TIFF Wrap-Up

Friday, September 13, 2013

TIFF Wrap-Up

So, although there are three full days left in the festival, my TIFF experience for 2013 is done. Over the course of 5 days (really 3 full days, and 2 half days) I watched 17 films – ranging from horrible to masterpiece. The best thing about TIFF is also the worst thing – the sheer size of it. Because they play well over 200 features a year, you know some movies are going to be great – and some will be awful. It’s not unfair to say that TIFF will play pretty much anything that has any sort of star power attached to it – but they also play movies that are unlikely to find distribution anywhere else. You can have any sort of festival experience you want. You want stars? They have stars. You want Avant-Garde? They got that too. Documentaries, crazy cult movies, slow moving foreign films and everything in between, TIFF has it. Having been burned too many times by picking movies based on stars or a short write up by TIFF, I’ve learned to mainly stick to known qualities – films that have either played at other festivals, and thus, have been reviewed – or by directors I know and love. I do try and get a bit of everything at TIFF – and this year, I think I did that. And overall, this was one of my most enjoyable TIFF experiences ever – 17 movies, only three of them I would describe as bad, only one more that I was disappointed in, even if it wasn’t that bad, and everything else, I was glad I saw – even if I didn’t love them. So, without further delay, let’s have a look back at what I saw this year at TIFF. No, I didn’t see all of the big ones – really only two of the HUGE buzz movies this year, but a whole lot of interesting films. I’ll start with the worst, end with the best, and get to the rest somewhere in the middle (but no, the order of the films isn’t really meant to be a ranking in any definitive way).

The worst film I saw at TIFF this year was clearly James Franco’s Child of God. I was nervous about this film – mainly because I haven’t heard many good things about Franco’s previous directing efforts, and because it’s based on a Cormac McCarthy novel – who can be difficult to adapt – I wasn’t sure an inexperienced director like Franco was up for it. I was, unfortunately, correct. Franco strains for authenticity throughout the movie – set in the poor, rural South, but everything about the movie rings false. His attempt at realism is undermined by the appearance of a well-known actor like Tim Blake Nelson, mugging his was through a role as Sheriff, and in a small role, Franco himself. They simply do not fit in with the more grizzled faces Franco has throughout. And Franco, although you can tell he’s trying, cannot get past his literature major sensibility – seriously, I didn’t need to see actual passages from the novel on screen. And Franco has trouble with the more disturbing moments in the novel – which involves necrophilia – never making them as disturbing as they should be (some of the scenes border of being unintentionally comical). Perhaps all of this could have overcome if the lead performance, by Scott Haze, was great – but it isn’t. I give Haze full marks for going all out for the role – but there is never moment in the film when Haze isn’t ACTING – he never disappears into the role, and goes so wildly over the top it’s distracting. As a directing and writing effort, it’s not going to do Franco any favors – and while I know some loved Haze, I’m not convinced.

Another horrible, Southern film was Atom Egoyan’s Devil’s Knot. Based on the infamous West Memphis Three case, there was some question as to whether after 4 documentaries, and countless TV specials, if there was anything new Egoyan could do with the material. Sadly, the answer is no. Still, Devil’s Knot could have been good, had Egoyan and his screenwriters known what the most interesting parts of the movie were. Had he concentrated on a town in the grip of Satanic Panic, he could have made a fine, if unoriginal, film. The best performances in the movie are the supporting ones – often with only a scene or two. Mirelle Enos as a woman who goes “undercover” for the cops, Dane DeHaan as a screwed up kid who confesses, and recants, but is never charged and best of all Kevin Durand as John Mark Byers (well known to people who have seen the Paradise Lost films) are all wonderful – but shunted to the background, in favor of Colin Firth’s investigator, Reese Witherspoon’s grieving mother, and Alessandro Nivola, as her husband. Firth seems as asleep in front of the camera as Egoyan is behind it, Witherspoon is practically schizophrenic in the films first half, bouncing from loopy to monotone, and then spends the second half lookly continually shocked, and Nivola (who plays the person many now believe committed the murders) does everything except twirl his mustache. Whether Egoyan is having trouble finding funding for more personal projects, or else he’s simply out of ideas, Devil’s Knot is the second major disappointment in a row from him – following the remake Chloe.

The third film I really didn’t like was Ralph Fiennes’ The Invisible Woman, about the affair between Charles Dickens (Fiennes himself) and the much younger Nelly Ternan (Felcity Price). The film is handsomely mounted, but dramatically inert. Fiennes makes Dickens into an overgrown child, with no real depth – it’s hard to reconcile this man with the genius writer. Price is given little to do but stand around a look pretty. Worse, there’s no chemistry between them. The best performance in the movie is by Joanna Scanlan, as Dickens’ long suffering wife, who he casually, cruelly tosses aside for Nelly – she’s the real invisible woman in the film, and Fiennes doesn’t realize that. If you’re selling the movie as one of the “greatest romances of all time”, then there should be some passion to it – and The Invisible Woman has none.

Xavier Dolan’s Tom at the Farm is far better than those three films, but still ranks as a disappointment. The Quebec wunderkind, who at 24 has already directed 4 films – continues his tour of different genres to see what he likes best – this time, it’s a thriller. There’s nothing wrong with that, and Dolan proves adept at building tension in the film, and benefits greatly from the wonderful, crazy score by Gabriel Yared, doing a riff on Bernard Hermann. The problem is, once Dolan sets up his movie – about a gay man who travels to rural Quebec for his boyfriend’s funeral, and has to lie to his mother, who didn’t know her late son was gay, and be abused by his older brother – the film doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s all setup, and no payoff. I kept waiting for the film to reach high gear, and then it was over. Dolan is still a talent to watch, but Tom at the Farm isn’t a step forward for him.

There were two slow moving foreign films – both of which I   admired more than I actually liked, but for vastly different reasons. The first was Mohammad Rasolof’s Manuscripts Don’t Burn. You cannot help but admire Rasolof – he’s been banned from making film in his native Iran, and made the film anyway. His entire cast and crew had to remain anonymous to avoid persecution. And the film is widely critical of Iran – as it recounts the censorship of Iranian intellectuals, including the 1995 case where they tried to kill 25 intellectuals by driving the bus they were driving off a cliff, and their attempts to cover it up – even years later. What’s most interesting is that Rasolof portrays one of the killers in his film completely sympathetically – he’s just a guy trying to support his very sick son. The movie contains some stunning sequences, as powerful as anything I saw this year, but is also slowly paced, repetitive, with acting ranging from bad to mediocre (probably because pros wouldn’t do the film). I admire the effort more than the result – but damn, do I admire the effort.

