TIFF 2011: Here we go again!

Well hello to the four of you who read this blog. I know, I know, another year went by and I wrote nothing at all in between film festivals.

To summarize the last twelve months in a nutshell, they were pretty great. Travelled to Turks & Caicos and the Bahamas to dive (first night dive! hammerhead sharks!), New York (3 times), Chicago, Paris and the cottage. Saw some wonderful theatre, attended a movie premiere with the fabulous Alan Cumming (he. was. awesome.), read about 150 books and watched entirely too much television. Met a few new babies, spoiled my adorable nephew and celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. And now we're all caught up.

It's time for TIFF again! My favourite week (or so) of the year in Toronto and the best thing for alleviating the end of summer depression.

First for the sucky news, not to rehash my rant from last year but the powers that be at TIFF have made even *more* of the first screenings of movies "Premium" which means that not only are they twice the price of the regular screening but that they are ineligible for the advance order process. Basically, all the evening first run screenings at Roy Thompson, Elgin, Ryerson, Princess of Wales, and the Bader are now premium. Or, said another way, pretty much any screening that you can expect to have the stars attend.

Now, what bothers me isn't so much the price (well, that bothers me a little) but the fact that these movies can't be included in my order form. I think that maybe next year I need to reduce the amount of movies I try to preorder and try my luck at buying tickets for a few of those screenings when they go on sale. Or, they need to introduce a 10 ticket premium pack so that people can include those screenings in the order process. I don't know, I'm sure the pre-order process is incredibly complicated. I was just having a discussion last night about how it's possible that they haven't moved it online yet but imagining the disaster that would accompany that attempt.

Anyway, all that aside, I'm getting excited for this year's festival like I always do. What movie will emerge as the universally loved, heard about in every line, breakthrough? Which stars will be entertaining the paparazzi flitting about the city? What movie will I fall in love with that doesn't get the recognition it deserves?

And most importantly, when will I get my order confirmation email so that I can stop worrying about my schedule?

Time will tell!!

TIFF 2010: The Wrap Up

11 Days. 300 films. 300,000 tickets. So went the line on the front of the official film schedule for TIFF this year. Well, I managed to see 16 of them and for your summary pleasure...here's how they fall out in my opinion.

My Favourite Film of the Festival

• Made in Dagenham. I know I'm having a hard time separating the movie itself from my joy in the story of women fighting for equal rights in the world but it was just great.

Great Movies (you should absolutely see them in the theatre or before the Oscars next year)

• Rabbit Hole. Nicole Kidman is back in form and Aaron Eckhart gives a wonderful performance too. A sad story about parents struggling to put their lives back together after losing a child.


• Conviction. Hillary Swank again shines as a tough woman in tough circumstances. The true life story of a sister that won't give up on her brother's innocence.


• Hereafter. Clint Eastwood directs three stories about death and what comes next.


• Beautiful Boy. Won the critic's award for the Discovery programme and showcases fabulous performances by Michael Sheen and Maria Bello.


• Inside Job. Charles Ferguson (previously Oscar nominated for No End in Sight) delivers an eductional and infuriating look at the financial crisis.


• Never Let Me Go. If you were only going to either read the book or see the movie I would recommend the book, but there's room for both and I thought the translation to screen was done really well and cemented my crush on Carey Mulligan as an actress.

Good Movies (worth a rental or a good way to spend time on a plane)

• Daydream Nation. A little dark comedy from a first time Canadian director. I'm sure you'll get a chance to see it on the Movie Network. Kat Dennings is compellingly watchable.


• Super. Rainn Wilson as a sad sack vigilante superhero who is trying to save his wife but mostly just hits people over the head with a wrench. Ellen Page rocks as the unhinged sidekick.


• Trust. A 14yr old girl falls prey to a pedophile. Worth seeing for the performance of Liana Liberato and Clive Owen's final scene.


• Sound of Mumbai: a musical. Documentary about a group of kids from the slums of India who get a chance to perform. The kids, as you'd expect, will break your heart.


• Buried. Ryan Reynolds in a box.


• Easy A. Emma Stone is awesome as the precocious Olive (who needs Lindsay Lohan??) and the movie delivers exactly as it should.


• Waiting for 'Superman'. The kids in lotteries trying to get into better schools anchor a lot of information about the educational system and provide a compelling narrative.

Skip it - not worth the time that could be spent watching better movies

• Jack Goes Boating. Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial debut is a bit slow and pretentious.


• Stone. Edward Norton and Robert DeNiro can't save a story that doesn't seem to come together.

