Our top choices for TIFF 2010:
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Twitch - When a new Michael Winterbottom film comes out it is always interesting to see where exactly he is going to go with it. Certainly Winterbottom has one of the most diverse c.v.’s in the cinema with things ranging as far as Tristram Shandy to Welcome to Sarajevo to 24 Hour Party People, to Code 46. With Genova, he explores the rhythms, sites, beauty and danger of the large Italian city from three perspectives, a young girl, a teenager and a middle-aged university professor. All three of these people are in the same family, one recently stricken with the loss of the mother/wife. Naturally lit and laced with some stomach clenching intense moments, the film casually recalls Nicholas Roeg‘s Don’t Look Now filtered though aspects of intimate Winterbottom‘s own urban wanderings of A Mighty Heart, where he burrowed into strange corners of Karachi. The film us a curious mixture of storytelling types. It is graceful drama on the grieving process merged, both smoothly and meticulously, with an intimate documentary style and a novel execution of maximum suspense. Sensitive parents beware, while Genova is attractively interspersed with honesty, the film is really quite nerve wracking.
The film opens with a violent car crash along an American highway. It is established early in this scene that things are going to happen, and Winterbottom lets the scene play out so that it is almost unbearable. Traffic noises are amplified in a subtle way for maximum effect. The mother doesn’t make it, the daughters do. Their father (Colin Firth) retreats from their Chicago home, relocating his still dumbstruck family to Italy in the hopes a change of scenery will be good for him and the girls. While there are no objections from the girls, the youngest, eight-year old Mary, is wracked with guilt for distracting her mother potentially causing the accident and clearly is having trouble dealing with things. Upon getting to the city of Genova, she begins to have hallucinations of her mother which are both comforting and sinister. An family friend, an ex-girlfriend of Dad, played superbly by Catherine Keener, helps ease them into the city, showing them the sites, and becoming a bit of a surrogate mother to Mary. While Dad begins his teaching position in Genova, the girls are more or less left on their own with the city, their only obligation being weekly piano lessons up the street. Kelly the eldest daughter, seventeen and sexually budding, takes huge gulps of her new European surroundings and attitudes, busying her time as a bit of a wild party girl, neglecting her duties of taking care of Mary (whom see somewhat also blames for the death of Mom). Kelly’s carefree exploits, an Mary’s wanderings are the beating heart of the film. To young girls, the dark, maze-like alleyways are full of wonders and dangers. During the trips on the back of a Vespa through the busy and chaotic streets the film is positively electric. The culmination of the three lost souls (daughters and dad) anxious and running make for an interesting metaphor. It may on the surface seem low key and even wispy (plot certainly takes a back seat to tone), but is powerful and professional work from a director at the top of his game. Chalk this up as another success for the UK’s greatest chameleon director… [Full Story]
Archive for 2008
TIFF Review: TONY MANERO – Twitch
Monday, September 8th, 2008
Twitch - You will be forgiven if a quick glance at the premise of Pablo Larrain’s Tony Manero leads you to believe that the film must be a comedy. After all, it is about a fifty two year old Chilean man so obsessed with John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever that he is willing to go to any extreme, even murder, to transform himself into his idol’s image and win a lookalike contest on TV. With a concept like that how could it be anything but a comedy? Quite simply because Larrain sets his film against the backdrop of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1978 – one of the most oppressive regimes in history, one marked by death squads, military rule, enforced curfews and abductions – and because his cast, particularly Alfredo Castro in the lead, are so deeply commited to the realities of their characters and the worlds in which they live.
Castro is Raul, a middle aged man with no real prospects for his future, eking out a living putting on stage shows at a dingy bar with his quasi-girlfriend, her daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend. He is broken down, impotent, at the mercy of a government that doesn’t care if he lives or dies. Is it any wonder, then, that he would latch on to any image of a better life with such ferocity? That thing is Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta as Tony Manero. Raul visits the theater obsessively, often the only person there, memorizing lines and moves and trying to become his idol. He has a copy of Manero’s suit custom tailored. He is obsessed with creating a glass floor in the bar so that he can recreate the dancing scenes precisely. And, most of all, he wants to win the Tony Manero lookalike contest being held on a local television station the next week… [Full Story]
TIFF Review: ACOLYTES – Twitch
Monday, September 8th, 2008
Twitch - Take a quick glance at the synopsis for Jon Hewitt’s Acolytes and you’ll think you’ve got the film all figured out. Abused teens stumble across evidence of a killer and rather than calling the police opt to blackmail the killer into taking out their abuser. Seems simple, yes? Think you know where it’s going, yes? You don’t.