The other film I admired more than liked was Philip Groning’s The Police Officers Wife. Groning’s last film, the documentary Into Great Silence (2005) was hugely acclaimed in cinephile circles, and since he hasn’t made a film since – or a fiction film in even longer – the film qualifies as a major event for some. The film is a slow moving, 3 hour, 59 chapter portrait of a family’s implosion due to domestic violence. The film is filled with long takes, with little or no camera movement, and builds slowly. The fact that Groning adds in a title card announcing the beginning and end of each chapter – some last mere seconds, some up to 10 minutes – slows things down even more. Yet, after a while, I fell into the films rhythm, and by the end of the film, I was transfixed. Still, it took a long time to get there. I cannot imagine the audience for the film, but even if I never want to see the film again, I’m glad I saw it here, in a theater, where there was no pause I could use to escape.

John Krokidas’ debut film Kill Your Darlings, is a definite mixed bag, but when the film works, it’s very good. The film is about the birth of the Beat movement, with a young Alan Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe – surprisingly good) falling hard for Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan – mesmerizing, and as always, better than the film he’s in). The problem is that Carr already has an admirer – the older David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) – who he kills, and claims it was an “honor killing” – in that Kammerer is a homosexual, who wouldn’t leave the straight Carr alone. The truth is, of course, more complex than that. The rest of the casting is a mixed bag. Ben Foster is too subdued (that’s a first) as William S. Burroughs, and Jack Huston never quite convinces as Jack Kerouac. Still, the film is a fascinating coming of age story, and proves that Radcliffe should be able to move past Potter – and confirms that DeHaan is a talent to watch.

Speaking of uneven acting showcases, there was August: Osage County, which proved to be a divisive film at this year’s festival. While I certainly have my issues with the film – Abigail Breslin, Dermont Mulroney, Ewan McGregor and especially Benedict Cumberbatch are miscast, and the cuts director John Wells made to Tracy Letts brilliant play seem to have been designed to make Julia Roberts character more sympathetic (also the point, I think, of the horrible final scene, that wasn’t in the play – which even Wells thinks may not make it to the theatrical version, and we can all hope that’s true), which in some ways misses the point, I think. And as a director, Wells doesn’t really do anything with the material, except let the actors rip into the dialogue – a better director, like William Friedkin who directed two excellent Letts adaptation would have helped. And yet, you can still place me firmly in the “pro” camp for the film. Meryl Streep nails Violet, the foul mouthed, cruel matriarch – complain she goes over the top if you must, but the role pretty much demands that she does. Roberts, surprisingly, more than holds her own – she doesn’t shirk away from the uglier material (hearing her saying the infamous line “Eat the fish, bitch!” to Streep was a highlight.) Margo Martindale, Chris Cooper, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepherd and Juliette Lewis also pretty much nail their roles. Poor Misty Upton is probably the biggest victim of trimming the three hour play, as she’s shunted even more to the background than her character already was – and it should also be said that while McGregor is miscast, many of his characters best moments are also cut (that goes back to trying to make Roberts character more sympathetic). Yes, the movie is lighter than the play – but the play was always a pitch black comedy about a dysfunctional family. And watching these actors relish the roles was mostly a joy. Not a perfect adaptation of a brilliant play – but then again, few are.

Acting also elevated David Gordon Green’s Joe – his best film in many years. After more than few years of horrible paycheck roles, Nicolas Cage once again proves why, when he wants to be, he’s one of the best actors in the world. He plays the title character – an alcoholic, with a violent past, who is trying desperately to hold everything together. It’s the type of role that once you see Cage in it, you cannot imagine another actor pulling the role off. Equally good is young Tye Sheridan, as the young man Joe takes under his wing. And Gary Poulter, a real homeless man Green cast as Sheridan’s father, is brilliant as well. If the plot sounds a little like Jeff Nichols Mud – also starring Sheridan – the similarities are superficial, as Nichols was basically making a fairy tale, and Green is much more interested in making a down, dirty, violent, Southern film, with hints of Malick. The film verges on poverty porn at times – and like all of Green’s films, he falters a little when he has to impose a plot on characters who don’t really need one. But much more than Prince Avalanche, Joe proves Green still has the chops he showed in first few movies – and it’s always a good thing when Cage comes out of paycheck hibernation to deliver this type of performance.

A surprising performance by Jesse Eisenberg highlights Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves – her most accessible film to date, as it takes the form of a thriller, but still undeniably one of her films as it is a slow burn thriller, about people outside mainstream society. This time, it’s a trio of eco-terrorists, played by Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard. The first half has them plan and carry out an attack on a dam, and the second half details the nasty fallout of their plan. Eisenberg’s performance is completely unexpected, in that the man known for motor mouth roles like The Social Network stays largely silent in this film – and he nails it. Fanning is excellent in the film’s first half, as is Sarsgaard, but they are both relegated to the background in the film’s second half, which mainly focuses on Eisenberg. I don’t think the film is quite up to the level of Reichardt’s best films – Old Joy, Wendy & Lucy or Meek’s Cutoff – but it’s close, and if it brings her more of an audience, all the better.

If Eisenberg delivered the most surprising performance I saw, than Donald Rumsfeld delivered the least surprising one in Errol Morris’ newest documentary The Unknown Known. The film is an obvious companion piece of Morris’ The Fog of War, which was a feature about Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War, who in the 30 years between the war and the movie, had much time to ruminant on mistakes and errors, and while he may not be overly apologetic, he at least has self-awareness, and the ability to be honest. Rumsfeld seems to have neither, as he hides behind semantics, and when he’s caught in a lie, simply tells another one without missing a beat. I don’t think we’ve heard Morris’ voice, behind that infamous camera, more in any other movie he’s directed – and that’s because he’s constantly has to be challenging everything Rumsfeld is saying. The film isn’t as great as The Fog of War – because the subject isn’t as co-operative, but Morris still crafts a fascinating movie about the man who led America to war. It won’t change your mind on Rumsfeld, but it’s still a very good doc.

The biggest directorial “discovery” for me at the festival was Jeremy Saulnier, who directed the excellent revenge movie Blue Ruin (for those wondering, this wasn’t on my preview, but because of a scheduling conflict, I had to switch out Omar for this). I didn’t see Saulnier’s debut film – Murder Party – which was apparently a horror comedy. There is nothing funny about Blue Ruin, a violent, bloody movie about a man (the excellent Macon Blair), who has spent the last 20 years living out of his car since his parents were murdered. When their killer is freed, he sets out to get revenge – and sets off a series of bloody events, where the family secrets of both his family, and those of the murderer, are revealed. Saulnier twists the typical revenge format enough to make the movie feel original and exciting, but not so much that it’s gets into clever for clever sake territory. Blair does kill a lot of people, but he doesn’t suddenly become Rambo or anything – his kills are clumsy, he screws up several times, and when he shot with an arrow, and tries to take care of it himself, he finds he cannot do it (it also inspired my favorite line in any movie I saw this year, when he was asked about the blood on his pants, and he responds “It’s an arrow (sigh), wound”). The film may not quite be A History of Violence, but it comes as close as possible for a micro budgeted indie movie (he funded it using Kickstarter) – and definitely marks him as someone to watch.

