Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I feel beyond bad that I didn’t get to either of these two great wrap-up pieces in the last few days, but I think it’s fitting that we close out the Toronto 2007 coverage with two of the best overall pieces about the festival. It sounds like it was a varied, vibrant line-up this year, and I’m jealous of anyone who got to go. First up, we’ve got a great report from Art Snob, a sort of overview of his reactions to the festival and what he saw:
OK, it’s over! Here are my final ramblings from TIFF 2007. Just to be sneaky, this time I’m listing the movies in the order I saw them, so if you want to know what’s good and what isn’t, this time you’re going to have to READ! (Title scanning permitted … every film I saw is in caps somewhere.) * * I could really appreciate the Ian Curtis (Joy Division) biopic CONTROL for what it WASN’T: a sanitized, connect-the-dots, PG-13 treatment of a musician’s life centered around the genesis of a seminal song. This film has a gritty realism and a “you are there” (albeit in B&W) feel. The music has all been recreated by the actors you’re seeing, and their work is outstanding. In depicting his relationships with the two women in his 23-year life, the movie lets you hear between the lines of the band’s most famous song (“Love Will Tear Us Apart,” which isn’t overemphasized in relation to their other numbers) without hitting you over the head with the connection. It’s a knockout performance for Sam Riley in the lead role … the way he can convey inner conflict seemingly effortlessly is astounding. And it’s been quite a festival for Samantha Morton, who does a great job as Curtis’ wife (who wrote the book the movie was based on, BTW) to go along with her supporting performance as Mary, Queen of Scotts in ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE. The film should do well on the art house circuit. I have to disqualify myself from rendering a final judgment about the Coen Brothers’ NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Usually, they let ticket holders who have Visa cards enter the Elgin Theater early, but not for this show, and I wound up in the balcony, which has bad acoustics (at least for movies … this is normally a performance theater). I couldn’t make out half the dialogue. I CAN say that it seems to be a return to form after their disappointing recent work, that I will definitely be giving it a second look-see, and that Javier Bardem has earned admission to my exclusive “Scum of the Earth All-Star Team” (which you can read about here) -- reserved for the fearless actors who do the greatest jobs of playing the worst people. Another film that should do well on the art house circuit is Cannes Palme d’Or winner 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS. It’s a really powerful tale of a back alley (actually a hotel room) abortion in the last years of communist control of Romania, when abortion was banned. The film takes a neutral, fly-on-the-wall POV regarding the issue. On the one hand, it certainly doesn’t understate how gruesome the procedure is at the late stage described in the title, but on the other hand, it makes it clear that grim stories like this one are inevitable even under a totalitarian ban on abortion. Sans a soundtrack, you feel like you really are witnessing events firsthand. The cinematography is outstanding, as is the cast, comprised primarily of a central trio (a scum salute to Vlad Ivanov as the sleazeball abortionist, especially for his casual, matter-of-fact instructions on proper fetus disposal). Pair this with VERA DRAKE and you’ve got the feel-good double feature of the year! I’ve been watching Bill Maher regularly since his first week of Politically Incorrect on Comedy Central, so naturally I couldn’t miss him and TV writer/director/producer superstar Larry Charles (who also directed BORAT) hold a “Maverick” dialogue with a festival audience mixed with clips from RELIGULOUS, their current documentary work in progress that takes a satiric look at religion. (Michael Moore held a similar Maverick session on SICKO at last year’s fest.) The clips were hysterical! I got more good laughs out of 20 minutes of footage than I would expect out of a dozen mainstream comedies. There’s no doubt that Maher is the right interviewer for this film … he’s as disarmingly good-natured dealing with this touchy subject as Christopher Hitchens is off-puttingly acerbic. There’s a lot of travel in this movie (including the Vatican and Israel) and it seems to borrow heavily from Moore’s editing style, with lots of appropriate archival footage mixed in with the interviews. The Q & A with the audience was entertaining, also – I loved the answers when somebody asked what Michael Medved would think of the film: Charles: “He’ll hate it … DUH!” Maher: “He