Our top choices for TIFF 2010:
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Variety.com - ”Uncertainty” reps an uncertain attempt indeed by writer-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel to return to their roots in quasi-experimental, formally informed cinema. A potentially intriguing idea on paper — a young couple flips a coin to decide which of two ways they’ll spend the day, and the film portrays both options — proves half formulaic and half simply unimaginative onscreen. A bright visual package notwithstanding, this has little chance with the public.
McGehee and Siegel made their mark in 1994 with the provocative “Suture,” which dealt in its own way with intriguing dualities. After a step forward with “The Deep End” and a step backward with “Bee Season,” the team tries something different here that deliberately marginalizes itself commercially without justifying itself artistically.
The most striking moments are the initial brilliant, pristine images of the Brooklyn Bridge and environs, where lovers Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Kate (Lynn Collins) pause to consider their future, in both the immediate and long-term senses. Kate is pregnant and admits, “I’m afraid of destiny,” so Bobby puts their fate at the mercy of a coin toss, triggering the film’s jump into two alternate, parallel realities… [Full Story]
Archive for 2008
Photos from Day 6, 7 & 8 – TIFFReviews.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
Seraphine – Variety.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
Variety.com - A naive, between-the-wars French painter is brought to vivid life in the satisfying fact-inspired drama “Seraphine.” An extraordinary perf by vet thesp Yolande Moreau in the title role will propel this throwback example of vintage Euro arthouse storytelling to a larger canvas of fests, theatrical deals and homevid.
Just prior to the Great War, in the small town of Senlis, not far from Paris, middle-aged loner Seraphine Louis (Moreau) works a grueling series of domestic jobs while painting at night. In her fleeting free time, she communes with nature, furtively gathering soil, animal’s blood and even the run-off oil from church candles to mix the paints she otherwise couldn’t afford. Fittingly, her intricate, colorful canvases are of fruit and flowers run riot.
When the German art critic Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur) and his sister Anne-Marie (Anne Bennent) move to town, he’s shocked to discover one of Seraphine’s smaller paintings at a dinner party thrown by the well-to-do art lover Madame Duphot (Genevieve Mnich).
Uhde buys all Seraphine’s work promptly, with the middle of the pic delineating the delicate relationship between aesthete and savant… [Full Story]
The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World – Variety.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
Variety.com - Feeding into the West’s growing appetite for modern China, Weijun Chen’s “The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World” examines the country’s customs and culture — not to mention some of its more unusual culinary practices — from within the walls of a kitschy eating establishment. An Imperial City-sized fortress of food, the Hunan-based West Lake (Xihulou) Restaurant accommodates 5,000 diners and serves as a popular venue to celebrate weddings, births and other significant occasions, making it a wonderful microcosm of China at large. Exploring every corner, Chen prepares a lively, accessible survey bound to play some of the world’s smallest screens.
As in his entertaining grade-school election documentary “Please Vote for Me,” Chen shoots with outside audiences in mind, relying on a New York-based editing team to bring everything together at the snappy clip Western viewers can follow. At the risk of appearing prosaic in the eyes of tastemakers and critics, Chen’s style opts for accessibility over the languorous, some-might-say-tedious artistry of Asian contemporaries like Jia Zhangke.
In the long run, that choice could extend Chen’s reach beyond the arthouse, though this won’t be the picture to do it. His mistake here is focusing too heavily on West Lake founder Qin Linzi and her family, which casts the docu as a free-market rags-to-riches story. It’s not that Qin isn’t interesting — she did leverage the success of a modest local eatery to finance this massive expansion — but pic catches up with her long after that ambitious gamble earned its Guinness Book distinction… [Full Story]
Roger Ebert Attacked By Lou Lumenick? – /Film
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
/Film - Roger Ebert was attacked during a screening of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival by…
New York Post critic Lou Lumenick?!
According to the New York Daily News, soon after the film started “a man in the audience started yelling, ‘Don’t touch me!’ People looked around and shrugged. Ten minutes later, the voice yells again, ‘I said don’t touch me!’” Then a few minutes later “the guy stands up in the darkness and thwacks the guy behind him with a big festival binder. He hit him so hard everybody could hear it. Everyone freaked out and turned around.” For those who don’t know, Roger Ebert can no longer speak due to his battle with thyroid and salivary gland cancer. Apparently Ebert couldn’t see the screen and tapped Lumenick’s shoulder in an effort to get him to move his head a little. Lumenick was said to have been surprised to find out that the person he hit was Ebert. No word on if the two have reconciled or if TIFF might organize an epic boxing match between the two famous film critics for next year’s festival. I’m guessing not… [Full Story]
This might be his first and last four-and-a-half hour biopic – National Post
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
National Post - Steven Soderbergh isn’t sure what he was thinking eight years ago, when he agreed to take on the epic, two-film project that has become the four-and-a-half-hour Spanish-language movie Che. Whatever it was, it became an exercise in frustration.
