Hey folks, ol Sheriff Buck here has stumbled into the Ain't It Cool complimentary bagel room to suck down some good ol Creme Cheese... and folks.. after the continual visual and aural injection of cinema for 14 hours a day 6 days straight... well... the poor man is near death's door. He needs to confess his visages and thoughts about these films in order to keep going. To muster the ol left foot forward right foot forward momentum to keep seeing the coolness. So... here is my man... Sheriff Buck with his arresting report.
Toronto Festival Halftime Report!
Hey, Sheriff Buck here, with a recap of most of the noteworthy films I've seen so far at the great TIFF festival. I'm very tired (5/6 movies per day for 6 days will do that to you) so I hope I'm being coherent! By the way, there are EXTREME spoilers in here, so watch out!
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Deterrence: So far, this is *THE* film to beat for me. Can you say intense? This movie was intense. From first-time director Rod Lurie, this film is set in the near-future, and is about a president on the re-election campaign trail.
He gets snowed into a little Diner in the country when Udei Hussein (Saddam's son) decides to re-invade Kuwait. At the same time, the US is heavily involved in a war in China. To send troops into the Middle East would mean a two-front war. Instead, the president decides to threaten nuclear action on Bahgdad in ONE hour. This action is the spark that sets the movie in motion, as it follows the next hour in an extremely tense situation.
The movie is elevated even further by all the little things that make the situation so ambiguous: The president was not actually elected you see, he was the vice-president when the former president died. Thus, he was not elected and so how can he presume to "speak for the people" in such a grave circumstance? The movie is also loaded with racial dilemmas, religeous dilemmas, and political conflicts, and comes to an ending that is perhaps a little bit of a "deux ex machina" on some level, but is still entirely satisfying and unexpected.
Kevin Pollak is great as the President, and the rest of the cast is great also. The only thing I found lacking was that there wasnt much involvement by the "extras" in the Diner, (there was some, but they all had the same viewpoints basically where there could have been more conflict).
This movie cost $750,000 to make, and looked and felt like it cost MANY times more.
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History is Made at Night: A Slow, confusing and basically lame spy comedy from Finland. Bill Pullman stars as a former spy for the USA, and his girlfriend is a former spy for the KGB. They are bored out of thier minds after the cold war. Then, somehow they get caught up in a plot to smuggle a videotape, or something. I cant really be sure, because to be honest it was pretty hard to follow.
The movie was not really funny. (much was made about the "Finnish sense of humor", but it basically was pretty lame sexual innuendo that weve all heard before.) Pass this one up.
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Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trickbaby: What do you get when you mix 1)Bad Teenage Lesbians in prison, 2)Group Bulemia, 3)Projectile Vomitting, and 4)Tijuana? Why, you get the totally-f'ed-up Freeway 2! This movie is definately more messed up than Freeway ever was, but its still a hell of a lot of fun.
The Q&A after the movie revealed the following tidbits: Freeway 3 is being made (based on 3 little pigs), the shooting was shut down by the canadian government more than once (once for suspected child-porn, once for actually huffing paint in order to realistically portray it in the film), and the Director "Just loves girls, man"
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All the Rage: This film is basically an essay on Gun Culture, and what happens when good people go bad. From first time director James Stern, this is an average movie that follows the actions of several groups of loosely connected people (think Altman) as they are driven to Rage by daily life.
The characters were good, but we've seen them all before, and mostly by the same actors! For example, Anna Paquin played the same character as from HurlyBurly, David Schwimmer played Ross (but gay and crazy), Giovani Ribisi played every-single-insane-character-hes-always-played, etc. The only stand out was Gary Sinise as a reclusive computer-genius.
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Top of the Food Chain: A worthy successor to "CrimeWave" from director John Paizs. This totally-hilarious B-movie-comedy can best be described as a cross between "War of the Worlds" and "Naked Gun". In fact, many times I felt like I was seeing one of those Top Secret/Airplane/Naked Gun movies for the first time again. The plot is not important: Aliens disguised as humans land outside a small town. Why? They've run out of food, and are on a "Taste-Testing" mission. (In fact, the tag line for the movie reads "... We taste like chicken". I love that!)