Stuff I didn't see that I heard really good things about in lines

• The King's Speech. Everyone who talked to me about this movie loved it. It won the People's Choice award for the festival (past two years winners are Precious and Slumdog Millionaire) and Colin Firth is getting rave reviews for his performance (like, expect back to back Oscar nomination raves).


• Black Swan. Natalie Portman is apparently also on the Oscar nom shortlist discussion for her performance as a disturbed ballet dancer.


• 127 Hours. It was on my schedule until I decided I wasn't sure I could sit through the amputation scene (further reinforced by reports of people passing out at the premiere). I've heard James Franco is great though and Danny Boyle gave great Q&A's discussing the film.

And that's it for TIFF for another year. Looking back I'm pretty happy with the selection and have another few to add to my 'must see' list. Now on to the fall TV season...

TIFF: Conviction and Stone

My final day of TIFF started strong and unfortunately for the grand finale, ended on a kind of weak note.

First the good news. My morning film was Conviction, starring Hilary Swank in the true story of Betty Anne Waters, an unemployed single mother who went from getting a GED to getting a law degree and passing the bar so that she could fight for the release of her convicted brother Kenneth (played by Sam Rockwell), who was eventually freed based on DNA evidence in 2001 after spending 18 years in jail. (Sorry if that spoiled the movie for any of you, but if you had any doubt that this story would have ended up on screen had he not been freed you haven't seen enough movies).

It seems almost too easy to say that Swank excels, yet again, at playing a woman in a difficult situation. While never succesful playing the ingenue or in a romantic comedy (see P.S. I Love You), when she gets a part in her range no one is better, especially at playing real life women in tough circumstances. This is absolutely her movie, though Rockwell is great as Kenneth, and the focus is on Betty Anne's life and how she sacrificed it (in the words of her onscreen children) in order to save the only person who had been a constant in her life through their less than ideal childhood.

Last day of the festival and, as expected, no one from the film was around to talk about it but we did hear a bit about last week's premiere courtesy of the ladies room line. Apparently Betty Anne (the real one) was there for the Q&A, along with the film's director Tony Goldwyn (most well known as the Ghost baddie) and stars. Betty Anne is still working with the Innocence Project (who assisted her in her struggle) and managing a local bar and Kenneth, really tragically, died about 6 months after he'd been released in an accident. The news took a bit of the wind out of our sails but didn't diminish the movie too much.

And now for the meh news. My final movie of TIFF for 2010 was a bit of a letdown. Stone stars Edward Norton as Gerry, a prisoner who's served 8 years of a 10-15 year sentence and Robert DeNiro as Jack, the man responsible for reviewing him for parole. I had heard pretty mixed reviews all week talking to people in various lines who had seen the movie and I have to agree with those that said it wasn't very good.

Norton is always watchable onscreen and this is no exception, but he wasn't enough to make up for a story that just didn't say much to me. There's some sad backstory on the relationship between Jack and his wife (Frances Conroy), who have a long but clearly unfulfilling marriage. Gerry does a lot of talking and uses his wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich) to maniputate Jack, who works her way into his life and an affair and pretty much acts like a sociopath. Gerry finds some obscure religion - though I don't know if we're meant to believe that this is real or just more manipulation - and eventually gets out of prison. Jack falls apart, retires and lives in fear that Gerry will come after him for sleeping with his wife. There's a confrontation in an alley that goes nowhere...and then it ends. And I walked out sort of bemused and unsatisfied, reminding myself that even though the festival ended on a blah note, for the most part I was really happy with my selection this year.

TIFF: Beautiful Boy and Easy A

Friday afternoon got my final TIFF weekend off to a fairly dark start with Beautiful Boy, starring Maria Bello and Michael Sheen as a couple on the verge of separation dealing with the aftermath of the actions of their son Sam who has gone on a murderous shooting spree at his college before taking his own life.


While dealing with their own loss, the media frenzy and the curiousity and derision of strangers the two try to come to grips with their own feelings of guilt and responsibility and figure out where to go from there. They first escape to the home of her brother and sister-in-law (Alan Tudyk and Moon Bloodgood) before wearing out their welcome and holing up at a low rent motel in a kind of stasis...unable to face what's outside their door. It's very well done, and incredibly well acted by both leads (I was mildly distracted trying to remember if I'd ever heard Sheen do an American accent) and was picked up for distribution at the festival so is likely to hit movie screens at some point in the coming months. I particularly liked the fact that the movie didn't seem to offer easy answers to the question 'why did this happen' and made both parents flawed but sympathetic characters.




Then it was straight back into line for my least 'festival' movie of the fest, Easy A, which premiered at TIFF last weekend before opening in wide release on the same day I saw it here. I should admit up front, as anyone who knows me knows, I have a huge soft spot for teen movies in general so I was quite predisposed to love this movie. And even though parts of it strained my suspension of disbelief - most notably that there's no way that Emma Stone can play a convincing wallflower and the idea that the news that a high school student had sex would feed the rumour mill at all - I really did.

