Hey folks, allow me (Harry) to introduce you to Anton Sirius our resident intruder of the Toronto Film Festival. He will be scurrying about and keeping our plate full with tasty reports throughout this year's fantastic Toronto Film Fest. There are many films that will be getting their first exposure via AICN and hopefully the word will be good. Anton is by no means our only eyes and ears up North.... hopefully if you are there, and your eyes and ears find greatness or triteness you'll share with us... the wretched that could not attend. And here.... is Anton...
Toronto Film Festival Preview
Greetings, star kinder! If you think Moriarty's schtick is lame, please skip down a paragraph or two as I am about to natter on about being a jet-setting playboy from outer space, who has decided to take a break from the Euro-party scene to attend another party scene, the Toronto International Film Festival, which begins next week. I might even see a couple of films while I'm there, and possibly corner a drunken director or two to spill some dirt and tell me what REALLY happened at that party where DeLuca made himself imfamous (I was in Monte Carlo, alas.)
I'm afraid I'm at the peak of my natural Bile Cycle, so there is apt to be a great deal of cynicism in my writing. I could give you a lengthy explanation of my home planet's period around our sun and why the Bile Cycle became an evolutionary necessity, but since most of you seem quite at home with your own Bile Cycles I see no need.
Anyway, the festival schedule is out, but I really could care less. My cosmic karma will lead me to the most brain-stretching, kooky, twisted bits of celluloid to be found here next week. In fact, my antennae are tweaking right now to these in particular (what? No, no they're back here. Why do you think I keep my hair long?):
Thursday, Sept 9- Gregg Araki returns to mock the hetero in Splendor. Atom Egoyan slinks home from Cannes with Felicia's Journey (don't feel too bad, Atom. It's the way of international critics- they love you one minute, despise you the next. Just ask Lars von Trier- but more on him later.)
Friday, Sept. 10- There's a cute little take on Fail Safe called Deterrence playing tonight; a doc on a guy who throws REALLY great parties, Chechan Overbeing Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev, called The Making of a New Empire; Happy, Texas gets a glimpse of daylight; the Dogme95 project grinds on with Mifune- Dogme 3 (for those of you unfamiliar with Dogme95, it's a manifesto written by Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg and some drinking buddies of theirs that calls for a new kind of Cinema, one that is free of artifice. Gummo was bestowed the honor of being a Dogme flick after its release, whether Harmony Korine wanted it to be or not- but more on him later too); Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil starring noted thespian Jewel; something I've heard described as a Greek take on Trainspotting, From the Edge of the City (yeah, that was my reaction too); and the highlight, the very shank of the evening, the first Midnight Madness presentation- Matthew Bright's follow-up to Freeway, which has been very cleverly named Freeway II: Confessions of a Trick Baby. But it's not a sequel. Honest.
Saturday, Sept 11- This one already has me buzzed- an Australian/Bhutanese (Bhutanian?) co-production made by a Buddhist monk who studied film in New York and has worked with Bertolucci, starring an all-Buddhist monk cast, about… soccer. It's called The Cup, and I promise not to be in mine when I see it- some trips are best experienced undiluted. Oh yeah, the WELSH take on Trainspotting, Human Traffic, is also showing, plus (sigh) Joan Allen in All the Rage (unofficial Fest Theme #2, behind Dogme95 pics: films with the word Rage in the title), the Gala Screening of American Beauty, The Wisdom of Crocodiles, another It Came From Winnipeg production, Top of the Food Chain by John Paizs (if you've ever seen any Guy Maddin films- Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, for instance- you know what living in Winnipeg can do to warp someone), and oh yeah, Kevin Smith checks in with his Dogme95 film, just called Dogma. I've heard it's some sort of religious satire.
Sunday, Sept 12- Unofficial Fest Theme #3- Films about films. No less than four docs are showing that involve the making of other films- The Humiliated is a blow-by-blow account of Lars von Trier's The Idiots, the film that made him a pariah with the international critical community (y'know, for a guy who can't even be bothered to bring a film over this year his name sure is popping up a lot. You'd think he had some influence or something); American Movie is Chris Smith's bio of Mark Borchardt and his film the Coven (both of those show today); My Best Friend is Werner Herzog's love letter to Klaus Kinski; and Jam Session is a film about the making of Takeshi Kitano's latest, Kikujiro. Plus there's a film that only exists because of Boogie Nights (Wadd, a doc about John Holmes), a unfinished project by party animal par excellance Orson Welles that got finished (The Big Brass Ring), a film about a screenwriter who hides from life in his work (Guts)… this whole fest is starting to seem a little incestuous (oh yeah, Tim Roth's The War Zone shows on Monday). Somebody get me some Jaegermeister. Where was I? Oh yes, Sunday. But I'm a Cheeleader, Chen Kaige's The Emperor and the Assassin, Alex de la Iglesia's Dying of Laughter, Soderbergh's The Limey, and the Midnight Madness special is The Item. I have no idea what it's about.
Before anyone freaks, Kevin Smith's Dogma has nothing to do with the Dogme95 movement. I just made that up.