A great rediscovery was Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazer, who hasn’t made a film since 2004’s Birth, of which I was a big fan (as I was of his debut – Sexy Beast). The film has already proved to be divisive – and inspired more walkouts than any other film I saw at TIFF (surprising, since I would have thought that would be The Police Officer’s Wife). But this visually stunning, audacious art film, with a brilliant performance by Scarlett Johansson as an alien, usually her sexual wiles to lure men to their deaths, is the type of film that demands to be seen. As it was my fifth film of the day, I already know I need to see it again to fully take it all in, but I will say that the film had some of the most stunning, unforgettable and downright terrifying imagery of any film I saw at TIFF (the shot of a toddler, alone on a beach, struggling to stand will haunt me forever). Glazer has gotten more daring with each passing film, and although the film makes a wrong turn or two in the final act, this is ambitious, audacious filmmaking at its finest.

Fans of anime master Hayao Miyazaki were all saddened during the Venice Film Festival when it confirmed The Wind Rises would be his final film as a director – and rightly so, as Miyazaki gets my vote for the best director or animation in cinema history. They will be gladdened to know however that while The Wind Rises is not quite the masterpiece that Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away were, this is still one of his best films – a visually stunning piece about a Japanese aeronautical engineer in the years between 1918 and WWII, who moves Japan to the forefront of technology. Some have complained that Miyazaki should have shown what the Japanese did with his planes – using them as weapons of war – and that’s bullshit, since one of the themes of the movie is the conflict between his desire to make beautiful planes, and the purposes those planes are used for. A fairer complaint would be about the romance that Miyazaki adds into the movie, although even this makes The Wind Rises more emotional than it would be otherwise. No, there are no mystical creatures or lands that Miyazaki is known for, but this is still a stunning animated film that puts ever other animated film I’ve seen in the past few years to shame.

The Cannes critical hit Stranger by the Lake by Alain Guiraudie deserved all the praise it received at that festival. A brilliant, tense, Hitchcockian thriller, the film will be off putting for some as it contains the most graphic gay sex scenes you could see outside of a porn film. But those scenes are not there for shock value – but to deepen the movie as a whole. The film is about a gay cruising spot – a beautiful beach in the South of France, where men come to sunbath naked, swim, and go off into the woods for anonymous sex. Franck meets two men at the beach he’s drawn to in radically different ways – the older, chubbier, sexually confused Henri, who he shares a real connection with, but isn’t sexually attracted to, and Michel, a muscular, mustachioed man he immediately lusts after – and that lust does not diminish when he witnesses, from a distance, Michel drowning his lover in the lake – in fact, it only enhances his attraction. As their “relationship” develops, Franck finds himself both addicted to Michel, and afraid he’ll also end up dead – leading to a terrifying climax, and an ambiguous ending. Those scared away by some gay sex, will miss out on one of the best films of the year.

Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity is likely to be the most visually stunning film of the year. His penchant for long takes is on full display, and the use of visual effects and 3-D ranks among the best I have ever seen. The movie, about a pair of astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) who get cut off from their ship and have to struggle their way back, is a mesmerizing visual experience from start to finish – and may well represent the best work of Bullock’s career. Some will complain that the movie is all about its technical prowess, and less about story, and that’s not entirely unfair, although I did find that Bullock grounded the movie on a relatable, emotional level, that really made you care about her character, and the film is such a dazzling technical achievement that it demands to be seen – on the biggest screen possible (this is the type of movie I don’t know if it will work on a TV screen) – and is easily one of the best films of the year. It took Cuaron a long time to follow-up Children of Men, but damn it, it was worth it.

Jia Zhang-ke’s brilliant A Touch of Sin is somewhat a departure for him, as it is an extremely violent film, and was inspired, visually, by Wuxia cinema of China’s past, but it is still very much a Jia Zhang-ke film, as it addresses the same issues of his other great films – including Platform, Unknown Pleasures, The World and Still Life. The film is a quartet of stories, based on real life events, about the seemingly rise of random violence in China – and as Jia makes clear in the movie, the violence can be directly tied to China’s changing economic landscape. The stories involve an angry man, who is tired of his village being exploited by a greedy mining company, and decides to take matters into his own hands, a bored man who stays away from his family for months on end, and makes his living killing and robbing people, a put upon woman, trapped as a mistress to a wealthy man, who finally snaps at her job at a spa, and a man who bounces from one job to the next, never being able to find something he’s good at, that allows him to make enough money, or avoid heartbreak. The film is shockingly bloody and violent, but never exploitive, and to me represents the pinnacle in an already brilliant directing career. Some people go to Festivals like Toronto, wanting to see this year’s big Oscar films – and yes, some of the film I saw there will likely be nominated for Oscars (or at least try to be), but a film like A Touch of Sin will come nowhere close to being an “Oscar movie”, but will last long after most people have forgotten what won this year. It is, simply put, a masterpiece.

My Mini TIFF Preview

Sunday, September 1, 2013

My Mini TIFF Preview

I have been going to TIFF since 2005 – although that first year, I only saw four films. Starting in 2006, I have taken the week off of work, and tried to see as many films as possible. Since my daughter was born two years ago, I’ve had to cut back slightly (and a special thanks to my wonderful wife for being a single parent for a week every year), but I continue to go. Usually, I don’t go much during the first few days of the Festival – that’s when the Fest is at its busiest, and everything seems to be running late, etc. What this means is that I always miss many of the highest profile films at the Festival, which seems to become increasingly front loaded every year. This year is no exception – I’ll be going from Sunday to Thursday this year – (although the first and last days are really part days) and seeing 17 films. Yes, I miss some of the high profile ones –, but my theory is, who cares? It’s not that I don’t want to see them, just that I know I will get to see them, and soon. For instance, I really want to see Dennis Villenueve’s Prisoners – but the film opens wide on September 20^th. Do I really need to spend my time at the festival seeing this? This year, I am going to see a few high profile films that I know I could see by the end of the year. The rest are smaller or foreign or docs or don’t yet have distribution, etc. I like an eclectic mix of films, and I like to see as many different kinds as I can during my Festival days. As always, some will be great, some terrible, I’ll most likely come home exhausted, and with a cold (I’ve never NOT gotten a cold at TIFF – a byproduct of spending so much time alternating between standing in line on sidewalks, sometimes in the rain, and in air conditioned theaters). And as always, it will likely be one of my favorite weeks of the year.

Without further ado, here are the 17 I will be seeing at TIFF this year.