likes movies like ‘Herbie Fully Loaded,’ anyway.” They couldn’t be more specific than “next spring” as to when the film will be ready. Whenever it comes out, I’m THERE! It’s been a while since Michael Douglas did anything interesting. I’m afraid that the streak continues with THE KING OF CALIFORNIA, a product-placement-saturated, moviemaking-by-committee effort that tries to be all things to all people and thus can never find a consistent tone. This is Douglas giving the “loveable kook” shtick a try. He plays a guy who’s recently been released from two years in the Cuckoo’s Nest (which Douglas won an Oscar for producing back in the 70’s, BTW). He reconnects with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood, providing the youth hook that ensures that someone younger than 50 will be seeing the movie) who’s been fending for herself while he’s been locked up. He’s kooky, she’s grounded – if you think you know how this plays out against a PG-13 (my fault for not noticing) backdrop, you’re probably not too far off. The contrived plot involves the recovery of Spanish gold which is now buried underneath a Costco, and any potential suspense is negated by the film’s uncertain (but always tame) tone. Add in the product placement overkill – which includes McDonald’s, where Wood works (seemingly with great benefits) – and you’ve got a standard issue McMovie. I’ve seen a handful of movies from Iceland in my years of coming to the festival, and it’s always amazed me how a country of little more than 300,000 people can put out such polished works. JAR CITY is the best yet. It’s a rock-solid detective mystery that mushrooms from a standard murder investigation into much larger issues with far-reaching genetic repercussions. The cinematography of Icelandic vistas is outstanding, as is the lead performance by Ingvar E. Sigurdsson as the detective. But the bad guys aren’t quite up to my standards, and there’s no unique “hook” to make this film stand out from other good detective mysteries. So it may not make the leap to the American art house market. It’s worth a look-see if it does, though. My second Midnight Madness screening was another winner – Donnie Yen in Wilson Yip’s FLASH POINT. Two years ago, he starred in S.P.L. (Sha Po Lang – released in the states as KILL ZONE) at MM, and it was a classic show, with an action-packed flick followed by a Q & A with Yip and bad guys Sammo Hung and Jing Wu. I was resistant to letting my expectations get too high (I’ve been burned too many times in the past hoping for lightning to strike twice), but this thankfully turned out to be unnecessary … the film is another action-packed winner, with Yip returning for another great Q & A. (Yen couldn’t come due to a current film shoot and an expectant wife but sent an email.) Here Yen plays a detective who has a high success rate (but also a tendency to leave a mess in his wake – sound familiar?) facing off against a trio of nasty Vietnamese criminals in the year 1997. (Note: the film was produced with cooperation of the Chinese government, and they wanted the story set in “newly liberated” Hong Kong.) Yen feels that martial arts moves have become too standardized in recent years, so this film is a showcase for MMA (mixed martial arts), which he feels are closer to the way that people really fight. He’s right … the action sequences do feel MUCH more realistic than anything in a Jackie Chan movie, and the ending credit gymnasium rehearsal outtakes show you that this is no editing, CGI or wire trickery (there’s only one wire trick in the whole movie). If you want martial arts action, you just can’t go wrong with this film. Legitimate Region 1 copies are currently available on EBay. Think of it as IF DIRTY HARRY COULD ALSO KICK MMA BUTT. Next up was a film that’s definitely come to play in the awards season, especially in the acting categories – Terry George’s impressive follow-up to Hotel Rwanda, RESERVATION ROAD. Seeing a guy being torn apart from the inside by his conscience can certainly make for compelling cinema (Hackman in The Conversation and Lemmon in The China Syndrome, to name two), and Terry Ruffalo does not flub his dramatically rich chance to play a guy responsible for a fatal hit-and-run in a small New England town. He’s surrounded by a great cast, with Joaquin Phoenix as the father of the dead boy, Jennifer Connelly as the mother, and Mira Sorvino as his ex-wife. Phoenix and Connelly are especially impressive with the grief they realistically (not hysterically) convey, both in the wake of the incident and as the loss settles in. But still the film doesn’t overdo the tearjerker stuff – it gets down to Phoenix becoming obsessed with finding the perpetrator, and Ruffalo trying to cover his tracks while dealing with what he’s done. There’s a development that’s a tad serendipitous, but