Campbell Scott is absolutely BRILLIANT as the straight-man/atomic specialist. the rest of the cast is acceptably goofy. This movie rocked HARD. catch it if you can.
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Miss Julie: The latest from Mike Figgis is an adaptation of the play from August Strindberg. Set in the 1800s, The play revolves almost entirely around the dialog between the Lady of the House (Miss Julie), and a servant whom she has an infatuation with. Only it turns out the servant has his own motives for responding to this infatuation. Over the course of one evening, the two characters basically destroy each other.
The material was difficult yet was handled well. The characters change 180 degrees many times during the movie, but it never seems fake or forced. The direction was interesting, it was shot very minimally and evoked a kind of "documentary" feel. There is one exception to this in the middle of the play in a pivotal scene which I didnt think worked. The music, composed by Figgis, was grating and at times goofy, and is the only real complaint I had with the film.
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Fucking Amal: The english title is "Show Me Love", but the original name of the movie is much cooler so I use it here instead. Somewhere inbetween "My So-Called Life" and "Kids" lies Fucking Amal. Set in the small town of Amal in Sweden, the story is basically about teenage lesbians in high-school. But it goes much beyond that to portray teenage-life-in-a-small-town incredibly well. Not everybody has a happy ending either, at least two characters are trashed by the actions of the leads.
There were at least two scenes that I think may cause distribution to be hard to find in North America. One is an extended make-out scene between the two leads, and the other is a scene of one of the leads masturbating. I should mention that the two leads are *obviously* under-18, its not like 90210 where the actors are in thier 30's here. Lets hope the religeous fundies dont find this one.
One interesting tidbit: This movie started out as a teenage-slasher movie :-)
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The Limey: There have been a couple reviews of this already, so I wont say much. I thought it was average, nothing special. One thing I found annoying was the overuse of the de-synced audio and video that was used to great effect in Out Of Sight. It started to get really annoying. Stamp was brilliant as the Limey, though.
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The Item: This movie is pure, unadulterated, SHIT. I havent seen a movie this bad in a long time, and its not bad in a good way, either. 4 friends get contracted to babysit an "Item" for 24 hours. Then lots of stupid-things-that-are-supposed-to-be-cool happen, for no reason whatsoever. Lame Lame Lame.
I'd say to avoid this one at all costs, but theres virtually no way your going to get to see it except at festivals anyways.
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Dogma: Ah, the mighty Dogma. I got one of the last 5 or so tickets to the second screening of this, (a 9:15am showing no less!), so I was in a very good mood going in.
I enjoyed it thorougly, but it definately marks a departure from Kevin's previous films. Its much, much more a Movie (a roadtrip movie no less) and much less a collection of funny scenes thrown together. Because of this, my first reaction was that it wasnt funny at all, which is definately not true. The story involves 2 outcast angels (Affleck and Damon) trying to get back into heaven, which if they succeed would bring about the destruction of the universe.
I dont think Kevin writes very natural-sounding dialog most of the time, so the scenes that are plot-heavy and comedy-light feel a little awkward. The exceptions to this are Affleck and Damon. They are by far the best thing about this movie. In contrast, Chris Rock is looking the most *unfunny* I have ever seen him. Jay and Silent Bob are heavily featured in this movie, and perhaps started to wear a little thin by the end.
Kevin mentioned that the original cut was 3 hours. I'm glad he brought it down to 2. I think another 10-15 minutes could even have been cut.
If it feels like I'm slagging the movie, I'm not. In fact, Id say its in the top 3 I've seen so far. The ending sequence is incredible, Morrisette and Rickman are great, and the opening disclaimer to the movie is killer. But obviously I had high hopes going in, how could you not with all the buzz, and they werent quite met.
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American Movie: This was one of the must-sees for me this year, and it was as good as I had hoped. This film is a documentary about Mark Borchardt, a small-town guy with a dream to make his opus movie, titled "Northwestern". Problem is, he's got no money. So he decides to make a horror short-film entitled "Coven" to try to raise money for the big one. The making of Coven is the focus of American Movie.