“The whole experience was so painful,” he says. “It was brutal. It was really brutal.”
Part of that was what he calls an ugly shoot: “Not the people – it’s just we didn’t have enough time, we didn’t have enough money, it was just really intense. We had 39 days for each film.” Then, after the media storm of the Cannes Film Festival, where Che received a mixed reception (”Havana’s gate,” one critic called it), there was the slog of carting the film around to American distributors.
“It was really disheartening,” Soderbergh, 45, was saying this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Che, trimmed by about 11 minutes, had its North American premiere… [Full Story]
Mickey Rourke Explains His Preparation For 'The Wrestler': 'I Had … – MTV.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
MTV.com - Mickey Rourke’s performance as Randy “the Ram” Robinson in “The Wrestler” is the kind of thing you can’t wait to tell everybody you know about. You may have heard the first whispers about it already. Since debuting at the Venice Film Festival last week and premiering in North America at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this week, the buzz has started to build. And I’m here to tell you it’s for real. If this isn’t an Oscar-caliber performance, I don’t know what is.
A moving and soulful portrait of a man who can find no peace outside of a wrestling ring, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” could have been pitched as “Rocky Balboa” without the happy ending. Eschewing the stylistic flourishes he became known for with films like “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain,” Aronofsky’s latest offering is spare and quietly mesmerizing, even when its protagonist is bleeding and battered.
MTV News caught up with Rourke and Aronofsky in Toronto only hours after the film was sold to Fox Searchlight (which will, by all accounts, release “The Wrestler” for awards consideration before the end of the year). We found an introspective and ultimately upbeat Rourke, mindful of his past mistakes and eager for the next phase of his career… [Full Story]
Pride And Glory – ScreenDaily Review
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
ScreenDaily - After sitting on the shelf for the better part of two years, Gavin O’Connor’s bruising Manhattan melodrama charges into a congested festival lineup breathing fire and smoke. A coiling police saga about the clash between family and career loyalties, Pride and Glory is a familiar but taut thriller sparked by a quartet of committed lead performances and the visual acrobatics of stealth camera ace Declan Quinn, who has also just impressed in Rachel Getting Married.
If Pride does eventually devolve into a hyperbolic windup, it delivers a series of visceral wallops along the way that lift it notches above standard-fare pulp fiction. Fans who turned Narc (also written by Carnahan and shot by Quinn) into a sleeper hit may grow restless with the interpersonal travails of its cops, played by Edward Norton, Colin Farrell and Noah Emmerich, however.
A goateed Norton brings a bluesy melancholy to the role of Ray Tierney, a missing persons investigator who is yanked out of his post to look into the brutal slaying of four cops on a drug bust in Washington Heights. The assignment is a hot potato for Ray, reeking as it does of conflicts of interest. The Chief of Detectives who recruits Ray happens to be his father, Francis Tierney Sr. (Voight), while the four murdered cops were under the command of his brother, Francis Tierney Jr. (Emmerich) and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother-in-law Jimmy Egan (Farrell)… [Full Story]
TIFF Review: Religulous – /Film
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
/Film - Larry Charles’ Religulous is a film I’ve been looking forward to since the project was first announced. I have a few confessions: I loved Charles’ Borat and I’ve been an avid viewer of Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect over the years. I grew up Catholic, but Maher’s views on world religion pretty much mirrors my current opinions. So it’s sad to report that while I did enjoy Religulous greatly, it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping it would be.
The basic gist involves Bill Maher traveling the world to various locations, meeting with experts and followers of various different religions. These interactions usually end with Maher making jokes at their expense or giving the participants just enough room to hang themselves. The idea is for the participants to look stupid and for Maher to prevail with simple logic.
Religulous is very funny, but its not your typical documentary. Maher takes advantage of manipulative techniques such as using subtitles or superimposed text on screen to contradict or ridicule what the participants are saying to the camera. Don’t get me wrong, by calling the techniques manipulative, doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the resulting footage. The comedic style of documentary allows for such unusual and usually unethical ideas. Also, the editing is top notice, inter-cutting stock footage throughout for further comic effect… [Full Story]
Lymelife – ScreenDaily Review
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
ScreenDaily - Lymelife is a coming-of-age story that takes another look at the darker side of suburban paradise: Long Island in the 1970’s, where Lyme Disease spread by local insects and carried by its picturesque deer is the new plague, and families who thought they’d finally “made it” are afraid of their own backyards.
Derick Martini’s tender and witty first feature has a cast that should give it an advantage over other independent comedies vying for the US audience. The Long Island setting won’t spark much interest internationally, although home video could be strong with the rise of the film’s young stars.
Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin), 15, is a sensitive kid in a Long Island suburb. His father, Mickey (Baldwin) is making a killing in local real estate and sleeping with neighbor Melissa Bragg (Nixon), whose unemployed husband, Charlie (Hutton) is exhibiting some of the dementia that comes with Lyme Disease. Scott has always had a crush on their seductive young daughter, Adrianna (Roberts), who is finally returning some of his affections… [Full Story]
Photos from Day 6, 7 & 8 – TIFFReviews.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
Seraphine – Variety.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Variety.com - A naive, between-the-wars French painter is brought to vivid life in the satisfying fact-inspired drama “Seraphine.” An extraordinary perf by vet thesp Yolande Moreau in the title role will propel this throwback example of vintage Euro arthouse storytelling to a larger canvas of fests, theatrical deals and homevid.
Just prior to the Great War, in the small town of Senlis, not far from Paris, middle-aged loner Seraphine Louis (Moreau) works a grueling series of domestic jobs while painting at night. In her fleeting free time, she communes with nature, furtively gathering soil, animal’s blood and even the run-off oil from church candles to mix the paints she otherwise couldn’t afford. Fittingly, her intricate, colorful canvases are of fruit and flowers run riot.
When the German art critic Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur) and his sister Anne-Marie (Anne Bennent) move to town, he’s shocked to discover one of Seraphine’s smaller paintings at a dinner party thrown by the well-to-do art lover Madame Duphot (Genevieve Mnich).
Uhde buys all Seraphine’s work promptly, with the middle of the pic delineating the delicate relationship between aesthete and savant… [Full Story]
The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World – Variety.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Variety.com - Feeding into the West’s growing appetite for modern China, Weijun Chen’s “The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World” examines the country’s customs and culture — not to mention some of its more unusual culinary practices — from within the walls of a kitschy eating establishment. An Imperial City-sized fortress of food, the Hunan-based West Lake (Xihulou) Restaurant accommodates 5,000 diners and serves as a popular venue to celebrate weddings, births and other significant occasions, making it a wonderful microcosm of China at large. Exploring every corner, Chen prepares a lively, accessible survey bound to play some of the world’s smallest screens.
As in his entertaining grade-school election documentary “Please Vote for Me,” Chen shoots with outside audiences in mind, relying on a New York-based editing team to bring everything together at the snappy clip Western viewers can follow. At the risk of appearing prosaic in the eyes of tastemakers and critics, Chen’s style opts for accessibility over the languorous, some-might-say-tedious artistry of Asian contemporaries like Jia Zhangke.
In the long run, that choice could extend Chen’s reach beyond the arthouse, though this won’t be the picture to do it. His mistake here is focusing too heavily on West Lake founder Qin Linzi and her family, which casts the docu as a free-market rags-to-riches story. It’s not that Qin isn’t interesting — she did leverage the success of a modest local eatery to finance this massive expansion — but pic catches up with her long after that ambitious gamble earned its Guinness Book distinction… [Full Story]
Roger Ebert Attacked By Lou Lumenick? – /Film
Thursday, September 11th, 2008/Film - Roger Ebert was attacked during a screening of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival by…
New York Post critic Lou Lumenick?!
According to the New York Daily News, soon after the film started “a man in the audience started yelling, ‘Don’t touch me!’ People looked around and shrugged. Ten minutes later, the voice yells again, ‘I said don’t touch me!’” Then a few minutes later “the guy stands up in the darkness and thwacks the guy behind him with a big festival binder. He hit him so hard everybody could hear it. Everyone freaked out and turned around.” For those who don’t know, Roger Ebert can no longer speak due to his battle with thyroid and salivary gland cancer. Apparently Ebert couldn’t see the screen and tapped Lumenick’s shoulder in an effort to get him to move his head a little. Lumenick was said to have been surprised to find out that the person he hit was Ebert. No word on if the two have reconciled or if TIFF might organize an epic boxing match between the two famous film critics for next year’s festival. I’m guessing not… [Full Story]
This might be his first and last four-and-a-half hour biopic – National Post
Thursday, September 11th, 2008National Post - Steven Soderbergh isn’t sure what he was thinking eight years ago, when he agreed to take on the epic, two-film project that has become the four-and-a-half-hour Spanish-language movie Che. Whatever it was, it became an exercise in frustration.
“The whole experience was so painful,” he says. “It was brutal. It was really brutal.”
Part of that was what he calls an ugly shoot: “Not the people – it’s just we didn’t have enough time, we didn’t have enough money, it was just really intense. We had 39 days for each film.” Then, after the media storm of the Cannes Film Festival, where Che received a mixed reception (”Havana’s gate,” one critic called it), there was the slog of carting the film around to American distributors.