it’s forgivable. I can see the film netting some Oscar nominations – it SURE would have in other years, but from what I’ve seen at TIFF, it looks like this year is going to be uncommonly competitive. Question: Are you a successful Australian adult who overcame the childhood adversity of being raised by a mentally-unstable suicidal mother? If so, then congratulations! You have just won … YOUR VERY OWN BIOPIC! Would you believe that I saw TWO Australian films of this ilk directly back-to-back in the course of one afternoon? And the connection I draw between them is NOT a stretch. First up was directory Tony Ayres’ semiautobiographical THE HOME SONG STORIES, with Joan Chen (who also plays Tony Leung’s Mahjong-playing wife in Ang Lee’s new Lust Caution) playing a Hong Kong mother of two who emigrates to Australia in the late 60’s. Raising her children through a succession of “uncles” gives her a lot more good material to work with than she’s ever had in America, but the film seems too long … it’s a 1:40 movie that feels more like two hours. It’s also very unimaginatively bookended. There IS a classic scene of sexual symbolism in the movie, though. If you happen to see it, watch very carefully during the scene where Chen is hanging laundry and asks the current “uncle” (the stud illegal immigrant one) to help her … it’s a keeper! Next was Australian actor’s Richard Roxburgh’s directing debut, ROMULUS, MY FATHER, based on the memoirs of philosopher Raimond Gaita, who was raised in 50’s Australia by his Eastern European immigrant parents. Roxburgh seemed to be suggesting with his pre-screening talk that he’d bitten off more than he could chew with this feature film (he’d never directed even a TV show or a short previously), and that would go a long ways toward explaining the film’s lethargic pacing and awkward scene transitions … he has potential, but definitely needs more training. Eric Bana and Franka Potente – whose breakthrough roles were instrumental in making me a TIFF addict in my early years of coming – play the parents and give it their best. Unfortunately, Bana’s eastern European accent is no better than his Israeli one. Worse, Gaita’s surrogate kept reminding me of that kid from Danny Boyle’s MILLIONS. I just didn’t feel inclined to stay for the post-screening Q & A. I was pleasantly surprised by Nick Broomfield’s BATTLE FOR HADITHA, documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield’s dramatic feature about the incident in Iraq in November of 2005 where four marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians in retaliation for a fatal IED attack. I was braced for “preach,” but it never came. This is a fictionalized account that attempts to remain as true to the known facts of the case (down to the point of time stamping events), while making the incident understandable. A talented no-name cast of both Americans and middle easterners (it was filmed in Jordan) gives a verisimilitude to this film that a cast of name actors could never have achieved. Especially impressive is Elliot Ruiz (a genuine ex-marine) as the key Corporal Ramirez. The conflict in the movie definitely isn’t black and white, as some would have you believe. Everybody in the film (IED planters included) is a fleshed-out real person, which means that conservative pundits (who won’t see it, of course) will be lambasting it in the media. Personally, the film rang true and I feel that it gave me a clearer idea of the nature of the conflict and the day-to-day grind of patrols, attacks, and retaliations than I’ve gotten in 4-1/2 years of mainstream media coverage. I recommend it to anyone who wants to bring the nature of the Iraq conflict into clearer focus. With all of the time I spent in Yongesterdam during the festival, it would have been a dereliction of duty not to check out the stoner comedy SMILEY FACE, directed by Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin) and starring Anna Faris of “Scary Movie” fame (for the record, I’ve only seen her previously in Brokeback Mountain and a couple of installments of Entourage). It looked like a slight comedy … I was just hoping that it would be as good as Pray For Rock and Roll, another female-headed comedy I similarly saw at the same theater around the same time on the last day of the 2003 festival. I’d say that those hopes were met. There’s a steady stream of chuckles, a few guffaws, but not really any gutbusting laughs. (Give me the 20-minute preview of RELIGULOUS and the Midnight Madness crowd chanting ARGGGHH in unison during the pre-screening anti-piracy notice for the laugh highlights this year) Faris is definitely a trouper. It’s an agreeable little trifle that will entertain if your expectations aren’t unreasonably “high.” It opens in the states next April. (4/20, natch.) My last film was one of my must-sees, pushed