Tag: TIFF

Relief

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When we found out Monday that box #7 in the advance film selection lottery was drawn, and we were in box #5, we thought we were screwed. Proper screwed. Being in the second-last box is not usually a happy place for a TIFF film-goer.

However.

We just got our email…and we lucked out. Two #1 picks, three #2 picks. No do-overs. W00t!

  • We got Trust, not Biutiful. Trust is the one I’m shaking my head at the most…I think we only picked it because it worked in the time slot, not because we rated it that highly.
  • We got Blame, not Beautiful Boy, but Blame feels a little like a sleeper.
  • We got Let Me In (the remake of Let The Right One In) which is coming to regular theatres soon, but so is Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which is such a hot ticket I gave up any hope of seeing it the second I found out what box we were in.
  • The other two — Confessions and 13 Assassins — were our first picks, and I’m quite happy to close out the festival with a full-on Takashi Miike samurai battle.

First choice: subtitles

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At this year’s film festival, if all goes to plan, we’ll be seeing five of these movies:

The most frustrating part of this year (aside from the eternally unusable TIFF website) was finding out that the ‘premium’ screenings — into which ordinary movie-loving (as opposed to celebrity-slobbering) attendees are not allowed — are no longer limited to Roy Thomson Hall and the Elgin. We now find ourselves cut off from a few screenings at the Ryerson, Winter Garden and even the sad little Isabel Bader theatre.

If we get all our first picks we’ll have a nice little lineup, and a bad-ass samurai movie to close it out.

This week in entertainment

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I’d kind of forgotten about all the movies we’ve watched over the past week:

  • Kick-Ass: most excellent
  • Precious: good, incredibly well-acted (in that if I ever see Mo’Nique walking down the street I’m likely to punch her face in) but hard as fuck to watch
  • Stripes: I’m sure it was a classic for its time, but it doesn’t really hold up.
  • Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day: look, the original isn’t exactly a classic, but it’s always been kind of special to me because we discovered it ten years ago in a self-serve movie rental machine, not having any idea what we were about to see. I didn’t expect the sequel to live up to that, but I would have been happy with a close approximation of the original. Unfortunately it was hammy and stilted and over the top, and not in the cool way that the first one was. Lots of shots of my neighbourhood though, just like the first one.
  • The Men Who Stare At Goats: I think I had the same reaction as most other people: quite funny in parts, but nothing special. Also: Ewan MacGregor continues to do the worst American accent of any British actor.
  • Paranormal Activity: Okay, we watched this two weeks ago, but whatever. Actually a pretty effective little scare-machine, but completely blew it in the final 20 seconds. Also: Katie Featherston = girlfriend du jour.

.:.

My headphones were filled all week with the new releases by Best Coast (pretty good…almost like the Raveonettes without the male voice), Japandroids (good, but not as good as their last album, I’m afraid; few things last year were), Sleigh Bells (which I like more than I feel I should), Mates of State (hearing them cover the likes of Tom Waits and The Mars Volta seems sacrilegious at first, then awesome, then just fun) and, naturally, The Arcade Fire. Which is < Funeral but > Black Mirror and therefore one of the best things I’ve heard all year. Speaking of CadeFire — which is what I call them now, due to us being so very tight — Frank Yang (aka Chromewaves) summed up awfully well what’s so captivating about them:

They somehow manage to evoke that singular moment in everyone’s life where youth gives way to adulthood, where one becomes acutely aware of the fact that they are not in fact invincible, that they will someday die, but also the sense of still having their entire lives ahead of them and the sense of opportunity that offers – that mixture of anxiety and optimism, insecurity and confidence. It’s a powerful, primal resonance made even moreso when rendered in broad, bold musical strokes. With Funeral, it was conveyed through the lens of family and neighbourhoods, of being part of a special gang. Neon Bible turned it around to be them against the world with no sense that they’d actually triumph. And The Suburbs realizes that there’s no us and them, there’s just everyone.

I’ll probably keep The Suburbs on perma-rotation until my next big anticipated release: Lisbon by The Walkmen.

.:.

With Treme, The Office, Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock and Nurse Jackie off the air right now the only things I’m watching are Mad Men (because it’s the best thing on TV right now), True Blood (because it’s the most entertaining thing on TV right now) and Entourage (because, despite its persistent suck whenever Ari’s not on the screen, for the life of me I cannot seem to stop watching it).

.:.

The miniature time slot attributed to reading is reserved for, as ever, Tony Judt‘s Postwar and Kate Carraway’s twitter feed. However, all other reading shall cease on Tuesday and Wednesday as I have only those days to select our TIFF films.

.:.

And, with that, I’m off to work. After all, all play and no work makes Jack really far behind on his to-do list.