August: Osage County (John Wells)

Yes, I could wait a few months and see this in theaters, but I couldn’t help myself. I saw Tracy Letts brilliant play on Broadway a few years ago, and it remains my favorite live theater going experience of my life (not that there’s all that much to choose from). The director has me worried – TV Vet Wells only has one feature directing credit, the decidedly average The Company Men (2010), and I really wish they would have hired William Friedkin, who did Letts proud with Bug and Killer Joe. Yet, Letts adapted his own play, and for the most part, the cast is great. No, I’ve never been a big fan of Julia Roberts, and wish Amy Morton (who OWNED the role on Broadway could have kept the lead) – but when you have Meryl Streep, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis (who is PERFECT for her role), Abigail Breslin, Dermont Mulroney, Sam Sheppard, Chris Cooper, Misty Upham and Juliette Nicholson as the rest of the cast, I’m not too worried. The trailer makes this seem much more comedic and lightweight than the play – but since when can you trust trailers? This one has me excited and extremely nervous at the same time.

Child of God (James Franco)

Modern day renaissance man James Franco adapts one of Cormac McCarthy’s darkest novels (and that’s saying something) with Child of God, about a man cut off from society, as he devolves into a life of crime. I haven’t seen Franco’s other directing work – his Faulkner adaptation As I Lay Dying got decidedly mixed reviews at Cannes this year – but McCarthy is one of my favorite authors, and Child of God is one of his few novels that should lend itself to a cinematic adaptation. And Franco was smart enough to not cast himself in the lead role – that goes to Scott Haze, an actor I am not familiar with. The one review out of Venice that I’ve seen – after I picked the movie – was pretty bad, but I’m willing to take a chance on anything associated with McCarthy, so let’s see how this goes.

Devil’s Knot (Atom Egoyan)

A last minute addition – got free tickets from work and the screening time worked out perfectly. Egoyan’s latest is about the West Memphis Three – and although we already have four very good documentaries about the case (the Paradise Lost trilogy, and last year’s West Memphis Three), there is plenty of material here to make a good dramatic movie. I’m not sure what to expect – unsurprisingly, the bigger stars like Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth, who play the parents of the victims or other roles – are listed before the people play the West Memphis Three themselves. Egoyan has fallen out of favor with many since his career high of The Sweet Hereafter (1997) – although I would argue that Felcia’s Journey (1999) and Where the Truth Lies (2005) are among his best, and even Ararat (2002) and Adoration (2008) aren’t as bad as their reputation suggests (I make no excuses for Chloe from 2009 – that movie sucked). As a Canadian, I’m always interested in Egoyan, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)

The other title I could see if I waited awhile, but cannot bring myself to do so. Alfonso Cuaron’s last film, Children of Men (2006) is a dystopian masterpiece, and I’ve waited far too long already for his follow-up. This is a long time passion project, that has had its release date moved a couple of times, as Cuaron worked long and hard editing it. The preview is brilliant – and the word out of Venice is already great. I’m not a big fan of Sandra Bullock – but I am of Cuaron, and that more than makes up for it. The preview tells you all you need to know I think – Bullock is an astronaut, who while on a spacewalk has an accident that sees her adrift in space. George Clooney co-stars. Yes, I could have waited until October – no, I had no interest in doing so, since this was one of my most anticipated films of the year – and the reviews out of Venice and Telluride have been amazing, so I think I made the right call.

The Invisible Woman (Ralph Fiennes)

I was a big fan of Fiennes’ directorial debut – Coriolanus – a few years ago, which for my money is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations in recent memory, and quite daring in many ways. This one – about Charles Dickens (Fiennes) and his long term affair with a much younger woman (Felicity Jones) seems a little more subdued and conventional – the reviews I’ve seen out of Venice and Telluride have been respectful, but not much more. To be honest, this was a “filler” pick – not one of my 10 first picks, but added to in a hole, when what I really wanted to see in that time slot was filled. Still, Fiennes is a fine actor, and a promising director, so while I’m not dying to see it, I’m still very curious.

Joe (David Gordon Green)

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am huge fan of David Gordon Green’s first four films – George Washington, All the Real Girls, Undertow and Snow Angels, and even liked his first mainstream effort – Pineapple Express. I’ve also made no secret of the fact that I was hugely disappointed with his two other mainstream films – Your Highness and The Sitter. Green did somewhat return to form this year with Prince Avalanche (which I saw this weekend – review coming soon), and this film starring Nicolas Cage, as an ex-con who meets a teenage boy. Yes, it kind of sounds like this year’s Mud (and even stars the same teenage boy – the immensely talented Tye Sheridan) – but if Green is returning to his old style, I still cannot wait to see this one. And while Cage excels in going wildly over the top, it’s easy to forget just how damn good he can be in the right role. Reviews out of Venice have been mixed – but that’s better than some of what Green has done recently, so I’m still looking forward to this one.

Kill Your Darlings (John Krokidas)

This film got some very good reviews out of Sundance this year – and the subject matter interests me – so this was a perfect “filler” movie for me. The film is about the early days of the Beat poets – focusing on the murder of David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) by Lucien Carr (the immensely talented, up and coming actor Dane DeHaan) – and what it meant for the group. Featuring Daniel Radcliffe as Alan Ginsberg, Ben Foster as William S. Burroghs and Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac – and a supporting cast including Elisabeth Olson, David Cross, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kyra Sedgwick – this one has so far almost been universally regarded as better than Walter Salles’ On the Road from last year (and I liked that more than some did), so I’m very much looking forward to it, even though the director is a first timer.

Manuscripts Don't Burn (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Manuscripts Don't Burn garnered praise and controversy when it played at Cannes this year. The film is about censorship in Iran - and details the failed assassination attempt of 21 writers and journalists in that country in 1995. Not surprisingly, Iran wasn't happy with the film - none of Rasoulof's films have been allowed to be released in Iran yet, and this one certainly won't either, as like fellow countryman Jafar Panahi, he has been banned from making movies (and like Panahi, makes them anyway). This was a last minute filler choice for me - I got nervous that The Wind Rises and A Touch of Sin were too close to each other, so I traded for a different show of A Touch of Sin, and unfortunately had to drop Paradise: Hope, for this one. The reviews from Cannes were respectful – admiring the intent, and what he went through to make the film, perhaps more than the film itself. Still, respect has to be paid to a man willing to risk his freedom for the movies he wants to make.
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt)Kelly Reichardt’s last three films have all been small scale, intimate and brilliant. Old Joy (2006) re-established her as a director to watch – and the heartbreaking Wendy & Lucy (2008), and minimalist Western Meek’s Cutoff (2010) – which I saw at TIFF that year - confirmed that talent. This film – about three environmentalists (Jesse Eisenberg, Peter Sarsgaard and Dakota Fanning) who plot to blow up a dam(so no, this isn’t a remake of the great 1975 noir by Arthur Penn, although that would be cool) – sounds like her biggest effort to date. The reviews out of Venice do suggest that it’s her most mainstream film – a thriller – to date, but still very much one of her films – and are also very good so far. I’ll see anything by Reichardt, and the reviews make me think I choose right.

