Hey folks, Harry here and the lovely Princess Buttercup has provided us with a quick look at a pair of films she saw yesterday at the Toronto International Film Festival... First is PASSION PLAY starring Mickey Rourke, Bill Murray and Megan Fox - and it sounds weird - and I love weird. Then the other film she saw was James Gunn's SUPER - which sounds amazing. Really want to see that soon! If you're seeing anything at Toronto and wish to share - Email your reviews here and we'll get them up! Here ya go...
Hi Harry, Saw two movies yesterday - Passion Play: This was a weird movie. I was braced for a total train wreck but I don't think it's really bad, it's just weird. I think the runtime is 1.5 hrs but it definitely felt longer. Mickey Rourke as an aging jazz trumpeter, Megan Fox as a girl with wings, Bill Murray as a gangster and the relationship between the three - that's basically the entire plot there. The movie is mostly Mickey, you don't see a lot of Bill and Megan Fox does just fine with her role. There isn't a lot she has to do, frankly. She's well-cast as a girl who everyone wants to stare at and she I thought she was believable showing the vulnerability of this winged girl, a circus freak who runs away with Mickey Rourke and sees the world for the first time. But that points to the strange thing about the movie: I felt like I was watching an idea more so than an actual movie (oddly this feeling actually sort of makes sense if you see how the movie plays out - there is a bit of a surprise in it). The movie feels like it's skimming the surface, we don't really learn too much about the characters, we just see how they interact. Rhys Ifans as the circus owner, Megan's self-proclaimed dad, was the most interesting character, he was the only one who seemed full of life. The movie is as weird as the description makes it sound. I saw one couple walk out but otherwise most of the audience stuck around - although, with only one question during Q&A maybe everyone was wondering the same thing as me - where the hell did this movie come from? I wouldn't go out of my way to see this, I have no idea who the target audience for this might be, I can't help it, I keep coming back to "weird" as the thing that jumps out about this movie. Super: Shit, this movie was awesome. Rainn Wilson was awesome as a sad, loser-ish everyman who snaps after evil Kevin Bacon steals his wife (Liv Tyler) and decides to become a superhero. Ellen Page is equally awesome as his extremely eager sidekick. Wasn't sure at first why this was at TIFF, much less at Midnight Madness, but there is ample gore, brains and blood. With hysterical one-liners, visions from God and some actual depth to the characters, it was a bit surprising to find out that the film didn't have a distributor yet. Definitely go and see this if you get a chance, it's a really fun film with great acting and a strong script - you get enough ridiculousness to make it fun (fantastic superhero opening credits btw) but the story and the actors and script keep bringing it back to a level which makes it still surprisingly relatable to the everyday messes we go through in life. Totally satisfying on so many levels. If you use this, call me Princess Buttercup.
