Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with our main man in Canada-land for Toronto this year with his first report on the fest. He's got uber-positive reviews of KISS KISS BANG BANG and SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC. I can vouche for Jesus is Magic. It's the funny, as they say. And KISS KISS BANG BANG promises to be a damn fun flick, too. Enjoy Anton Sirius's first report!
Toronto - Day One
Greetings, starkinder! Sorry I've been maintaining radio silence, but I just haven't been able to come up for air. Unlike previous years, when the festival took a day or so to gear up, this time it started at full throttle and hasn't slowed down yet. I've got plenty of reviews backlogged already (including Tideland, which is... gaaah. Holy fuck. I still can't form a coherent thought about it.)
I know what you really want to know though... who's in town? Who will win the coveted Belle of the Ball title in 2005? This year there are only two real candidates, and unless Elisha Cuthbert has a previously unrealized talent for swearing like a sailor with Tourette's I gotta think Sarah Silverman will take home that prestigious taffeta sash and year's supply of corn chips.
I'd tell you about party stuff, but Copernicus got to hang with Bono at the Tommy Chong afterparty and I'm rather jealous.
Anyway, to the reviews:
Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang (2005, directed by Shane Black)
A love letter to hard-boiled, two-fisted detective stories, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a great comeback for one of the men who arguably defined Hollywood in the '80s, and a damn fun film even if you don't know who Shane Black is.
Of course if you do know who he is, it's that much sweeter...
KKBB (hmmm, maybe 2K2B? I could go either way on that one) tells the story of Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), a not very bright burglar who stumbles into an audition while trying to escape the cops. He gets the job and is whisked out to LA, where he hooks up with Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), the gay detective-consultant (not consulting detective, mind you) on the picture whose job it is to get Harry's feet wet in the ways of the private dick. (Umm, yeah, there's really no way to escape that one, is there?) . Faster than you can say "Red Harvest" Harry is up to his eyeballs in corpses, shopworn plot devices from old pulp novels, and beautiful dames, with only his natural, stupid stubbornness to see him through to the end.
Downey Jr. and Kilmer are both hysterical here, and have a chemistry that smacks more of Lewis and Martin than anything, with Downey as the motormouth and Kilmer as the suave one. Michelle Monaghan matches them pretty much quip for quip too as The Girl, the three of them making Black's dialogue crackle.
His script being a live wire is no surprise; what does come out of nowhere is how good Black's direction is. The movie isn't just narrated by Harry, it's seemingly edited by him as well, and he's more than willing to stop the action and jump back to another scene if he screwed up explaining something and has to fill in a blank. The combination of cast, dialogue and direction makes the screen bleed giddy energy. It's kinda trippy, actually.
There haven't been too many real popcorn movies this year, films that had no goal other pure entertainment. 2K2B will rectify that lack the moment it hits theaters.
Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic (2005, directed by Liam Lynch)
A film for the nasty people, Jesus Is Magic is a concert film that captures the radiant glory that is Sarah Silverman. Songsmith, thespian, artist, seeing Silverman live proves to be an overwhelming experience simply due to her inescapable talent, and that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach that says "Hey, worm, what makes you good enough for Sarah to share her gifts with you? What makes you so special? Nothing, that's what, you pathetic joke. Why don't you just quit wasting air that Sarah might wanna use someday, loser."
Of course some folk think she's a comedian, but I don't see it myself. Hearing the anguish in her voice as she describes the mistreatment of the union workers who debone Ethiopian babies to retrieve the jewels from their tailbones, you can't help but be moved. Silverman is many things -- heroine, trailblazer, visionary, J.A.P. -- but a lowly comedian? That's just insulting.
I mean really. When she expresses in song her understanding of the plight of porn stars whose livelihood depends on the place where the doody comes out, you know that this is a woman whose compassion transcends all boundaries, and who will take you into her heart no matter who you are, unless you're black.
Director Liam Lynch deserves some props too, although I can't imagine how incompetent you'd have to be to make a winning creature like Sarah look bad. The sketches and musical numbers scattered throughout are tight and sharp (not unlike Sarah's you-know-what, come to think of it) and flow naturally from the concert footage without overshadowing them.
In the end though, this film is all about Sarah. And when we leave her at the end -- spotlight gone, masks dropped, making out with her dressing room mirror -- we realize that even a celestial presence like hers in rooted in human soil, and there is hope that perhaps some small flower might bloom in you as you bask in her sunlight.
Assuming that, y'know, you're one of *them*.