to the last day due to a scheduling conflict with one of the others. It was THE EDGE OF HEAVEN, the latest from Faith (Head-On) Akin, the current wunderkind of German-Turkish moviemaking. It’s kind of a “dust in the wind” sort of movie about lives intersecting and the fickleness of chance, as a father-son and mother-daughter duo of Turkish immigrants bounces between Germany and their homeland, their lives intertwining at key junctures in interesting ways and with unpredictable results. There’s definitely a grace and symmetry to the proceedings. I missed one key plot point which confused me towards the end, but a nice local couple sitting next to me straightened me out. This will definitely be making the art house circuit in America, and I look forward to a repeat viewing. * * * Well, that’s it for another year. I have to say that this was my most hassle-free festival ever – I almost (operative word) feel guilty about how easy and inexpensive I have it in comparison to what most other out-of-towners go through. Some of the films may have been lacking, but there was plenty of great stuff and nothing close to the WORST I’ve seen at festivals past. (Not that the nightmares have been eradicated, as some trusted sources informed me.) What’s more, I was able to make the most of my NON-movie windows of opportunity to a greater extent than ever before. I’ll sure take the same deal in 2008!
See, I think the best coverage comes not from the journalists who storm up there juggling forty different agendas, but from the film lovers who simply go see the goddamn movies. You guys are the ones this festival is for, and you’re the ones who get to really take advantage of how dense the programming is. Next up, we’ve got a longtime talkbacker who’s finally taken the plunge and become a festival spy. Good stuff, and I would hope we get more coverage from him from future fests.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 JUNO Juno McGuff (Ellen Page) is a 16-year-old girl who seems wise beyond her years. So when she gets pregnant after her first and only sexual encounter (with the incomparable Michael Cera) she does what any sensible grown-up would do. She finds an adoptive couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) in the personals of the local Penny Saver circular. As coming-of-age stories go, this one has the most distinctive voice since, dare I say, Rushmore. Yes, I just mentioned it in the same paragraph as Rushmore. High praise, indeed. Juno is smart, funny, poignant, touching and a bunch of other adjectives that all added up to the first standing ovation we’ve ever been a part of here in Toronto. Grade: A- MY KID COULD PAINT THAT This documentary is about 4-year-old Marla Olmstead, whose abstract paintings started selling for up to $20,000 back in 2003. Her feel-good story is picked up by local, then national news outlets, until Charlie Rose, as usual, has to come in and ruin everything. In a story for 60-Minutes, he questions the authenticity of her paintings. See, Marla’s father (a night-manager at the local Frito Lay plant) is a bit of a painter himself. And, for some reason, Marla can’t replicate the style of her previous paintings when a 60-Minutes camera is on her. Naturally, the art critics go on the attack. Marla’s parents go on the defensive. And Marla, thankfully, is oblivious to it all. In the end, this documentary isn’t really about her. It’s about adults and how they manage to screw up anything pure and genuine. The film is more provocative than it is entertaining. And with so many messed-up people involved, it’s kinda hard to know who to root for. Well, besides Marla, of course. GRADE: B TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 THE BAND’S VISIT In this understated (i.e. slow) comedy, a small Egyptian police orchestra, resplendent in their powder blue uniforms, find themselves stranded in an Israeli outpost far from where they’re scheduled to perform. The story takes place over a single day and night and, from what I could tell, it unfolds in real time. Good lord, I think that movie might still be playing. Which brings me to a weird festival phenomenon. It seems every year critics universally praise some obscure film that audiences, in turn, react to with all the enthusiasm of a vegetarian at a sparnfarkel. This year’s winner is “The Band’s Visit”. Congratulations. GRADE: C BODY OF WAR Body of War is an intimate documentary that gives a face to the war in Iraq. That face belongs to Tomas Young, a 26-year old paralyzed from the waist down after serving in Iraq for less than a week. The documentary follows him as he adjusts to his new body and gradually becomes an anti-war activist. The stuff that focuses on Tomas is incredibly compelling. But the filmmakers insist on beating us over the head with the fact that we shouldn’t be