After the showing, Mark and his acid-head friend came up for Q&A, as well as the director. Of all the stars at the festival, after I had seen the movie these were the guys I were most happy to meet, just to see what they have been up to since the movie.
At the first screening of American Movie, they played Coven afterwards. At my screening the director decided it was too much (too long), so they didnt show it. Luckily, they were selling copies of the movie after the show, so of course I had to buy one :-) I'm saving it for after the festival is over. From the clips in the movie, though, it looks just awful. Should be fun :-)
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Wadd: Documentary on John Holmes. Mostly talking-head stuff. Half-a-dozen clear shots of the monster itself, but never in action (it was cut for HBO initially). It was interesting enough I suppose.
What was more interesting was that it was shown using a digital projector. The film was shot on Betacam, with archival footage that was NTSC quality as well, and then interpolated up to HDTV resolution. The result was exceptional, and even more so considering it wasnt shot at HDTV resolution. This is definately the way of the future.
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Why Does Herr R Run Amok? : Harmony Korine brought this to the festival, and I can see why. The influence Fassbinder has given to Korine's work is obvious.
This movie I cant actually say I enjoyed watching, but the *memory* of it I'm glad I have. Why? Because the movie is basically 90 minutes of mind-numbingly boring dialog between a man (Herr Rohm), his wife, daughter, friends and family. At the end of this, however, is one of the greatest payoffs you'll ever see in cinema.
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julian donkey-boy: Korine's latest shows some maturation of his unique style. This movie has just ever-so-slightly more coherence to it than Gummo. Not to say there is really any kind of a narrative, but there is a definate evolution of the characters as the movie progresses. Nevertheless, its not really the point. The point is just to capture a little piece of this entirely fucked up family, made up of Julian (a schizophrenic maniac), his sister (who is pregnant by Julian), his demented, overbearing father who is obsessed with wrestling and likes wearing his gas mask from the war, and his brother who is the target of much of his fathers abuse and is obviously deeply scarred by it.
Werner Herzog plays the father is one of the most brilliant performances I have seen this year. He was worth the price of admission alone.
If you like Korine, you'll like this. If not, you wont :-)
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Black and White: James Toback's latest left me very cold. Its an aimless look at Black culture, and White teenagers trying to fit into that culture.
Toback mentioned the projected started without any kind of a script, and its obvious on screen. The movie juggles three or four different plot lines, doesnt really get anywhere with them, and kind of settles on the most minor one at the end to conclude the movie. Nothing about this film really interested me, except for a scene between Mike Tyson (who plays himself) and Robert Downey Jr, which was pretty funny considering the state of affairs those two are in :-)
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Komodo: Gotta love Midnight Madness screenings. Even awful monster-movies like Komodo are fun to watch at 12pm with a large group of pumped up people. The action starts early which is nice, and you dont have to wait till the end to see the Lizard. Other than that, not much else to really redeem this one. Still, it was a good time!
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Wonderland: Michael Winterbottom is becoming one of my favorite directors. I loved Jude, and really enjoyed Welcome to Sarejevo, and this one is another winner.
Totally unlike either of those two movies, this one is a small pseudo-documentary about a fractured family. In some ways its reminiscent to julian donkey-boy, albiet much more conventional (which is not a bad thing in this case). It follows the lives of the family and others over 4 days (marked with title cards, "Thursday", "Friday", etc) which turns out to be a fairly pivotal 4 days for all of them. Some characters relationships are immediately defined, others are revealed gradually. (In fact, one is revealed only in the final scene of the movie.)
The movie is also meant to be a depiction of London life, specifically London nightlife. In this, the movie shines. Shot with minimal equipment and real locations (Dogme95-ish, although not as stripped down), the city becomes as much a character as any of the people do. In particular, every day is concluded with a montage of the city that evokes the mood of that day for the characters. The soundtrack used over these montages was perfect.
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Well, thats it for now. I'll be back on Sunday with the rest of my movies. I think I'll also rank them relative to one another, from best to worst. I'm pretty sure Deterrance will be at the top of that list. I would have seen it twice if the second time wasnt at 9am :-)
Buck.
