Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Holy God, this is one helluva summary from "StrangeAndNew." Forty Two movies are covered, from the Coens to Cronenberg to Herzog... great stuff below! Enjoy!
Harry and Crew- Do you think your readers would be interested in a brief wrap-up of the Toronto International Film festival? I'm still in my hotel room in Toronto and below are my mini-reviews of each of the 42 films I saw this year. I believe that a dozen or so have not been covered on the site yet. Almost entirely spoiler-free. I sent you the same thing in 2005. God, this geek from Texas loves attending TIFF each year. If you use this, call me StrangeAndNew. Overall rankings at the bottom. Encounters At The End Of The World New Herzog doc! This 9:00 AM Herzog screening on the last day of TIFF was like a soothing comedown after the hangover of watching movies solid for nine days prior. Herzog’s soothing voice could’ve been in the service of any subject and I would have enjoyed it. Here we get a story of him visiting Antarctica to see all the people and nature there. He wasn’t trying to do another penguin doc, but still managed to voiceover some footage of the little waddling creatures in such a manner that I cried laughing so hard. Delirium may have played a role in my enjoyment of this film, but it is still a must for any Herzog fan. Ending with “For Roger Ebert” was a nice touch, if not unintentionally morbid. My TIFF People’s Choice Score (0 to 4): 3 Closing The Ring Or “The Notebook 2: Leftover Pages.” Directed by Lord Richard Attenborough, otherwise know as the “Spared No Expense” guy who built Jurassic Park. Long looks at Mischa Barton nudity are the only things giving this an R-rating, so I bet it gets to cut to achieve PG-13 in the US. There was embarrassing, inappropriate laughter throughout thanks to Shirley MacLaine’s character and a shortbus Irish kid who establish the funny early on and do such a good job of it that people kept laughing even when the movie was trying to be serious. “Do you want us to build you a shed?” Dear god, that line was so unintentionally funny. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 0 Elizabeth: The Golden Age I wanted to like this one. Before coming to the festival I rewatched the first one and saw a bunch of problems I hadn’t noticed back in 1998. Sadly, this film falls into all those traps and more. The music was so bombastic it felt like a two hour trailer. Clive Owen was magnetic as ever, but felt more like he belonged in a pirate movie. Geoffrey Rush is one of my favorite actors — and one of my favorite things from the first film — and here he’s reduced to pathetic domesticity and eyebrow-raising for comic effect in the queen’s court. Cate is one two reasons to watch this film. Her rage, her playfulness, her stoicism…all good stuff. Sadly the script gives her quite a few modern, melodramatic idioms to spit out and it mostly spoils the fun. The other reason to see this film is that it belongs to the very small, elite subgenre of “movies where a horse jumps off a boat.” No, I’m serious. I loved that. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Persepolis From the award-winning graphic novel written by the co-director. Inspired by co-director’s experience growing up in Iran before and after the Revolution. This should be released in time to push for and win the Oscar for best animated film. I loved this movie, deeply. It was so beautifully constructed. I’ve never seen an animated film so ruthlessly edited. You will not be bored. I was moved with great empathy for the main character and the people of Iran. Stunning. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 Nightwatching I was looking forward to this more than any other film at the festival due to the awesome four-minute teaser I saw six months ago and the fact it has no US distribution. I found out the hard way why no one is grabbing it up. It stars Martin Freeman from The Office (UK) as Rembrandt around the time he was working on the painting we now know as “Night Watch.” It was two-and-a-half hours long and full of non-stop dialogue, which I dare any non-art historian to try and keep up with. The script must be nearly two hundred pages. It was also crafted more like a stage play, including occasional Dogville-like minimal set pieces on a black soundstage. Worse, and most stagy yet, it was filmed entirely at 90 degree angles. Everything was straight on. There was very rare close up coverage, but mostly it was shot long and straight-on. Impersonally theatrical. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Rendition Am I the only one who didn’t like Tsotsi? I think Gavin Hood doesn’t really know how to direct his actors in a scene. Everything here is very bland, except for the reveal/montage near the end, but at that point I was still wrestling with the lazy plot, which depended strongly on the scrapbooking skills of a young would-be-terrorist. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 The Orphanage Very solid Spanish horror film. Well crafted, extremely well shot, enjoyable. I have no complaints really, except to say that — like almost every other horror movie — there’s only a few ways it could wrap up, and those 10 minutes feel rather anticlimactic after all solid, creative work during the first hour-and-a-half. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 A Gentle Breeze In the Village From Japan, adapted from a girls manga about the ten or so students at a small village school in the countryside. If there were fantastic/cartoonish elements in the original manga, they’re all stripped away here. What we’re left with is the sweetest, most charmingly innocent thing I’ve seen come out on film in a long time. These kids are the very definition of innocent and spend their time talking about the new guy and making sure they buy the right color socks, and helping potty-train the smallest girl…all the while radiating innocence. I was enjoying it well enough, but it was the last film of the day and two hours of this was a lot to take in at that time. This film is why the G-rating exists. You can’t not like this movie, because that would be like kicking a puppy or a child or baby Jesus or something. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 The Passage The best thing at TIFF is to be caught off-guard by a film you didn’t know was going to be great. I love being smacked in the face by unexpected films. In 2005 it was Thank You For Smoking, in 2006 it was After The Wedding, and this year it is The Passage and Persepolis. I’m not sure what country to call this one because it is in English, but was filmed in Morocco. It’s a drama starring Stephen Dorff as a traveling American who meets a local girl and then tries to hang out with her, but they have a bad time of it. If this ever comes to the US, trailers will destroy the discovery of it all. This film is from a first time director, which I find astonishing. I saw “Masters” films at this festival that have not been as technically produced/crafted as well as this. Only the music pissed me off in a couple of places. Myself and the entire audience were hooked in the first minute and all the way to the end, including an extended virtuoso sequence playing with light in dark places. I hate that this film with be trailer-ruined if it ever reaches the US. It may show up on DVD, but could not work in theaters because it is unmarketable. Lovers of suspense films and lovers of art films would each love half of the film and hate the other. I feel I like this more than most people will, but movies like this make my yearly trouble of coming to TIFF completely worth it. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge Who pays for films like this to be made? Who watches watches films like this? It’s a remake of an Asian film. Slice of life. No plot. Only the interludes of the balloon floating were nice. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 0 Captain Mike Across America According to Michael Moore him and the Weinstein's are showing this in Toronto because they want to gauge audience reaction to see how to release or not release this doc. He said it’s a song for the choir. And I say it’s a good song. Many will call it overlong or too self-praising but I was able to get past those things. I really felt the spirit of people caring, loving, and sharing patriotic pride. It’s not perfect, but it made me hope for our political process just a little bit more. Weird. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 Mongol Damn. If this film were made in Hollywood we would’ve been hearing stories about the massive budget and production. Instead it was made by this Woody Allen-looking Russian guy. Mongolian film about the rise of The Great Kahn. Epic battle movie. If you like bloody epics, you will like this film. Glorious scenery scale and gore. I was actually a little dazed coming out of this, in a good way. There are a few minor nitpicks about rushed or glossed-over plot points, but they are just that: minor. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 Eastern Promises I wasn’t really excited to see this one since it is out now, but hell if this isn't a great film. Beauty and brutality walk hand-in-hand as well as I’ve ever seen in any film. Vigo was in the crowd and I couldn’t help but look over at him during one of a few VERY brave scenes for him to do as an actor. All the Cronenberg body tissue and violence fetishes are back as well! My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 King of the Hill I saw this Spanish twist film on the recommendation of twichfilm.net. It’s about a lost man in a car being shot at. Or is it? Can’t talk about it until you see it. Well made, brisk, watchable. Solid genre entertainment. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 2 Diary of the Dead In general, I hate gore horror, but I do have a soft spot for zombies. This was a wonderful experience, no doubt colored by getting to sit in the same row as George Romero, with Dario Argento viewing from a row over. Ryerson University students came dressed as zombies. The movie was a lot of fun and the crowd really enjoyed it. It’s much better than the lame Land of the Dead which George says wasn’t so fun to make because it was a big-budget studio movie without his creative heart. He does similar to De Palma's Redacted in that he explores a scenario we’ve seen before, but see how it is affected by all the new media out there. We get bloggers and video-sharing and citizen journalists aplenty. Good film. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 L’Ennemi Intime French war movie during the time France was trying to hold on to Algeria before it finally became independent in 1962. Craftsmanship was excellent. I was disappointed to see the camera-strapped-to-the-body effect show up — as always — to demonstrate a central character’s fear/desparation/confusion; it cheapened the proceedings for me. Well made, but I didn’t care. It’s getting very difficult to make a war movie that doesn’t feel like something you’ve seen before. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Silent Light Did you know there are Mennonites in Mexico? I didn’t. Apparently they are people, with feelings too! Mennonites think it is devilish to make images of people, so even the making of this film with their participation is a minor miracle. I liked it, but damn if it wasn’t slow. I love some good Malick-moments, but every scene was like “they aren’t going to show that car in the distance drive all the way across th…oh, yes they are. Shit.” Seriously, few shots were less than 15 seconds long and simple scenes lasted five minutes each. It was part of the beauty, but it also could’ve been a 30 minute film (instead of two-and-a-half hours) if edited traditionally. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 2 No Country For Old Men The new Coen brothers movie. It takes place in Texas in the early 80’s and feels like a cross between The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada and Fargo. I loved every minute of this film. I want to quote a dozen lines of dialogue, but I will restrain myself. I already want to see it again. I know I should let it sink in longer, but I’m ready to call it a masterpiece. Stars Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones, all of whom are excellent. Love that crazy Bardem haircut, by the the way. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 When Did You Last See Your Father? From the director of the wonderful Shopgirl film I saw two years ago at the festival. The movie proves that Shopgirl was great because of Steve Martin’s script and not Anand Tucker’s direction. This film stars Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth. I’m a sucker for father and son relationship movies, but this one couldn’t make me care, not even a little. That’s bad. Even worse was the pathetic scene of Colin Firth masturbating in the bathtub. Lame, limp-wristed film. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Juno Jason Reitman’s second film, this follows after his 2005 festival-stealing Thank You For Smoking. This one is a comedy with a script from a first-time writer. Part of the Arrested Development crew show up (Michael and George-Michael) as well as Hard Candy’s Ellen Page as the title character (Juno’s red hoodie in this film kinda creeps me out because it flashes me back to its disturbing Little Red Riding Hood imagery of Hard Candy’s awesome poster). Juno, the film — and the character – are like more caustic versions of Wes Anderson movies and characters. Also similar to Wes, Jason incorporates great use of pop songs into the film and on the soundtrack. This and Superbad are the two funniest films I’ve seen since Thank You For Smoking. I have to admit that I was at first a little reluctant to love this movie due to the overly acerbic and flippant nature of Ellen Page’s knocked-up Juno character, but I gave in before long. I love this film. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 Redacted Brian De Palma creates a low-budget HDNet film about US soldiers in Iraq trading bad deeds with Iraqis. The “soldiers” film themselves. The dialogue is very wooden, but pointed, as if talking points were handed out and the rest was improvised. If I’m wrong and that’s not the case, De Palma found some pretty stiff actors. It’s a message movie. A lazy, stagy production with no heart or passion, only easy outrage. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Atonement It’s no English Patient. Good but not great. Fun, but not enough to run out and see right away. I did get to see Keira Knightley up close, in person, and that counts for something in my book. Solid, yet not completely satisfying. It does have a good crazy horse scene, though it’s not of them jumping off boats like in E2, unfortunately. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 2 In the Valley of Elah Paul Haggis, Tommy Lee Jones and the DP return to the same location No Country For Old Men filmed just two months prior and made this movie (with the same DP and a bit part for Josh Brolin, by the way). This film is very good. Mr. Jones — and I do feel I should call him that because he proved in the Q&A that he does not suffer fools or their questions — plays a father looking for his son who’s gone AWOL after returning back from Iraq. The movie is subtle, for Haggis, and Mr. Jones gains a lot of emotional traction with the viewer. The script is Haggis-tight, meaning it all ties back together in ways you may or may not see coming. I found this to be a much, much better statement about Americans and Iraq than De Palma’s Redacted. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 Cassandra’s Dream Woody Allen’s new film. I loved Match Point and hated this film. I agree with my friend Jennifer that the dialogue felt sub-Woody. Even sub modern Woody. To me, Match Point approached the level of Greek Tragedy (see also the very good Mighty Aphrodite), but this felt more like a failed attempt at black comedy. Collin Ferrell does terrible, weepy work here. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Naissance Des Pieuvres (Water Lilies) French. The kind of film that would never get made in the US and will never show in the US. Teenage girls, synchronized swimming and the awakening of sexuality The audience was riveted and so was I. We just don’t tackle teenage adolescence this honestly in the US. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 Sukiyaki Western Django Miike was not there but filmed a hilarious intro for this hoping this would be one of our "favorite English-language Japanese westerns of the festival." Quentin Tarantino’s extended cameo is a lot of fun. Seeing Japan’s master of violence do a western brought a fresh new perspective. The audience was cheering and loving it, but it is — after all — a genre flick with a thread-thin plot and the laughing and clapping mostly exhausted about an hour and fifteen minutes into the film…right about the time it should have been ending. Instead there was almost another whole hour. Way, way too long for this kind of film. The Japanese actors speaking English was like a wonderful, hilarious bad dub. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 2 Honeydripper John Sayles latest. It is hard for me to admit that my much-loved Lone Star was a relative anomaly from this director and that he may never again direct in such a (relatively) crowd-pleasing manner or with a budget that (relatively) large ever again. That said, I do still enjoy his normal, smaller, more intimate films as well. I don’t feel a political message here, just a solid, simple, old-fashioned story of Danny Glover trying to keep his bar open in the black, still-picking-cotton environment of Alabama in 1950. Great blues music, but it doesn’t take front and center often enough, like it did in the correct measure within the awesome Hustle & Flow by Craig Brewer. This is the sort of carefully crafted and not-to-difficult-to-appreciate sort of film you should watch with your parents/families. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 The Past Argentinean film starring Gael Bernal Garcia. He plays a man who, at the beginning of the film, announces the mutual agreement him and his wife have come to about getting a divorce. Afterwards we follow him around seeing the affect his ex has on his life over the next dozen years or so. Very well done and watchable. The female lead actually steals the movie, in my opinion. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 The Savages Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney play brother and sister with a father slipping into dementia and needing their care for the first time. The actors had good chemistry and the film was solidly crafted and funny, but I didn’t quite care like I should have. If the Oscars slots need filling next year, one or both of these actors could get a nomination. I wouldn’t be upset either way. Maybe I’m just too tired to care. Getting back at 3:00 AM the previous morning and then heading back out at 8:00 AM really destroyed me this day. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 L’Age Des Tenebras (Days of Darkness) This is suppose to round out a trilogy started by the impressive Decline of the American Empire and the even more impressive Barbarian Invasions?!? No way. Those two films are both about the same characters. This is some other random dude in Quebec who fantasizes he is famous and has a harem of beautiful, wide-eyed, soap-opera-bad-acting females tending to his every need. I think this stupid film is suppose to be a fairly pessimistic screwball satire of the soul-sucking nature of modern fatherhood and office life in Quebec/Canada/The World, but I hated this film. The audience roared with laugher so loud and long that some were gently crying. The film was in French and to my ears I heard a lot of rhyming words thrown around, but the wordplay definitely does not come through in translation. I was in French-language movie hell. I left two-thirds of the way through; my first and only film to walk out of. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 0 Deficit Gael Bernal Garcia’s directorial debut. He said it was him and his friends having fun and they never expected anyone to see it. Judging by the two-chip, camcorder-quality, terrible cinematography I was ready to agree and just be happy that we got a peak at the first attempt by an interesting future director…but then, during the Q&A afterwards he said they spent five weeks shooting this. Five weeks? Twenty or so people spent five weeks to make something look this bad visually? That is surprising to me. Regardless, I mentally wrote the movie off during the first two minutes of mostly improvised, stiff acting that occurs during an uninspired driving scene. However — much like my experience with Wassup Rockers at TIFF’05 — I was surprised to find myself caring about the characters quite a lot by the end. Strange, mixed feelings, but I’m glad I saw it. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 Paranoid Park Gus Van Sant’s latest. American teenage skateboarders In the vein of Elephant, which I loved. My only disappointment was that is was filmed in 4:3. I find it very distracting to be in a movie theater watching something TV-shaped. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 Margot At The Wedding The latest from the director of The Squid And The Whale, which I loved. I feel like this one goes out of its way to give everyone a reason to hate it. The plot is thin and the characters unlikeable. It looks muddy and depressing, as if it was filmed through a dark filter. It tells us little about these people. What I did like very much was the intelligence throughout. There’s just not enough films where smart people say and do hurtful, smart-people things to each other. Of any film I can think of, it’s closest to Closer. No, that’s not true. It’s most like The Squid And The Whale, of course, but drained of niceness and characters you identify with. I wouldn’t want to know or meet these people, but I’m glad I watched the film. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 Le Scaphandre Et El Papillon (The Diving Bell and The Butterfly) French film from the book about the life of an editor at Elle magazine France who has a stroke and is left only to communicate by blinking his one working eyelid. Most of the movie is shot from the perspective of that one good eye. Very engrossing story. You can’t help but feel something as we hear the main character’s inner thoughts while people try to communicate with him. This sounds like a boring story, but the pacing is brisk and the editing mercilessly efficient. Not boring at all. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 Reservation Road Terry George, director of Hotel Rwanda, uses an original script about two families and a hit-and-run accident. “Can they hear me play music in heaven?” “We were married for 12 years and have nicknames for each other: Nitro and Glycerin." And those are just a couple of the bad original lines of dialogue. There’s also a lot of bad clichéd lines that pop up. A certain kind of crowd will eat this up, but anyone who analyzes the films they watch, even a little, will most likely hate this film as much as I did. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 1 I’m Not There Todd Haynes movie about Bob Dylan. Dylan is played by six different actors, including Cate Blanchett. I haven’t had time to fully absorb this yet. Well crafted and it easily held my attention. I liked Todd Haynes Q&A discussion about casting Cate Blanchett as the going-electric version of Dylan because Haynes was trying everything he could to relay the shock to Dylan fans at that time, a feeling which is mostly lost on music lovers now. It works. Cate's casting is appropriately shocking, and then you get past it and she blends in as well or better than the other actors. Cate, Christian Bale and the little black boy are the most enjoyable to watch. I can see Cate winning a supporting Oscar for this. Of note is the show-stopping, scene-stealing performance of “Goin’ To Acapulco” by Jim James and Calexico who show up in the film as small-town country band. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3 La Fille Coupee En Deux (A Girl Cut In Two) Claude Chabrol. French, of course. Modern story about a girl torn between an older man and a younger man. Not overwhelmingly good but I liked the characterization of the old man. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 2 The Visitor Leave it to the gods to let me schedule this, the most kind-hearted film I saw at TIFF just immediately before seeing the two most black-hearted entries (Before The Devil and Nothing Is Private). My reviews of the two movies below are probably affected by having seen this wonderful second feature from the director of The Station Agent. The story here takes place in the US and stars Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under’s dead dad character) as a widower going the motions of his professor job while in an emotional coma. Then, through a touching and believable set of circumstances, he meets and befriends an illegal couple. It’s so rare in film that interactions between people of wildly different classes and backgrounds feel this authentic and emotionally true on film. Small and perfect. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 4 Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead Sidney Lumet’s suspense thriller about money and murder, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Albert Finney and Marissa Tomei’s beautiful body. I’m not sure exactly what happened here, but everyone else at the screening seemed to like this move a lot more than I did. There’s no real problem, other than the lack of likeable characters. The craftsmanship was solid. Well, I say solid, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the fractured timeline storytelling style we’ve seen so many times before didn’t bother me a little here. It wasn’t necessary. I can’t think of any emotional punch or plot “reveal” that was in any way affected by the time sequencing. Also, the jarring, fractured, glass-breaking visual transitions between time threads bugged me a bit. I kept thinking of No Country For Old Men and how it was also about money and murder and about how good that film was and how humorless and uninvolving this one turned out. Still, I bet the critics and the more discerning public will love this and that my relative indifference will be in the minority. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 2 Nothing Is Private I try oh-so hard to not hate a film because of intense dislike of characters (assuming that distaste is intentional on the part of the director) but here I fail. I love every moment of Six Feet Under, but Alan Ball’s directorial debut is a sledgehammer story of damage inflicted on an innocent girl. Mostly innocent, that is. I am so glad I had another film afterwards to help purge this out of my mind. This is the story of a 13 year-old, half Lebanese girl in Houston. Her father here is so reprehensible as to ruin the film for me. I hated the choice of actor for the father and every single disgusting moment of his portrayal. The male, teenage "love interest" was almost as bad. There are so many bad decisions of action and inaction made by the young girl, her parents, and the creeps exploiting her that I wanted to go take a cleansing shower. I did not feel truth here, only exploitation. To concoct this movie, take the parental collapse in Ken Park, add some Happiness (minus the dark humor) and then film with an awful “glowing” filter effect and you get this movie. Acting was mostly over-the-top throughout. Only Toni Collette and the beautiful young girl actress escape with any measure of dignity. Western movie audiences like to laugh when we’re uncomfortable and this screening was filled with inappropriate laughter during disturbing scenes, making the whole affair feel all the more gross. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 0 It’s A Free World… Those dots are oh so important. Ken Loach loves the worker and gives us this enlightening modern story about how the UK exploits immigrant workers. It is all the more effective for it’s intimate choice to tell the story of one employment agency. Solid filmmaking and it left me with mixed feelings, as I’m guessing was intentional. My TIFF People’s Choice Score: 3
Overall, the films I saw rank as: GREAT 1. Persepolis 2. No Country For Old Men 3. Eastern Promises 4. In the Valley of Elah 5. Juno 6. The Passage 7. The Visitor GOOD 8. Encounters At The End Of The World 9. Naissance Des Pieuvres (Water Lilies) 10. I’m Not There 11. Paranoid Park 12. Le Scaphandre Et El Papillon (The Diving Bell and The Butterfly) 13. Margot At The Wedding 14. Mongol 15. Captain Mike Across America 16. The Past 17. The Savages 18. Diary of the Dead 19. It’s A Free World… 20. Honeydripper 21. The Orphanage 22. A Gentle Breeze In the Village WATCHABLE 23. Atonement 24. La Fille Coupee En Deux (A Girl Cut In Two) 25. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead 26. Silent Light 27. King of the Hill 28. Sukiyaki Western Django BAD 29. Deficit 30. Elizabeth: The Golden Age 31. Cassandra’s Dream 32. L’Ennemi Intime 33. Redacted 34. Reservation Road 35. Rendition 36. When Did You Last See Your Father? 37. Nightwatching VERY BAD 38. Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge 39. Closing The Ring 40. Nothing Is Private 41. L’Age Des Tenebras (Days of Darkness) N/A 42. Religulous: A Conversation with Bill Maher and Larry Charles