there in the first place. To me, simply focusing on Tomas would make a much stronger statement. Oh, did I happen to mention that Phil Donahue (yes, that Phil Donahue) is one of the directors? In case you’d forgotten what a smarmy, self-absorbed, insincere douche he is, it was all on display during the Q&A. Especially when he obliviously stood in front of Tomas while answering a question. Yeah, Phil, it’s all about you. No one cares about the kid in the wheelchair. Fortunately, Eddie Vedder brought a merciful end to all the douchiness by performing acoustic versions of two songs he wrote for the film. Goosebump City. GRADE: B+ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 THE EXODUS This Chinese crime drama is about a secret society of hit-women hoping to eradicate the planet of all men. Cool premise, right? It opens with a bravura slow-motion scene of men in swimming trunks, scuba masks and flippers beating a guy within an inch of his life (it makes sense, but not until much later in the film). And it ends with the hero sitting before the police promotion board, hiccupping (which, again, is really cool in the context of the story). It’s the 80 or so minutes in between those two scenes that are the problem. Mostly because nothing happens. Nothing. Not unless you count super long takes of people eating, getting dressed and sleeping. Which is exactly what I found myself doing a couple times. GRADE: C+ THE SAVAGES Siblings John and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney) squabble over extended care for their estranged father, who’s suffering from dementia and suddenly finds himself without a home. Caring for him reopens old wounds and makes John and Wendy re-examine their own failings, personally and professionally. Sounds hilarious, huh? Actually, the film squeezes a lot of funny material out of unfunny situations, like choosing a nursing home (or as they prefer to be called “Rehabilitation Facilities”). This is a dark film that somehow retains a certain sweetness. And, as you might expect from the two Oscar-winning actors (I refuse to accept the fact that Linney didn’t win for You Can Count on Me) the performances are spectacular. GRADE: A- MARRIED LIFE In this film, set in 1949, Harry and Pat Allen (Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson) seem like the perfect married couple. Well, unless you count the fact that Harry is also sleeping with Kay (Rachel McAdams). And is planning to leave Pat, in any way he can. Oh, and his single friend Rich (Pierce Brosnan) is somehow involved, too. The whole thing is entertaining enough. There’s a laugh or two and a few thrills. But, in the end, it’s yet another in the long line of films best described as “Things in the suburbs are not what they seem”. Like, say, The Ice Storm. In fact, two of the actors have already been in better films with the same basic premise (Cooper in American Beauty and Clarkson in Far from Heaven). Married Life isn’t necessarily a bad film. Just a derivative one. GRADE: C+ THE WILD HORSE REDEMPTION Every year, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management rounds up more than 30,000 wild horses roaming public land in the American Southwest. Some of these mustangs are shipped to the Colorado Prison System, where they become part of the Wild Horse Inmate Program. In this innovative program, each prisoner is paired with a mustang and given 90 days to make him suitable for government service or adoption. The training is incredibly dangerous and requires patience and understanding on both parts. Which, in turn, prepares horse and inmate for life beyond their respective pens. This documentary is beautifully filmed and had some incredibly powerful sequences. Basically, it plays like a 90-minute Budweiser Clydesdale spot. But with more crack dealers. GRADE: B THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 LARS AND THE REAL GIRL Lars (Ryan Gosling) is a sweet, introverted young man who lives in the garage behind his brother’s house. Actually, introverted might be a bit of an understatement. Truth is, his pregnant sister-in-law has to literally tackle him to get him to come to dinner with the family. Then, one day, Lars announces he has a girlfriend, who turns out to be a life-sized, anatomically correct sex doll. Sounds silly, right? But in the hands of first-time director Craig Gillespie, it all makes perfect sense. Of course, a lot of its success rests with Ryan Gosling, who is incredibly engaging as a social phobic. In fact, he should win an Oscar just for agreeing to grow that pervy mustache. This is a beautiful, moving film that should do some sort of cross-promotion with Kleenex. I swear, I haven’t gotten that weepy in a movie since Smokin’ Aces. And that was for a whole other reason. GRADE: A- DEATH DEFYING ACTS A psychic (Catherine Zeta