Mark, James and Chasely are a typical enough trio of high school teens living in suburban Australia. James is the natural leader, full of brash confidence and swagger. Mark, the more attentive one, quieter and more timid. And Chasely, the beautiful, artistic girl who is the object of their affections. James has got her, Mark wants her, and Chasely casually keeps both at her beck and call. Life would be idyllic if not for the Missing Person posters plastered all around town and the presence of Parker, a twenty-something thug who clearly has history with both James and Mark.
When a day spent cutting class leads to Mark stumbling across a body buried in the woods, the correct course of action seems obvious. Since Mark saw enough of the killer to track him down, they should call the police and turn him in. But, for some reason, they hesitate. Parker is back in town, there is a score to settle, and James is hungry for vengeance. Just think how easy it would be to track the killer down themselves and turn him on their nemesis… [Full Story]
Native Dancer – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - A modern fairytale for the Third World, Guka Omarova’s second feature, plays, at least in spirit, as a sequel of her much awarded debut picture Schizo. Though more whimsical, if such a word can apply to her straightforward, realistic type of cinema, it is as inspired a portrait of her country, Kazakhstan, as her first film.
Showing how a woman healer can defeat the Mafia, by using the magic strength she draws from her native soil, Native Dancer offers a different story but relies on the same type of wit and folk charm that worked so well for Omarova the first time around. Bound to be welcomed everywhere by film events and festivals, it could also turn into a niche hit on the art house circuit.
While Omarova’s intentions may be far-reaching and significant, the film’s main appeal lies in its immediate, unpretentious rendition of an unlikely story. Aidai (Omarbekova), an older woman, erect and energetic as if age has passed her by, works miracles for all the many people who queue, day in, day out, to ask for help. She discovers their stolen cattle, heals their incurable diseases, finds their missing relatives – there is very little she is not capable of, her authority and wisdom feared and respected. The piece of land on which she lives and plies her trade has been given to her by a grateful landowner and strong-arm man Batyr (Amankulov), whose sterile wife gave birth only with the help of Aidai’s charms… [Full Story]
The Stoning Of Soraya M – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - This harrowing, if cinematically flawed, account of a male mob’s murder of a young wife and mother according to Shariah law in an Iranian village in 1986, just a few years after Khomeini took power, takes on particular relevance today. Exposés in the western media about “honour killings,” not only in the Middle and Near East but also in Europe and the US, have only recently taken up numerous column inches in newspapers and provided topics for tv specials.
The Stoning of Soraya M is a dramatized account of French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1994 non-fiction book of the same title, based on his recording of the testimony from the victim’s enlightened aunt. Jim Caviezel portrays Sahebjam, but only in short sequences that bracket the movie. His presence is passive, nearly negligible.
Ali (Negahban) wants to divorce angelic Soraya (Marno), his wife of 20 years and mother of his four children, in order to marry a 14-year-old girl. Fearing a life of poverty for herself and her two daughters (the sons side with their father), she refuses. Zahra (Aghdashloo), a tough, outspoken middle-aged woman who refuses to adapt to the newly repressive role of women in the post-Shah Islamic state, attempts in vain to protect her beloved niece. A professional eavesdropper and astute judge of character, she realizes that Ali, with the aid of a fraudulent mullah (Pourtash) and the conflicted mayor (Diaan), is setting Soraya up for an officially sanctioned death in order to gain a freedom he considers his right. “This is a man’s world,” he tells his adolescent sons… [Full Story]
Management – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - There is always an audience for a quirky, cutesy romantic comedy and Management seems to fit the bill perfectly, at least for the first hour. A sudden lurch towards the preposterous at the two-thirds stage undoes a lot of the good will that has been accumulated up until that point. The film does manage to get back on track for a happy ending, but it feels like damaged goods after the changes in tone along the way. What started out feeling like a crowd-pleaser winds up offering only limited possibilities for a middling theatrical release.