Omar (Hany Abu-Assad)

Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now was controversial for many – as it was a sympathetic portrait of Palestinian suicide bombers – but I found that film to be intense and thoughtful – much more complex than its critics gave it credit for. Since that 2005, he has been a part of two omnibus films (unseen by me) and the English language, direct-to-video The Courier with Mickey Rourke (also unseen by me). This film returns him to Palestine – and controversy – although the film did win a prize in the Un Certain Regard competition at Cannes this year. As someone who quite liked Paradise Now, I’m interested in his newest film in the region – which made this an easy “filler” choice.

The Police Officer’s Wife (Philip Groning)

I try to take a few chances at TIFF every year – and this is what The Police Officer’s Wife represents to me this year. Phillip Groning got a lot of acclaim for his documentary – Into Great Silence (2005) – although it remains unseen by me. In fact, all of his films have remain unseen by me. This one, which debuted at Venice – as already been called harrowing, slow, pretentious, violent, brilliant, - and sometimes all in the same review. 175 minutes long, broken up into 59 “chapters” this could either be a very long, slow, painful sit – or a masterwork. I won’t know until I see it – and I’m looking forward to finding out.

Stranger By the Lake (Alain Guiraudie)

This film, which has been described by some as a Hitchcock-like thriller with gay sex – became one of critical favorites at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Directing prize in the Un Certain Regard section. For many who didn’t care for Palme D’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color, about lesbians, this was the film they embraced instead – and called the festival hypocrites for putting attractive lesbians in the main competition, and gay men in the sidebar.  Obviously, I have no opinion on either film, or look forward to both, but color me intrigued by this one.

Tom at the Farm (Xavier Dolan)

Xavier Dolan has to be tired of being called a “wunderkind” – but when you’re in your early 20s, and have already made three acclaimed films, that’s what you get. I was a fan of his debut, I Killed My Mother, and its follow-up, Heartbeats – although the three hour running time has prevented me from seeing Laurence Anyways to this point (I need to correct that). His latest is only 95 minutes – and is a genre he hasn’t worked in before – a thriller. The one review out of Venice that I’ve read is respectful – comparing the film to the work of Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, the Ripley books) – which is high praise to me. As much as I liked his first two films, I still feel that they are the films of a director who is going to get even better with time – so I’m going to continue to follow him.

A Touch of Sin (Jia Zhangke)

This is the film that more than anything I wanted to ensure I saw at this year’s festival – because although Jia Zhangke is one of the most acclaimed directors on the planet, you can never tell if his films will actually get a release in North America. The film won the screenplay prize at Cannes this year, and was a big critical hit. The film seems more mainstream than much of Zhangke’s work – a quartet of stories about violence in modern China. Other than that, I don’t know much – which is by design, as I don’t want to know too much about it – but anything by Jia Zhangke is a must see, although often it’s hard to see them.

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)

Like everyone, I highly Jonathan Glazer’s debut film – Sexy Beast – especially Ben Kingsley (should have been) Oscar winning performance as the bad guy. And you can count me in the half of people who think his follow-up, Birth, is even better (the other half, of course, think it’s pretentious shit). Why it’s taken him 9 years to follow that film up, I have no idea, but this film – about an alien in the form of Scarlett Johansson who travels through Scotland studying people – sounds fascinating, and is based on an acclaimed novel (unread by me – but not for long). As far as I know, the film hasn’t been picked up for North American release yet – but it’s still one of my most anticipated films – and the reviews out of Telluride makes me believe I’m not wrong to have high expectations.

The Unknown Known (Errol Morris)

I remember discussing Morris’ brilliant, Oscar winning doc The Fog of War (2004) with a friend who said that he found it hard to believe that then current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would ever be as candid an interview subject as Robert McNamara was in that film. Well, we’re about to find out if that’s true or not, as Morris’ latest film is a feature length film on Rumsfeld with the main attraction being the man himself. Anything by Morris is worth seeing, and you know he won’t lob softball questions at Rumsfeld. Morris’ infamous shooting style has a way of exposing the truth in his interview subjects – even if they’re lying. The first reviews suggest it’s not as good as The Fog of War, because Rumsfeld remains more elusive than McNamara – but we already expected that, right?

The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki)

The greatest director of animation in cinema history returns with his latest film –and since he’s well into his 70s, we never know if it will be his last (he announced his retirement today, but he’s done that before) – which is already a huge hit in Japan, and a hugely controversial film. The film is about a man who designs fighter planes for Japan in WWII – and has led some in Japan to call Miyazaki a traitor. I doubt that highly – but I do know that Miyazaki is one of the greatest directors in history, and every time he directs a film, it is an event in my household at least. I cannot wait for this one.

My TIFF Recap

Friday, September 14, 2012

My TIFF Recap

This year at TIFF for me is over – after 4 days and 13 films, I proved if nothing else, that I am getting old. So old in fact that I didn’t make it through either of my Midnight Madness screenings – The Lords of Salem and Aftershock – without falling asleep. So while what I saw made me wish I had stayed awake, I cannot in good faith review either film. I will give some brief thoughts on the other 11 though – in the rambling paragraphs below. While this year at TIFF, I didn’t see many “bad” films, I only saw one film that I would deem truly “great” – although another has greatness in it despite its flaws. I talk about the film below in no particular order – although the first film discussed was my least favorite, and the final two undeniably the best I saw.

My biggest disappointment was Brandon Cronenberg’s Antiviral a film that you have to admire the effort more than the execution. Cronenberg, David’s son, certainly has talent behind the camera – the movie is filled with memorable images, and the basic premise of the movie – that in the near future our culture’s celebrity fixation will get out of control with people wanting the same viruses that celebrities have, and even consume their cloned flesh, is an interesting one. But Cronenberg, who adapted his own short Broken Tulips to feature length, just doesn’t have enough to sustain a feature film here – and it doesn’t help that Caleb Landry Jones, who he cast in the lead is morose and uninteresting. Perhaps Cronenberg, who cast Sarah Gadon as the personification of female perfection after seeing her in Daddy’s A Dangerous Method, should have tried to get her Cosmopolis co-star Robert Pattinson for the lead. I may be one of the few who like Cosmopolis, but I think Pattinson proved there he could play this kind of dead inside “emotional vampire” well – whereas Jones’ performance pretty much sinks this movie. Still, I want to see what Cronenberg Jr. does next – although perhaps he should stay away from material his younger father would have done a lot better next time.