The movie tries to do for The Scarlett Letter what Clueless did for Emma and stars Emma Stone, who shines as Olive Pendergast, a girl caught up in a spiral of lies beginning with the fictitious loss of virginity to an imaginary boy and ending with a reputation as the school trollop selling sexual favours. Though in reality she remains virginal and pining for the boy she's loved since middle school, she decides not to take the abuse lying down and defiantly sews 'A's on all of her new provocative wardrobe. I'm sure it's not a spoiler to tell you that in the end everyone gets what they deserve and Olive goes off into the sunset with the boy of her dreams and the movie has a good time getting there. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson seem to be having a great time playing Olive's wise, cool and pop culture savvy parents (almost too cool, their interactions were another believability strain) . Thomas Hayden Church and Lisa Kudrow show up as teacher and guidance counselor at the school who get pulled into the mess. And Amanda Bynes is funny (though a bit one-note) as the fervent christian leader of the school who shoots daggers at Olive with her eyes and leads the mob to destroy her reputation. If I were a betting woman, I would bet on the fact that I will rewatch this movie on my couch a time or two.

TIFF: Buried

Ryan Reynolds is hot. And tall. And charming. And funny.

Okay, glad I got that out of the way.

Tuesday I was back to the real world at work so I only had one movie on the schedule in the evening. The movie was Buried, directed by Rodrigo Cortes and starring Reynolds as Paul Conroy, a American truck driver working in Iraq who awakens to find himself in a box, assumingly buried underground, with only a lighter and a cellphone. And that's pretty much the entire story.


Cortes introduced the film and thanked us all for coming, pretty much asking us 'you know this movie is just about a guy in a box right??'. In his comments upfront Reynolds said he hoped we enjoyed watching the movie as much as he hated making it. And I'm pretty sure he was only half joking. Filming this must have been really challenging both physically and mentally. The movie premiered at Sundance in January and has been fairly well received, and it's definitely given Reynolds a bit of indie cred. It's basically a one man show, with some voice work of actors on the other end of the phone, and he's very good in it. I found it a bit tough to watch and could just feel my shoulders tensing up throughout the 95 minute film.

The Q&A afterwards was good and showed off Reynolds at his most charming, pointing out his mom in the audience, suggesting an apt name for the sequel (there isn't one) and bouncing back and forth with Cortes. There were quite a few interesting questions and discussions about the technical nature of the filming (they had to use seven different boxes depending on the shot, Reynolds used a real lighter and cell phone to do much of the lighting) and one embarrassing one about the proposal which the moderator wisely cut off with 'how 'bout a real question' before Reynolds had to respond.

Good movie. Worth seeing. And I'll leave you with one more shot of Ryan for the day.

TIFF: Hat Trick Monday - 3 for 3!!

I saw three movies on Monday and really liked all of them.

Started the day with Never Let Me Go, based on the acclaimed book of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. It stars Carey Mulligan (as narrator Kathy), Keira Knightly (Ruth) and Andrew Garfield (Tommy) who meet as schoolchildren at Hailsham, what appears to be an idyllic boarding school. While it's partially a classic love triangle type of story, their lives are complicated by the more serious fate that awaits them after their education.

The filmmakers have done a good job of not spoiling the plot details of the movie in the trailers and information I've seen so far, so I won't do it here. I will say that the movie is a wonderful adaptation of the beautifully written book and all three of the leads do a good job in their roles, particularly Mulligan in only her second major film. Definitely worth putting on your 'must see' list.

My afternoon movie was the world premiere of The Sound of Mumbai: a Musical, from first time director Sarah McCarthy. The documentary follows a group of children from the slums of India who have an opportunity to perform the songs of 'The Sound of Music' at a prestigious performing arts centre with a professional orchestra.

The kids profiled are all incredibly engaging and McCarthy does a great job of capturing the unselfconscious moments between the children, the rivalries that spring up, their family lives and their hopes that this opportunity will change their lives. There's a really interesting juxtaposition between these children and a girl who routinely performs at the centre and is clearly from a wealthy family. I found it a bit sad coming to the end of the concert and knowing that the kids were going to go back to life as usual the next day.