Steve Zahn has always had charm to spare and his puppy-dog personality is well cast in the role of smalltown hotel night manager Mike. He is a decent guy going nowhere until saleswoman Sue (Jennifer Aniston) turns up as a guest. A
wary Sue works hard to reject his awkward advances, but succumbs to a brief encounter. She heads back to her ordinary life without a backward glance. Ready to commit heart and soul to a relationship, Mike hops on a plane and
follows her to Baltimore. He is threatening to become the laundryroom fling from hell, but there is something about him that begins to work its magic on Sue’s heart.
The first hour of Management is sweet and charming because it feels credible. An older-looking Aniston brings just the right vinegary edge to Sue; a woman with a kind heart and low self-esteem. Zahn is wide-eyed, bumbling and
guileless. This is a couple that you want to see winding up in each other’s arms… [Full Story]
Uncertainty – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - Regular collaborators McGehee and Siegel have hit what is called in baseball a double—a compliment, that–with Uncertainty. In the past, their provocative films have veered toward the academic, as with the study of amnesia in the modern Cain-and-Abel tale Suture (1993), and the revisionist generic conceit of The Deep End (2001).
Two alternative, and alternating, stories involving a striking young couple, which move back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan, fly by rapidly, their execution aided by Christopher Doyle protégé Rain Li’s exquisite handheld camerawork and Paul Zucker’s accomplished editing. Uncertainty could get a sizable niche audience that has evaded McGehee and Siegel in their earlier collaborations.
The two excellent leads, who improvised their dialogue with the directors, are key to carrying the film. Bobby Thompson (Gordon-Levitt) is a Canadian-born musician trying to make his way in New York City. His girlfriend of 10 months, Kate Montero (Lynn Collins), is a Brooklyn-reared Latina and dancer on Broadway who is 11 weeks pregnant. The film begins (on July 4) and ends (on July 5) with their discussing in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge what to do about the unexpected situation. When Bobby flips a coin, and the two run in opposite directions, she toward Brooklyn, he to Manhattan, one fears another exercise in formalism for formalism’s sake… [Full Story]
Krabat – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - The beloved 1971 children’s book by Otfried Preussler finally reaches the screen in a live-action version courtesy of young German director Marco Kreuzpaintner – and the results are impressive. Set in an 18th century Europe ravaged by the plague, Krabat is a riveting Faustian tale of teenage boys seduced by the lure of black magic that goes darker than even Harry Potter dares.
That might be its biggest hurdle in recouping its not inconsiderable budget in German-speaking Europe alone, where Fox is releasing on Oct 16. Kreuzpaintner has created a satanic mill so genuinely creepy that parents of younger children will balk, while adults who might enjoy it will consider it a children’s title. Teens nevertheless will flock to the film, which boasts superb production values and special effects; it should be a major theatrical event in its home market.
International sales, being handled by Bavaria Film International, might prove a challenge. Foreign family films, however strong, are always a difficult distribution proposition in English-speaking territories and North American studios might prefer to buy remake rights, ironic bearing in mind that the book was churning around the Hollywood studio system for years. European territories, where dubbing is acceptable, might be more receptive… [Full Story]
Flash of Genius – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - Marc Abraham’s debut feature, Flash of Genius about an inventor battling the Ford Motor Company, which steals and markets his window-wiper invention, puts new mileage on the David-Goliath model. Sentimental but remarkably compelling, the saga of a little man’s victory over a corporate giant will ensure that you’ll never see your windshield wipers the same way.
Selling a period movie about window-wiper technology with no major names in the cast besides Ford is this film’s challenge. One niche US market could be the broad public: fans of business journalism and readers of the New Yorker – where an exhaustive article on the Kearns ordeal that inspired the film appeared. Yet the minutiae of US patent law and the motivationally optimistic tone could turn off foreign audiences, although the global mood is ripe for attacking anything big and institutional from America.