Ariel Vroman’s The Iceman had kind of the opposite problem – it was the film that they wanted to make, but it lacked any real ambition and adds nothing to the already crowded gangster genre. Michael Shannon is brilliant as Richard Kuklinski – the famed Iceman, a hit man for hire for the mob who killed perhaps more than 200 people in his life. I could complain about the factual inaccuracy of the movie – Kuklinski was a brute to his wife, not the loving family man we see here, and he was already a prolific serial killer before he became a mob hit man, but I see little point. Shannon is great as the crazed psychopath – not the jittery, paranoia he has done so well in the past, but a more contained fury. And the supporting cast – Ray Liotta as a mafia guy (naturally), Winona Ryder as Kuklinski’s clueless wife, James Franco in a one scene cameo as a sleazy porn director and especially Chris Evans as perhaps an even more psychopathic killer are all very good as well. I was never bored by The Iceman, but I was never truly involved either. There is a great movie in this material – and Shannon is capable of doing this role, but The Iceman was still a disappointment for me.

Not being a fan of his breakthrough film The Orphanage, I wasn’t sure what to expect from J. A. Bayona’s The Impossible, based on the unlikely true story of an English family on vacation in Thailand when the Tsunami of December 26, 2004 hit. The scenes of the tsunami itself, aided wonderfully by CGI and wonderful sound work, are brilliant – intense, brutal, bloody and scary. And the performances – by Naomi Watts as the determined mother who won’t give up no matter who injured she is, Ewan McGregor as the father, just as determined to get his family back, and young Tom Holland as the oldest son who has to act mature beyond his years, are all top notch. The movie plays well – and even got me crying a few times (I am a softy to be sure), but I have to admit that I felt bad that I let this movie, which is so blatantly emotionally manipulative get to me after it was over. The Impossible is very good while you are watching it, but fades quickly after. A technical achievement to be sure – and apparently they are gunning for Oscars with this which it very well may receive nominations for – but while I liked the film, I cannot say it’s a great one.

A film that does earn its immense emotional upheaval is Joshua Oppenheimer’s stunning, surreal documentary The Act of Killing. It’s no wonder that Errol Morris and especially Werner Herzog attached their names to this film after seeing it – it pushes the boundaries of documentary, and while some will either argue that the film is too easy on its subjects, or bring up ethical concerns, I had neither. The film is about the people the people who committed genocide in Indonesia in 1965-66 when the military orchestrated a coup – and wanted all the “communists” exterminated – although you were deemed a communist if you disagreed the coup, were in a union or were a native Chinese, or for a whole host of other “crimes”. The film centers on Anwar Congo, who has lived like a hero for decades after killing at least 100 people. Oppenheimer gets Congo and his friends to open up about what they did – which isn’t hard, they love to brag – and then gives them the means to “recreate” the torture and killings for the camera, using different Hollywood genres as their backdrop, since these killers were HUGE fans of American movies at the time. While it doesn’t seem like most of these people still have any regrets, Congo himself goes through a surprising personal upheaval – revealing his dreams and his guilt about what happened, and cannot go through with one scene where he has to play the “victim”. He’s still a murderer, and Oppenheimer shows this in ruthless detail, but he is also a human being, which Oppenheimer does not shy away from. Be sure to look for this film whenever it gets released.

A few directors had comebacks of sort at TIFF this year. After doing a couple of blockbusters, one good (Harry Potter) and one bad (Prince of Persia), Mike Newell returned to the type of movie he does best – classy, British productions with his adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. While he may not have added anything too new with this version, it is a fine production – great production design and costume design, in this film that seemed muddier, dirtier and crueler than other film versions. But he still hits the same problems many film adaptations of this novel hit – mainly that Pip and especially Estella are rather dull compared to everything around them. Still, Ralph Fiennes is wonderful as Magwich the convict (he seems to be channelling Daniel Day-Lewis in his early scenes), Robbie Coltrane great fun as Jaggers the lawyer, and Helena Bonham Carter goes wildly, inventively over the top as Miss Haversham – although one does wish this great actress took on a role that didn’t require Burton-esque theatrics from her. Fans of Dickens and this sort of classy production will love the film – the group of older women behind me raved about it after it was over – and for the rest of us, this is still an entertaining movie, even if it still doesn’t hold a candle to David Lean’s 1946 classic.

My most pleasant surprise was Brian De Palma’s Passion – his best film since Femme Fatale all the way in 2002. I had little hope for this film coming off of perhaps the worst film of his career – 2007’s Redacted – and a few negative reviews from its premier in Venice, but perhaps lowered expectations meant I liked the film more than I otherwise would have. It is true that many people will hate the film, and it does get off to a rocky start, but as the film moves along, and piles one absurd twist on top of the next, I was reminded more and more of De Palma’s thrillers from the 1970s and 80s, which didn’t necessarily depend on logic so much as style and keeping you guessing. True, Rachel McAdams as the mad bitch boss from hell is miscast, and perhaps so too is Noomi Rapace as her underling, who may or may not have taken deadly revenge (the best performance in the movie is clearly by Karoline Herfurth, as Rapace’s underling who comes out of nowhere and is stunning), but De Palma’s style is always the star, and the second half of the film has him at the height of his powers. It’s certainly not a new or original – and really doesn’t add anything to De Palma’s filmography, but I haven’t had this much fun at a De Palma film in a long time. You either go with this one or you don’t – I did, and had a blast. I understand why many will hate the film, and I cannot say that it’s really an objectively “good” movie, but on the level of guilty pleasure, this one worked for me.

A bigger comeback was made by Thomas Vinterberg, who made his best film since he breakthrough The Celebration in The Hunt. Again, this isn’t a great film, but it is a very good one with an excellent performance by Mads Mikkelsen as a kindergarten teacher falsely accused of molesting his students, and the consequences that comes along with that – even after he is cleared. Mikkelsen carries the movie, and if Vinterberg perhaps piles a little too much on top of him at times, he still manages to make you believe it all – at least during the runtime of the movie. Personally, I think the movie would have been better served by ending it a few scenes before Vinterberg does – with suspicious looks rather than overt action – but Vinterberg has crafted a gripping movie which may well figure in the Foreign Language Film Race, and possibly best actor as well.

You can’t really call Robert Redford’s The Company You Keep a comeback, since it fits in neatly with his two most recent films – Lions for Lambs and The Conspirator – as a fine, leftie political thriller. If the film becomes any kind of hit you can guarantee Fox News type using it as an example of how “out of touch” Hollywood is with America, but who cares? Redford’s film, about a member of the Weather Underground, played by Redford himself, who went underground 30 years ago and has his cover blown so he has to go on the run yet again is a top notch, classically structured thriller – with excellent performances by the entire cast. Redford still has some drawing power which is why the likes of Anna Kendrick, Brendan Gleason, Richard Jenkins, Susan Sarandon, Terrence Howard and most memorably Nick Nolte, spewing out every word as if it is his last, show up in tiny roles that add to the movie immeasurably. The three bigger roles – Redford himself, Shia LeBeaof, in his best work to date as an enterprising young reporter, and Julie Christie, as another underground fugitive, are also quite good. Again, not a great film, but a fine, old school political thriller – the type of film Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to make.