“It was really disheartening,” Soderbergh, 45, was saying this week at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Che, trimmed by about 11 minutes, had its North American premiere… [Full Story]
Mickey Rourke Explains His Preparation For 'The Wrestler': 'I Had … – MTV.com
Thursday, September 11th, 2008MTV.com - Mickey Rourke’s performance as Randy “the Ram” Robinson in “The Wrestler” is the kind of thing you can’t wait to tell everybody you know about. You may have heard the first whispers about it already. Since debuting at the Venice Film Festival last week and premiering in North America at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this week, the buzz has started to build. And I’m here to tell you it’s for real. If this isn’t an Oscar-caliber performance, I don’t know what is.
A moving and soulful portrait of a man who can find no peace outside of a wrestling ring, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” could have been pitched as “Rocky Balboa” without the happy ending. Eschewing the stylistic flourishes he became known for with films like “Requiem for a Dream” and “The Fountain,” Aronofsky’s latest offering is spare and quietly mesmerizing, even when its protagonist is bleeding and battered.
MTV News caught up with Rourke and Aronofsky in Toronto only hours after the film was sold to Fox Searchlight (which will, by all accounts, release “The Wrestler” for awards consideration before the end of the year). We found an introspective and ultimately upbeat Rourke, mindful of his past mistakes and eager for the next phase of his career… [Full Story]
Pride And Glory – ScreenDaily Review
Thursday, September 11th, 2008ScreenDaily - After sitting on the shelf for the better part of two years, Gavin O’Connor’s bruising Manhattan melodrama charges into a congested festival lineup breathing fire and smoke. A coiling police saga about the clash between family and career loyalties, Pride and Glory is a familiar but taut thriller sparked by a quartet of committed lead performances and the visual acrobatics of stealth camera ace Declan Quinn, who has also just impressed in Rachel Getting Married.
If Pride does eventually devolve into a hyperbolic windup, it delivers a series of visceral wallops along the way that lift it notches above standard-fare pulp fiction. Fans who turned Narc (also written by Carnahan and shot by Quinn) into a sleeper hit may grow restless with the interpersonal travails of its cops, played by Edward Norton, Colin Farrell and Noah Emmerich, however.
A goateed Norton brings a bluesy melancholy to the role of Ray Tierney, a missing persons investigator who is yanked out of his post to look into the brutal slaying of four cops on a drug bust in Washington Heights. The assignment is a hot potato for Ray, reeking as it does of conflicts of interest. The Chief of Detectives who recruits Ray happens to be his father, Francis Tierney Sr. (Voight), while the four murdered cops were under the command of his brother, Francis Tierney Jr. (Emmerich) and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother-in-law Jimmy Egan (Farrell)… [Full Story]
TIFF Review: Religulous – /Film
Thursday, September 11th, 2008/Film - Larry Charles’ Religulous is a film I’ve been looking forward to since the project was first announced. I have a few confessions: I loved Charles’ Borat and I’ve been an avid viewer of Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect over the years. I grew up Catholic, but Maher’s views on world religion pretty much mirrors my current opinions. So it’s sad to report that while I did enjoy Religulous greatly, it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping it would be.
The basic gist involves Bill Maher traveling the world to various locations, meeting with experts and followers of various different religions. These interactions usually end with Maher making jokes at their expense or giving the participants just enough room to hang themselves. The idea is for the participants to look stupid and for Maher to prevail with simple logic.
Religulous is very funny, but its not your typical documentary. Maher takes advantage of manipulative techniques such as using subtitles or superimposed text on screen to contradict or ridicule what the participants are saying to the camera. Don’t get me wrong, by calling the techniques manipulative, doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the resulting footage. The comedic style of documentary allows for such unusual and usually unethical ideas. Also, the editing is top notice, inter-cutting stock footage throughout for further comic effect… [Full Story]
Lymelife – ScreenDaily Review
Thursday, September 11th, 2008ScreenDaily - Lymelife is a coming-of-age story that takes another look at the darker side of suburban paradise: Long Island in the 1970’s, where Lyme Disease spread by local insects and carried by its picturesque deer is the new plague, and families who thought they’d finally “made it” are afraid of their own backyards.
Derick Martini’s tender and witty first feature has a cast that should give it an advantage over other independent comedies vying for the US audience. The Long Island setting won’t spark much interest internationally, although home video could be strong with the rise of the film’s young stars.
Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin), 15, is a sensitive kid in a Long Island suburb. His father, Mickey (Baldwin) is making a killing in local real estate and sleeping with neighbor Melissa Bragg (Nixon), whose unemployed husband, Charlie (Hutton) is exhibiting some of the dementia that comes with Lyme Disease. Scott has always had a crush on their seductive young daughter, Adrianna (Roberts), who is finally returning some of his affections… [Full Story]
