgot about it, as we all do from time to time, and when she remembered it was some 7 hours later by which time the entire bottle had frozen into slush.

Now, this would not have been remarkable except for the fact that she tried to open the bottle and take out some of the Pepsi slush. Even if she’d been sober, I don’t think it would have dawned on her (or me) not to do this, but…kaboom.

I was in the bathroom when this happened, and heard only faint cursing from the kitchen. When I came into the kitchen there was frozen Pepsi everywhere. Over the near wall, the far wall (about 9 feet away), the ceiling, the cabinets, the counter…everywhere. We just spent 15 minutes wiping down the cabinets and mopping the ceiling.

At least we didn’t try to freeze gasoline…

We’re sad it’s over. Last weekend, when we saw 7 movies in just over 48 hours, seems forever ago. The last 3 weren’t as impactful as the first 7, but we were fortunate to have avoided any bombs. My favourites, in order:

1. Hotel Rwanda
2. Saving Face
3. Les Revenants
4. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
5. The Merchant Of Venice
6. Creep
7. Trauma
8. Undertow
9. Mondovino
10. The Libertine

We’re on the fence now about what to do next year; do we see more films or fewer? I’ll let you know in about a year.

Fare thee well, film festival.

Trauma – 7 out of 10
Some thoughts on tonight’s movie:

• Colin Firth was in attendance tonight. I swear to god that, when he walked in, every woman in the audience shared a common orgasm.
• This was not a typical Colin Firth role. Some women in the audience seemed confused.
• The movie was weird. Not Mulholland Drive weird, but almost pi weird. Good, though. It reminded me of Vanilla Sky at times.

It’s the final lineup.

“Doodle-oo doo, doodle-oo doo doooo…”

The Libertine – 6 out of 10
Much like Undertow, The Libertine seemed like two different films. The first half was funny, authentic, bawdy, witty and amusing. The second half was slow, over-dramatic, ponderous and generally lacking all the things that made the first half so good. Johnny Depp was spectacular (when isn’t he?) as was Samantha Morton; John Malkovich was underused, but what can you do? The sets were certainly more gritty and authentic than I’m used to seeing in London period-pieces, and the dialogue — especially in the first half — was excellent, but the film just got lost in the melodrama toward the final 1/3. Too bad; it had a ton of promise in the first hour.

Oh, and no stars in sight. I thought Depp was in town?

The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things – 8 out of 10
Let me tell you, I’m having a hard time giving this film an 8 out of 10, but I feel like I have to. It’s not a pleasant film. It’ll never screen in major North American theatres without being cut. It’s not happy or uplifting in any way, though I suppose it is beautiful in a horrid & ultimately soothing way. At first I didn’t like it, but as it finished, and well into the night — even this morning when I woke up — it bled through my thoughts until I was somewhat awed by the life the film took on while we watched it.

Simply put, the performances were remarkable. I can’t imagine many actresses doing to themselves what Asia Argento did, and the kids who played Jeremiah tore our hearts out. There were well-nuanced cameos by Winona Ryder, Peter Fonda, Jeremy Sisto and Marilyn Manson. The music was perfect (nobody conveys mental cacophony like Sonic Youth).

I think I would’ve liked the film even more if I’d read the book by J.T. LeRoy. LeRoy was in attendance with Argento, actually, and it became fairly apparent how autobiographical the book really was. Of course, both of them were so fucked up on something that it was hard to tell how with it they actually were, but you got the clear notion what the J in J.T. stands for.

So, for that, for creating something so efficiently godawful out of someone’s godawful personal experiences, they deserve credit. I could never recommend this film to someone without knowing them very well; many of my friends — liberal, open-minded, progressive all — wouldn’t be able to watch it. But that Argento’s made the movie so brutal, so true to life (or at least true to a story which may or may not be factual) is deserving of respect.

So, I read this morning on CBC that Kofi Annan has declared the US war on Iraq illegal. It’s in the #3 story position right now, just behind the $41B health care deal struck last night and Hurricane Ivan.

So, just out of curiosity, I check some other major news sites:
CNN doesn’t have it in their top 8 stories section, but it’s the lead headline in the ‘International’ section way down at the bottom of the page. Fox doesn’t list it anywhere on the front page, nor do CBS or ABC. MSNBC has it in their top stories section. BBC is already reporting the backlash against Annan’s statements.

• snow patrol | sep 17
• black keys | sep 28
• explosions in the sky | oct 10
• pj harvey | oct 15
• and you will know us by the trail of dead | oct 23
• rheostatics | nov 11-20