Monday, Sept 13- Wong Kar-Wai's cinematographer Christopher Doyle shows his directorial debut, Away With Words. I bet it's pretty. Unofficial Fest Theme #4- anything Japanese. They own the festival this year. Shinobu Yaguchi's Adrenaline Drive is today's entry. And Midnight Madness has another doc, Born to Lose: The Last Rock and Roll Movie. It's a bio of Johnny Thunders. Somebody mentioned that he's dead now. I'd wondered why I hadn't seen him around Manhatten lately.
Tuesday, Sept 14- The Toronto Film Fest has an interesting series called Dialogues, where prominent directors and film folk pick a movie that influenced them and talk about it. George Romero is here, and his choice is way out of left field- Powell and Pressburger's Tales of Hoffmann, which is an opera. I can't wait. Jarmusch shows his Ghost Dog: the Way of the Samurai, George Hickenlooper shows his The Big Brass Ring (the unfinished Welles project), Maggie Cheung (sigh) is in Augustin, roi du kung-fu (another French flick! I can do French, Maggie, really! Parisian accents are easy to fake), Werner Herzog shows his My Best Friend, the Midnight Madness is Wadd: The Life and Times of John C. Holmes… I've talked about these already. What else is there? Oh yeah, Takeshi Kitano shows his Kikujiro (nice of them to let us see this before Jam Session), Giuseppe Tornatore (the Cinema Paradiso guy) has The Legend of 1900, and there's a Jamaican film, Third World Cop. Jamaican films are invariably cool, whether you can cut through the accent or not.
Wednesday, Sept 15- Unofficial Fest Theme #5- S&M. OK, sure, I guess that's an Unofficial Theme every year, but it seems like this year every other film has some subplot involving degrading sex, and people liking it. Today's big entry is French (naturally), and it's called Romance (naturally). Harmony Korine gives us julien donkey-boy, which has Werner Herzog in a prominent role, who is showing his My Best Friend… see what I mean about incestuous? Harmony's choice for the Dialogues program is a Herzog, too- Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? I smell a conspiracy. The Spotlight program kicks off today. The featured director is Japanese (naturally), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation.) His work is hard to describe- kind of a weird Japanese synthesis of Cronenberg and Paul Schrader (who's Forever Mine shows on Sunday), but not really. His film Charisma plays today- here's what the Fest Bible has to say: "The film is best described as an environmental thriller in which the villain is a tree." Isn't that a Steven Seagal flick? Oh wait, there the villain was Michael Caine- my mistake. We also get a doc on Mary Jane called Grass (naturally), and a big lizard movie called Komodo. Wheee!
Thursday, Sept 16- The Japanese strike back in the Unofficial Fest Theme wars, responding to the Dogme95 crowd with One Piece!, again by Shinobu Yaguchi. Shinya Tsukamoto (of Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist fame) also mans the front lines with his new, meditative period piece, Gemini. (Huh? Meditative? Period piece? This I gotta see.) More Kiyoshi Kurosawa, too- his twosome Eyes of the Spider and its semi-sequel, Serpent's Path. The Japanese rule this day- Robin Williams and his Jakob the Liar Gala don't stand a chance. There's a Canadian/Hong Kong co-production called Dreamtrips, some sort of virtual reality flick; Breakfast of Champions gets a look-see; Rage, a hip-hop movie set in London, gets shown, which although by title is in the 'Rage' camp has been getting some comparisons to Cassavettes so philosophically is probably aligned with the Dogme95 crowd; and the Midnight Madness flick is a Danish movie called Possesion.
Friday, Sept 17- Another S&M flick, but this one is Japanese just to confuse things- Moonlight Whispers. Come to think of it, the leads are young kids, so it probably owes something to Harmony Korine too. Maybe the Korine/Herzog alliance will factor in here before the end. Kiyoshi Kurosawa's film today is Barren Illusion, his newest. Norman Jewison shows us The Hurricane. The Takeshi Kitano doc, Jam Session, is showing. HK director Wilson Yip kicks it large with Bullets Over Summer. And Alex Winter returns to Midnight Madness with Fever, a kind of '90s Repulsion/Tenant-looking thing starring Henry Thomas.
Saturday, Sept 18- The best is definitely saved for last. Greenaway fucks with our heads once more, and perhaps for the last time, with 8 ½ Women. There's a special presentation of Princess Mononoke. The closing night Gala is Onegin, Liv Tyler's last chance to convince me she can act before LOTR. And the last film of the Fest, the final Midnight Madness showing of the year, nay the decade, nay the millenium… Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris. Gamera! We love you!
By my tally, the Japanese won going away over the Dogme95/Korine/Herzog alliance, especially considering the 'official' Dogme entry is named after Toshiro Mifune. The Rage crowd got steamrolled. Of course, the Japanese contingent only won because the S&M side took the sub position.
I'll check back in later to let you know which glittering gems in the Hollywood tiara are in town. E-mail me at robbie_dogstar@yahoo.com if you've got any questions about the fest. Anton Sirius