Jones) sets out to scam the great Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) who’s obsessed with learning what his dying mother’s last words were. But instead, here’s a shocker, she falls in love with him. Now, if there’s an Academy Award for best performance by a wig, I think Guy Pearce’s is a shoo-in. I mean, it takes a pretty special wig to turn a lean Australian into a stocky Jew from Appleton, Wisconsin. I’d go so far as to call it the best wig since Fletch (here’s Fletch, he’s 6’5, 6’9 with the afro). Too bad the rest of the movie wasn’t up to the wig’s high standards. In fact, the film has such staggeringly awful, trite dialogue, I got dizzy from rolling my eyes. (sample line: “the real chains were the ones on Harry’s heart”). GRADE: D FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 PHILIPPINE SCIENCE This autobiographical film follows a group of students through their four years at the prestigious Philippine Science high school in the 1980s. Structured in four acts to follow freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years, Philippine Science begins with familiar conflicts, as students compete for class rankings and fret over school dances. But soon, as the political climate gets more tumultuous, they find themselves worrying about far more important things. For example, one class period is spent treating a presidential candidate’s assassination as a math problem, calculating the timing of the shots and the trajectory of the bullets. Philippine Science is a moving film that was shot over 18 days for less than $100,000, some of which was contributed by the school itself. Which may explain why it sometimes comes across as a recruitment video. GRADE: B HEAVY METAL IN BAGHDAD This documentary follows the struggles of Iraq’s only heavy metal band, Acrassicauda, who learned English from contraband Metallica and Slipknot albums. Shot on handheld cameras at great peril and with the constant sounds of artillery and gunfire in the background, Heavy Metal in Baghdad allows the musicians story to be seen in its larger context. The film not only shows the dire situation faced by the Iraqi people, it celebrates the healing power of headbanging. Heavy Metal in Baghdad serves as a nice companion piece to Body of War. While that one clearly states, “We shouldn’t be over there”, this one replies, “Yeah, assholes, you shouldn’t”. GRADE: B SON OF RAMBOW Set in England in the 1980s, this film is about Will, an 11-year-old kid from a pious religious sect, who among other restrictions, isn’t allowed to watch movies or television. To escape the drudgery, he leads an active fantasy life, complete with animated creatures, who sometimes spring to life on screen. After school one day, Will is terrorized by Lee Carter, the local bully, who accidentally exposes Will to a bootleg copy of the first Rambo film, First Blood. The two become fast friends and set out to make their own sequel, complete with stunts, explosions and flying dogs. This film is really fun and quirky in the beginning, but somewhere along the way, it changes tone, drops the animated sequences and becomes an ABC Afterschool Special about the power of friendship. GRADE: B- WEIRDSVILLE Weirdsville follows a pair of slacker junkies (Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman) through a very eventful night involving a drug overdose, curling stone-wielding dealers, preppy Satan worshippers, medieval dwarves and a hippie millionaire with an icicle sticking out of the back of his head. Imagine Trainspotting, directed by Guy Ritchie’s Canadian brother and played for laughs. Weirdsville is a fun midnight movie, even though I saw it at 9:30. And it finally answers the burning question, “What ever happened to Wes Bentley (the weird kid in American Beauty with a thing for plastic grocery bags)”. By the way, I’m not saying this film glorifies drug use, but I totally could’ve gone for a bowl afterwards. Instead, I skipped that part and went right for the pizza. GRADE: B DAINIPPONJIN As far as I can tell, Dainipponjin is Japanese for “batshit crazy”. How else do you explain a pseudo-documentary that follows a mild-mannered family man who, every so often, goes down to the local power plant, throws on a pair of huge purple underpants and is transformed into a giant crime fighter? A crime fighter whose foes include an elastic man with a bad combover and a flower-shaped woman with chronic flatulence. Dainipponjin is a fun movie that looks amazing. In fact, the battle scenes look like something out of a Michel Gondry video. And they look even more amazing when set against the hero’s otherwise humdrum existence. Which turns out to be a bit of a problem. Eventually, you find yourself wanting more battles against villains with giant retractable eyeballs and less grocery shopping. GRADE: B Garbageman33