Leslie, My Name Is Evil

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Our final film of the fest was a bizarre one: Leslie, My Name Is Evil (tiff | imdb). Director Reg Harkema introduced it as virulently anti-realist (I’m paraphrasing here) and that was about accurate. It’s hard to describe, other than to say it’s unlike any other surrealist examination of the Manson family murders in the context of the Vietnam war (and featuring a love story) that you’ve ever seen. Full points for audacity, and for making everything I described above pretty friggin’ funny.

B-, but I’ll knock it up to a B for superb use of a Black Angels song.

Accident

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Accident, or Yi Ngoi in Cantonese (tiff | imdb) was the only second choice that we ended up with, since Whip It tickets were in short supply. Still, Whip It will be out soon and the guide’s description of Accident reminds me of a film we saw one year ago today, The Ghost, which would have been very good except for the awful score and sound mix.

Likewise, Accident would have been pretty good, but it fell down on execution. The idea was very cool, but they didn’t do nearly as much with it as I thought they could have. I don’t want to give away too much in case anyone reading this is a fan of Hong Kong cinema and plans to see the film, but it seemed like they could have made that a real cat and mouse. This just felt like they sissied out around the time the second act began.

C+

Valhalla Rising

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Valhalla Rising (tiff | imdb) was our third film, and first of the year back at our old familiar haunt: the Ryerson theatre. This film didn’t make the first draft of our schedule, but after hearing some early buzz and watching the trailer again, we swapped it in. I mean, c’mon…the awesome Mads Mikkelsen playing a savage mute warrior named One Eye who goes off to fight in the crusades, and allegories of religious warfare ensue? Oh, I was there. I was there yesterday.

Unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Or it did at first, but then lost them. It started off with a…well, not a bang so much as the thud of rock hitting a skull. Incredibly violent at the beginning and for various bursts throughout, but the bulk of the film plodded along to the point of tedium, beautifully shot though the tedium may have been.

It’s weird…I liked it, but I would have liked it so much more if they could have found some pace.

C+ B+

[UPDATE] The more I think about this film the more I like it. The images from the ‘plodding scenes’ keep racing through my head, even as I watched another movie, and since that was the only weakness I could think of, I’m upping my grade.

Triage

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Film 2 of 5, Triage (tiff | imdb) made it on my list because it was directed by Danis Tanovic (who made No Man’s Land all those years ago). Nellie might have been influenced by the fact that Colin Farrell stars in it. I can’t criticize her too much for that; if I’d noticed that Paz Vega was in it when I read the guide that might have swayed me too. Vega wasn’t here, though, and Colin Farrell was, so there hordes of losers hanging out on Yonge Street trying to catch a glimpse of him. Tragic.

Anyway…the film. Very powerful stuff, as you can see if you read the TIFF guide’s description. Great performance from Christopher Lee and an amazing turn from Farrell. As unlikely as it seems, this felt like a reasonably fresh look at war. My only complaint, strangely, is that it was too short. It felt like the second half of the film, the aftermath, progressed too quickly. I wanted more time with Lee and Farrell interacting; it felt too rushed, too easy.

Still, a very good film, and one that solidifies Tanovic in my mind as someone who gets a guaranteed green light from me when picking my TIFF schedule.

B+

The Ape (Apan)

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Last night we saw our first of five festival films (phew!), The Ape, or Apan in Swedish (tiff | imdb). It is, Nellie and I agree, a prototypical festival film. Interesting, but way too outside the mainstream to ever have a wide release, or maybe any release at all in North America.

Taking my cue from the TIFF guide, I can’t reveal anything about the film. The camera rarely left star Olle Sarri, indeed it seemed desperate to keep up, but the audience was left in the dark as to what was happening (just as the actor was, for the most part) as we chased along behind. It got shocking and very tense, and never made it easy on the viewer. In the Q&A after, director Jesper Ganslandt played coy with people who inevitably and aggravatingly ask “what did x mean?” or “what did y symbolize?”, I suppose hoping those audience members would realize that they’re part of the art too. Personally I was glad that I got to be part of it last night.

Not a stunning start to our festival, but certainly a natural one.

B-

It was (about to be) the best of times, it was (about to be) the worst of times, and then it was about to be the full-on bitchinest of times

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Pretty exciting few weeks coming up for Nellie and I. Tomorrow night we see our first film festival movie of 2009, which we wrap up just 72 hours later. Then I have five days in which to complete the twelve labours of Hercules at the office, and then…France.

Woo!

Then, once I get back — and I realize this is much more exciting for me than for Nellie — the hockey season starts. Technically I’ll have missed the Canadiens’ season opener against the Leafs, but a classic Saturday night game should make me feel right back at home in Canada.

Finally, in what could be either extreme serendipity or a classic over-reach, the day we get back is Nuit Blanche. Since we’ll still be on France time we’ll likely fall asleep early and wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning…the perfect time to head out to see some art. It’s a nice bonus that the TTC will be running all night too. We’ll see how that holds up.