Quirky, likeable family man Robert Kearns (Kinnear), who teaches engineering at a local Detroit college, decides that window wipers should operate like the human eye, which blinks from time to time. He creates just that in his basement, and with partner Dermot Mulroney takes it to Ford executives, who request a sample unit, then suddenly back out of the deal only to offer the same technology on new Mustangs… [Full Story]
Zack And Miri Make A Porno – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008
ScreenDaily - Kevin Smith is back and Seth Rogen’s got ‘em. Or at least that’s how the ad copy should read for Smith’s libidinous rom-com, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. While Elizabeth Banks is ostensibly knocking about the premises as Rogen’s unexpected love interest, it is the cozy marriage of sensibilities between the director of Clerks and the co-writer/star of Superbad that gives this movie its particular go-for-the-groin, land-on-the-heart chemistry.
Smith has fashioned a smut-happy comedy that fits his game leading man like a prophylactic. If the raucous reception from younger press types at a Toronto screening is any indication, this R-rated comedy should provide an irresistible lure for audiences above and below the age requirement for parental accompaniment.
The film’s titular filmmakers are a pair of down-at-the-heels roommates whose air of petulant intimacy belies a platonic relationship that extends back to high school. With a frigid Pittsburgh winter nipping at their noses and creditors snapping at their rears, Zack (Rogen) agrees to accompany Miri (Banks) to their tenth high school reunion, where each soothes their woes by hitting on former classmates… [Full Story]
TIFF Review: TONY MANERO – Twitch
Monday, September 8th, 2008Twitch - You will be forgiven if a quick glance at the premise of Pablo Larrain’s Tony Manero leads you to believe that the film must be a comedy. After all, it is about a fifty two year old Chilean man so obsessed with John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever that he is willing to go to any extreme, even murder, to transform himself into his idol’s image and win a lookalike contest on TV. With a concept like that how could it be anything but a comedy? Quite simply because Larrain sets his film against the backdrop of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1978 – one of the most oppressive regimes in history, one marked by death squads, military rule, enforced curfews and abductions – and because his cast, particularly Alfredo Castro in the lead, are so deeply commited to the realities of their characters and the worlds in which they live.
Castro is Raul, a middle aged man with no real prospects for his future, eking out a living putting on stage shows at a dingy bar with his quasi-girlfriend, her daughter and the daughter’s boyfriend. He is broken down, impotent, at the mercy of a government that doesn’t care if he lives or dies. Is it any wonder, then, that he would latch on to any image of a better life with such ferocity? That thing is Saturday Night Fever and John Travolta as Tony Manero. Raul visits the theater obsessively, often the only person there, memorizing lines and moves and trying to become his idol. He has a copy of Manero’s suit custom tailored. He is obsessed with creating a glass floor in the bar so that he can recreate the dancing scenes precisely. And, most of all, he wants to win the Tony Manero lookalike contest being held on a local television station the next week… [Full Story]
TIFF Review: ACOLYTES – Twitch
Monday, September 8th, 2008Twitch - Take a quick glance at the synopsis for Jon Hewitt’s Acolytes and you’ll think you’ve got the film all figured out. Abused teens stumble across evidence of a killer and rather than calling the police opt to blackmail the killer into taking out their abuser. Seems simple, yes? Think you know where it’s going, yes? You don’t.
Mark, James and Chasely are a typical enough trio of high school teens living in suburban Australia. James is the natural leader, full of brash confidence and swagger. Mark, the more attentive one, quieter and more timid. And Chasely, the beautiful, artistic girl who is the object of their affections. James has got her, Mark wants her, and Chasely casually keeps both at her beck and call. Life would be idyllic if not for the Missing Person posters plastered all around town and the presence of Parker, a twenty-something thug who clearly has history with both James and Mark.
When a day spent cutting class leads to Mark stumbling across a body buried in the woods, the correct course of action seems obvious. Since Mark saw enough of the killer to track him down, they should call the police and turn him in. But, for some reason, they hesitate. Parker is back in town, there is a score to settle, and James is hungry for vengeance. Just think how easy it would be to track the killer down themselves and turn him on their nemesis… [Full Story]
Native Dancer – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - A modern fairytale for the Third World, Guka Omarova’s second feature, plays, at least in spirit, as a sequel of her much awarded debut picture Schizo. Though more whimsical, if such a word can apply to her straightforward, realistic type of cinema, it is as inspired a portrait of her country, Kazakhstan, as her first film.