Laurent Cantet’s Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel, used non-professional, mostly Canadian teenage girls to play the title girl gang. Set in 1950s America, the “gang” starts innocently enough as these confused teenagers try to gain some control over their lives, their bodies and their sexuality – but then of course, things spiral out of control, and the gang gets in over their heads. Undeniably, the film is too long (at nearly two and half hours), but is always thought provoking and fascinating – and unlike a Hollywood production, these teenage girls are actually played by teenage girls - not hotties in their mid-20s – and who act like teenage girls. Like Cantet’s previous film, The Class, Foxfire gets amazingly natural performances from its non-professional cast, and feels like a real examination of the confusing teenage years – and acts as a corrective for so many films that simply see teenage girls as sex objects. The girls here are real, and that comes through in every frame. Yes, the film could stand to lose some of its running time, but that hardly diminishes its power.

Perhaps the most debated film I saw at this year’s festival will end up being Terrene Malick’s To the Wonder. This film has divided critics and audiences alike, even more so than Malick’s last film, the masterpiece The Tree of Life. To the Wonder is done in the same style as that film, but has a much smaller, simpler story – essentially the story of two people – Ben Affleck’s Oklahoma gas worker and Olga Kurylenko’s French free spirit – falling in love, falling out of love, and getting into a marriage both know is doomed before they even tie the knot. To me, this is Malick’s most problematic film. Even though Malick apparently cut out several subplots and supporting characters, he could have, and in my mind should have, cut even more. The subplot involving Javier Bardem’s priest struggling with his beliefs doesn’t feel like it belongs here – I know Malick is trying to tie together love and faith, but it doesn’t really hold together, and worse, some of the scenes with Bardem talking with the locals feels like Malick is looking down on these poor people. The other subplot – really an interlude – involves Affleck and Rachel McAdams, a woman he knew when he was younger, falling in love before he decides to leave her to returned to his doomed relationship with Kurylenko, doesn’t really feel natural either – it goes by far too quickly for it to build any real emotional impact, even though I think that Malick was trying to show how good a relationship could be. Yet, when the film focuses on Affleck and Kurylenko, the film is beautiful and quietly moving. Affleck, like many actors in Malick films, seems to have been cast more for his physical presence than anything else, and he is appropriately big, imposing and silent. It is Kurylenko who is the star here, and she gives an amazing performance as this woman adrift in a world she doesn’t know, having given up everything for him, and realizing it was all a big mistake. To the Wonder, like The Tree of Life, requires the viewer to meet Malick half way – you are either going to go with this film, let it drift over you, or fight it tooth and nail all the way through. While this is Malick’s most problematic film for me personally, it doesn’t mean it isn’t a beautiful film (Emmanuel Lubezki does more amazing things with the camera) and it still towers over what most other directors are attempting right now. It isn’t the masterpiece that The Tree of Life was, but that doesn’t mean it’s still very good nonetheless.

The one masterpiece I saw at TIFF was Michael Haneke’s Amour. I don’t buy what a lot of critics are saying about the film – that Haneke is showing his humanist side with this film. Depending on how you look at the film, Jean-Louis Trintignant is either a selfless man or one looking only to end his own suffering. Haneke’s films have always “punished” its characters, and by extension the audience, for their sins. It’s just this time, the only real sin his married couple has committed is growing old, which in some ways makes Amour an even crueler film than anything he has made before – and shows the audience just what is in store for them when the end inevitably comes. Yet, Amour is still a masterpiece – a brilliantly well made, and perfectly acted film by Trintignat and Emmanuelle Riva, as his wife who suffers a stroke and slowly deteriorates while he watches and takes care of her. It is a heartbreaking film as well – how can your heart break to watch suffering like this. Many may find Amour to be too claustrophobic for them – it happens almost entirely in the elderly couple’s apartment, but that is part of its brilliance. Haneke almost seems to be taking a page out of Roman Polanski’s book of confined spaces, but still filtered through Haneke’s worldview. Amour is a bleak film to be sure – but also a brilliant one.

A Few More Films I'm Seeing at TIFF

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

A Few More Films I'm Seeing at TIFF

A couple of weeks back I did my Mini TIFF Preview (http://davesmoviesite.blogspot.ca/2012/08/my-mini-tiff-2012-preview.html), about the 10 films I knew I would be seeing at this year's festival. Normally, I go to see between 25-30 films, but with a 1 year old at home, I can only go a few days this year. But I did have some holes to fill on those days, and this past Sunday, I was able to fill those holes with three additonal films. So unless I get some tickets from work, the 10 films I mentioned previously and the following three are what I'll be seeing this year.

The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer)
I try to see at least one documentary at TIFF every year, and since two giants of the medium - Errol Morris and Werner Herzog - thought enough of this film to add their names to it as producers after seeing it, that's a good enough endorsement for me to give it a go. The film is about Indosnesian Death Squards, who in the 1960s, wiped out Communists in their country. Unlike other people who commit genocide, they are regarded as heroes in their country to this day. This sounds like a interesting, albeit depressing documentary - and I am especially interested in it because apparently the death squad members have a love of Hollywood movies - the more violent, the better.

Aftershock (Nicholas Lopez)
Normally I wouldn't spend time at TIFF seeing a movie co-written by and co-starring Eli Roth, who for the most part, I hate. But since I will be staying in Toronto only two nights, and want to see the Midnight Madness showing each night, I pretty much got stuck here. Still, this film about a earthquake in Chile, where the survivors who got buried under rubble get to the surface and discover their nightmare is far from over at least sounds interesting. And who knows, maybe with the right atomsphere provided by a pumped up crowd at Midnight, this will turn out to be better than I fear.

Great Expectations (Mike Newell)
While it almost undeniably true that no matter how good this new version of the Charles Dickens' classic is that David Lean's 1946 version will remain the defintive cinematic rendering of the novel, there is always room for a new intrepretation - I actually quite liked Alfonso Cuaron's modern day retelling for example. This one seems to be a more straight forward, period re-telling of the story, but it does have a great cast - Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Sally Hawkins, Jason Flemyng - and director Mike Newell can be very good. I am hoping it is at least an entertaining film, and doesn't feel like a school assignment. But from the preview, the film does look gorgeous.