Showing how a woman healer can defeat the Mafia, by using the magic strength she draws from her native soil, Native Dancer offers a different story but relies on the same type of wit and folk charm that worked so well for Omarova the first time around. Bound to be welcomed everywhere by film events and festivals, it could also turn into a niche hit on the art house circuit.
While Omarova’s intentions may be far-reaching and significant, the film’s main appeal lies in its immediate, unpretentious rendition of an unlikely story. Aidai (Omarbekova), an older woman, erect and energetic as if age has passed her by, works miracles for all the many people who queue, day in, day out, to ask for help. She discovers their stolen cattle, heals their incurable diseases, finds their missing relatives – there is very little she is not capable of, her authority and wisdom feared and respected. The piece of land on which she lives and plies her trade has been given to her by a grateful landowner and strong-arm man Batyr (Amankulov), whose sterile wife gave birth only with the help of Aidai’s charms… [Full Story]
The Stoning Of Soraya M – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - This harrowing, if cinematically flawed, account of a male mob’s murder of a young wife and mother according to Shariah law in an Iranian village in 1986, just a few years after Khomeini took power, takes on particular relevance today. Exposés in the western media about “honour killings,” not only in the Middle and Near East but also in Europe and the US, have only recently taken up numerous column inches in newspapers and provided topics for tv specials.
The Stoning of Soraya M is a dramatized account of French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1994 non-fiction book of the same title, based on his recording of the testimony from the victim’s enlightened aunt. Jim Caviezel portrays Sahebjam, but only in short sequences that bracket the movie. His presence is passive, nearly negligible.
Ali (Negahban) wants to divorce angelic Soraya (Marno), his wife of 20 years and mother of his four children, in order to marry a 14-year-old girl. Fearing a life of poverty for herself and her two daughters (the sons side with their father), she refuses. Zahra (Aghdashloo), a tough, outspoken middle-aged woman who refuses to adapt to the newly repressive role of women in the post-Shah Islamic state, attempts in vain to protect her beloved niece. A professional eavesdropper and astute judge of character, she realizes that Ali, with the aid of a fraudulent mullah (Pourtash) and the conflicted mayor (Diaan), is setting Soraya up for an officially sanctioned death in order to gain a freedom he considers his right. “This is a man’s world,” he tells his adolescent sons… [Full Story]
Management – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - There is always an audience for a quirky, cutesy romantic comedy and Management seems to fit the bill perfectly, at least for the first hour. A sudden lurch towards the preposterous at the two-thirds stage undoes a lot of the good will that has been accumulated up until that point. The film does manage to get back on track for a happy ending, but it feels like damaged goods after the changes in tone along the way. What started out feeling like a crowd-pleaser winds up offering only limited possibilities for a middling theatrical release.
Steve Zahn has always had charm to spare and his puppy-dog personality is well cast in the role of smalltown hotel night manager Mike. He is a decent guy going nowhere until saleswoman Sue (Jennifer Aniston) turns up as a guest. A
wary Sue works hard to reject his awkward advances, but succumbs to a brief encounter. She heads back to her ordinary life without a backward glance. Ready to commit heart and soul to a relationship, Mike hops on a plane and
follows her to Baltimore. He is threatening to become the laundryroom fling from hell, but there is something about him that begins to work its magic on Sue’s heart.
The first hour of Management is sweet and charming because it feels credible. An older-looking Aniston brings just the right vinegary edge to Sue; a woman with a kind heart and low self-esteem. Zahn is wide-eyed, bumbling and
guileless. This is a couple that you want to see winding up in each other’s arms… [Full Story]
Uncertainty – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - Regular collaborators McGehee and Siegel have hit what is called in baseball a double—a compliment, that–with Uncertainty. In the past, their provocative films have veered toward the academic, as with the study of amnesia in the modern Cain-and-Abel tale Suture (1993), and the revisionist generic conceit of The Deep End (2001).