My Mini TIFF 2012 Preview

Monday, August 27, 2012

My Mini TIFF 2012 Preview

Yesterday, I was able to pick the 10 films I will be seeing at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. Long time readers will know I used to see between 25-30 films each year, but that was back in the days when I was childless, and my wife didn’t mind not seeing me for a week. Now, with a 1-year old at home, I will only be attending a few days. Next weekend, when single tickets go on sale, I am going to try and add another 2-3 films to fill in some of the blanks I have, but I know these 10 films are the ones I am going to see for sure. Sadly, my most anticipated film, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, was not available for the one screening it had that I could attend. But I got my second and third most anticipated, so I’m happy. Besides, apparently The Master will open in Toronto on October 12 – which isn’t that far away. Anyway, here are the 10 films I will be seeing this year.

Amour (Michael Haneke) – I have been a Haneke fan since I saw The Piano Teacher 10 years ago, and since then I’ve gone back and seen all his films, except for his adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Castle. His latest, which put won the Palme D’Or at Cannes (making Haneke won of the few to have won that prize twice) stars legendary French actors Jean-Louis Trintignat and Emmanuelle Riva, as an eldery couple who has to deal with the fact that one of them is slowly dying, and other is forced to care for them. This doesn’t seem like a typical Haneke film, and the reviews out of Cannes suggest as much, but Haneke is a modern master, and any time he makes a film it is an “event” film (for me anyway), so I cannot wait to see this one.

Antiviral (Brandon Cronenberg) – The son of David Cronenberg is making his debut feature with this film, which sounds a lot like something his father would have made early in his career. It is set in the near future – a dystopia of course – and is said to be a “body horror” film, which his dad specializes in. It stars Caleb Landry Jones and Sarah Gadon (who starred in Cosmopolis for Cronenberg Sr. this year) and is about a man who works at a company that supplies celebrity viruses to obsessed fans – who becomes infected with a deadly virus, and has to figure out how to cure it, or he’ll die. Reviews out of Cannes, where it played in the Un Certain Regard section, were decidedly mixed, but I’ll give this one a chance.

The Company You Keep (Robert Redford) – Robert Redford is a fine director of mainstream Hollywood fare – intelligent films for intelligent adults. His latest stars himself as a former member of The Weather Underground, in hiding for 30 years, who risks having his secrets exposed when another member (Susan Sarandon) turns herself in, and an enterprising young reporter (Shia LaBeouf) starts digging. The film, written by Lem Dobbs (who specializes in stripped to the bone thrillers like The Limey and Haywire) from a popular Neil Gordon novel (which I will try to read before the festival) has an amazing cast – Julie Christie, Sam Elliot, Brendan Gleason, Terrence Howard, Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Chris Cooper and Nick Nolte. I like to break up some of the heavier films with some good, solid Hollywood entertainments – so hopefully, this is one of those.

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang  (Laurent Cantet) – French auteur Laurent Cantet (who has made excellent films like Time Out and The Class), adapts a Joyce Carol Oates novel, and shot in Sault Ste. Marie and Hamilton among other Ontario locations – for this film about a 1950s female gang. No, it doesn’t sound like a Cantet film, but he is a great filmmaker, so I’m willing to follow him anywhere. I have not read the Oates book, or seen the not highly thought of American film Foxfire from 1996 (starring a young Angelina Jolie), but this one sounds interesting.

The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg) – The wonderful Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (best known, in North America anyway, for his blood crying Bond villain in Casino Royale) won the Best Actor prize at Cannes this year for his work as a man who is accused of child molestation, and sees his world crumble down around him because of it. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, the onetime Lars von Trier protégé, who looked like he was going to be a giant of world cinema with his debut, The Celebration, but has since come nowhere close to matching it, The Hunt got some VERY mixed reviews when it played at Cannes – some calling it a masterpiece, and some seeing it as manipulative bullshit. When something is talked about THAT much, you almost have to see it for yourself.

The Iceman (Ariel Vromen) – I have to admit that I am not familiar with director Ariel Vromen’s previous films, but this one sounded too intriguing for me not to choose. It stars Michael Shannon as Richard Kuklinski, the infamous Mafia hit man who claims to have killed more than 100 people – but that number could actually be much higher. During his “career”, he was also married and raised kids. Shannon is one of the best actors in the world right now, and him playing a psychopathic hit man seems right up his alley. I am also intrigued by the supporting cast – Winona Ryder (please deliver another great performance), Ray Liotta, Chris Evans, James Franco and Stephen Dorff. I like Mafia movies, so I figured I’d check this one out.

The Impossible (J.A. Bayona) – I may not have been a huge fan of J.A. Bayona’s breakthrough film – the Spanish language horror film The Orphanage – but I can admit that it was a superbly directed film, even if the story felt repetitive. Here, he casts Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts as a couple trying to find their kids in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, on Boxing Day 2004. I have no idea if the film is going to be an intelligent treatment of the subject matter, or simply exploitive, but I’ll give it a chance.

The Lords of Salem (Rob Zombie) – I still think that rock star turned director Rob Zombie is one of the hopes for American horror films. His debut, House of 1,000 Corpses, may not have been great, but I think that may well be because he had to cut so much out for studio reasons – and there is greatness in it (the best dramatic pause in modern horror films for example). His next film, The Devil’s Rejects, remains his best, and one of the best horror films of the decade really. But even his remake of Halloween was much better than I thought it would be – Halloween II not being quite as good, but interesting to say the least. So, I’m going to keep track of Zombie’s work for now. His latest, The Lords of Salem, will be my first time seeing a Midnight Madness movie at TIFF actually at midnight – and I couldn’t think of a filmmaker I would want to see more. It takes place in Salem, so of course, it is about witches.

Passion (Brian De Palma) -  I don’t know if I’m a glutton for punishment or simply an optimist, but I choose to see Brian De Palma’s new film, even though I haven’t really liked much of what he’s done for the past 20 years (I do like Carlito’s Way and Femme Fatale but not much else). But this film, a remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime from 2010 (a film I will try to see before TIFF) just sounded too much like a great De Palma film from the 1970s or 80s to pass up. Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace in an corporate thriller with erotic overtones. How the hell could I not be interested in that? Let’s hope De Palma has re-found his magic.

To the Wonder (Terrence Malick) – Terrence Malick usually takes years to finish his movies, but somehow just over a year after the release of The Tree of Life, he returns with his latest film, To the Wonder (to be fair, he shoot it a while ago, so it’s certainly another of his long gestating projects). Like The Tree of Life, this one seems to be based partly on his life – as the main character, played by Ben Affleck, falls and loves and marries a woman from France (played by Olga Kurylenko), but when they return to Oklahoma, he finds himself drawn to an old girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) – much like Malick in real life in the 1980s. Javier Bardem also stars as a priest who Kurylenko is drawn to. Said to be another step away from traditional narrative, and somehow the 2008 Financial Crisis is somehow involved, To the Wonder was one of my must sees at TIFF this year. The film is having trouble finding distribution in North America, most likely because The Tree of Life didn’t exactly set the box office on fire last year, so who knows when it will be released. But Malick is a master, so any film by him becomes something I have to see.