Two alternative, and alternating, stories involving a striking young couple, which move back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan, fly by rapidly, their execution aided by Christopher Doyle protégé Rain Li’s exquisite handheld camerawork and Paul Zucker’s accomplished editing. Uncertainty could get a sizable niche audience that has evaded McGehee and Siegel in their earlier collaborations.
The two excellent leads, who improvised their dialogue with the directors, are key to carrying the film. Bobby Thompson (Gordon-Levitt) is a Canadian-born musician trying to make his way in New York City. His girlfriend of 10 months, Kate Montero (Lynn Collins), is a Brooklyn-reared Latina and dancer on Broadway who is 11 weeks pregnant. The film begins (on July 4) and ends (on July 5) with their discussing in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge what to do about the unexpected situation. When Bobby flips a coin, and the two run in opposite directions, she toward Brooklyn, he to Manhattan, one fears another exercise in formalism for formalism’s sake… [Full Story]
Krabat – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - The beloved 1971 children’s book by Otfried Preussler finally reaches the screen in a live-action version courtesy of young German director Marco Kreuzpaintner – and the results are impressive. Set in an 18th century Europe ravaged by the plague, Krabat is a riveting Faustian tale of teenage boys seduced by the lure of black magic that goes darker than even Harry Potter dares.
That might be its biggest hurdle in recouping its not inconsiderable budget in German-speaking Europe alone, where Fox is releasing on Oct 16. Kreuzpaintner has created a satanic mill so genuinely creepy that parents of younger children will balk, while adults who might enjoy it will consider it a children’s title. Teens nevertheless will flock to the film, which boasts superb production values and special effects; it should be a major theatrical event in its home market.
International sales, being handled by Bavaria Film International, might prove a challenge. Foreign family films, however strong, are always a difficult distribution proposition in English-speaking territories and North American studios might prefer to buy remake rights, ironic bearing in mind that the book was churning around the Hollywood studio system for years. European territories, where dubbing is acceptable, might be more receptive… [Full Story]
Flash of Genius – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - Marc Abraham’s debut feature, Flash of Genius about an inventor battling the Ford Motor Company, which steals and markets his window-wiper invention, puts new mileage on the David-Goliath model. Sentimental but remarkably compelling, the saga of a little man’s victory over a corporate giant will ensure that you’ll never see your windshield wipers the same way.
Selling a period movie about window-wiper technology with no major names in the cast besides Ford is this film’s challenge. One niche US market could be the broad public: fans of business journalism and readers of the New Yorker – where an exhaustive article on the Kearns ordeal that inspired the film appeared. Yet the minutiae of US patent law and the motivationally optimistic tone could turn off foreign audiences, although the global mood is ripe for attacking anything big and institutional from America.
Quirky, likeable family man Robert Kearns (Kinnear), who teaches engineering at a local Detroit college, decides that window wipers should operate like the human eye, which blinks from time to time. He creates just that in his basement, and with partner Dermot Mulroney takes it to Ford executives, who request a sample unit, then suddenly back out of the deal only to offer the same technology on new Mustangs… [Full Story]
Zack And Miri Make A Porno – ScreenDaily Review
Monday, September 8th, 2008ScreenDaily - Kevin Smith is back and Seth Rogen’s got ‘em. Or at least that’s how the ad copy should read for Smith’s libidinous rom-com, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. While Elizabeth Banks is ostensibly knocking about the premises as Rogen’s unexpected love interest, it is the cozy marriage of sensibilities between the director of Clerks and the co-writer/star of Superbad that gives this movie its particular go-for-the-groin, land-on-the-heart chemistry.
Smith has fashioned a smut-happy comedy that fits his game leading man like a prophylactic. If the raucous reception from younger press types at a Toronto screening is any indication, this R-rated comedy should provide an irresistible lure for audiences above and below the age requirement for parental accompaniment.
The film’s titular filmmakers are a pair of down-at-the-heels roommates whose air of petulant intimacy belies a platonic relationship that extends back to high school. With a frigid Pittsburgh winter nipping at their noses and creditors snapping at their rears, Zack (Rogen) agrees to accompany Miri (Banks) to their tenth high school reunion, where each soothes their woes by hitting on former classmates… [Full Story]