I have to also say that the Q&A was one of the best I've seen yet with folks in the crowd asking specific questions (and not rambling on with their own thoughts) and thoughtful answers from McCarthy. If only the guy who asked about the rights to the music had been listening to the woman who asked the question directly before him. Many of the questions centred around what was happening now to the kids in the movie and McCarthy talked a lot about having to tread carefully to figure out what the best way to support them would be, whether that be in improving the school itself or setting up individual scholarships or something else. I remember reading about all of the problems that the children from Slumdog Millionaire had springing out of the money involved and I think that it's probably a good strategy for the filmmakers to move cautiously. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on the film's website to see what the future holds.

I ended the day with the premiere of Rabbit Hole, directed by John Cameron Mitchell and starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as two parents struggling to deal with the loss of their 4 year old son to a tragic car accident. It's based on the Tony award winning play and was adapted for the screen by the playwright David Lindsay-Abaire. Not the movie to pick if you're looking for something light but really well done. The performances throughout are really stellar, including supporting turns by Diane Wiest and Sandra Oh and I wouldn't be surprised to see Kidman on the Oscar ballet next year. And as sad as the premise of the film is, I was happy that it ended on a note of hope.

Mitchell introduced the movie, flanked by Kidman and Eckhart, but was fairly brief in his remarks. I do wish that if there is no plan to have a Q&A after the film (which there wasn't here), especially for screenings that are twice the price, that the filmmakers and actors would take a little more time to talk about the movie beforehand. Hearing about the process of making the movie and the thoughts of those involved is really one of the main reasons I go to the festival.

TIFF: Made in Dagenham, Jack Goes Boating & Hereafter

Three movie day Sunday with mixed results.




First up was Made in Dagenham, which has officially became the first movie of the fest that I completely fell in love with. Probably partially because I think it was designed to push every feminist button I've got, but also for the great performances, fantastic soundtrack and overall wonderful story.




The movie is based on true events, though fictionalized with characters standing in as amalgams of their real life counterparts. It concerns a strike in the late 60's by the women who worked as machinists in the Ford plant, first over being classified as 'unskilled workers' and then further developing into a broader fight for equal pay to their male counterparts. It is directed by Nigel Cole who previously brought us Calendar Girls and filled with a cast of fantastic british actors including Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James and Rosamund Pike, with Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler!!) standing in as the American Ford representative.




Cole and his two producers attended the early morning screening to introduce the film and then returned for a Q&A afterwards. I saw Richard Schiff sneak in just before the start to watch with an audience as well. They discussed the inspiration for the film (a radio interview reunion with some of the women involved) and making movies about women in general. Cole said it was because he really wasn't interested in making movies about men blowing things up, one of the producers mentioned the bechdel test which happily this movie passes in the first 30 seconds. All in all, a fantastic start to the day.



Next up was Jack Goes Boating, the directorial debut of Philip Seymour Hoffman who also stars as the titular Jack alongside Amy Ryan, Daphne Rubin-Vega and John Ortiz as two rather disfunctional couples.



Rubin-Vega and Ortiz are the married couple with major cracks in the foundation of their relationship. Hoffman is their misfit friend who's into reggae music, sports dreadlocks and doesn't seem to have much going on in his life and who they set up on a date with one of her colleages from work (Ryan). Much of the movie seems to be about Jack's elaborate preparations for date number two (learning to swim and cook a meal) where you just know that things are not going to go well. The movie is based on the play of the same name by Bob Glaudini (who also wrote the screenplay) and all of the actors (save Ryan) were part of the off-broadway cast of the play which gives the movie a feeling of history in the relationships.



I don't know...I turned to my friend at the end of the movie and said that I'm sure there was a great deal of deep symbolism in the movie but that I didn't really get it. She completely agreed. It's not unwatchable by any means and all the actors give good performances but it seemed a bit pretentious to me. Hoffman and his cast did a Q&A after the movie and most of his answers seemed to validate that point to me. I think one of them was of the 'the answer to that is that there is no answer' variety.

Finally, I ended the day with the one and only screening of Clint Eastwood's Hereafter at the festival. It was clearly a hot ticket and Yonge street had a couple of lanes blocked off at the theatre entrance to ward off the gawkers.



The movie deals with death and the afterlife with three seemingly unconnected stories that you know are going to end up connecting at some point. The movie kicks off and kick starts your heart with scenes of the 2004 tsunami and the unlikely survival of Marie Delay (Cecile De France), a french reporter who begins to struggle with her near death experience and is unable to slip back into her life. In England, twin brothers Marcus and Jason are trying to cope with an alcoholic mother and child services when tragedy strikes. In San Fransicso, George (Matt Damon) is trying to live a simple life as a factory worker and escape his past as semi-famous psychic who is able to speak to the dead. He meets a lovely woman in a cooking class (Howard) and is struggling to keep that relationship separate from his abilities (or curse as he believes it to be).



I really liked the movie, though I can't say I walked out loving it. I will say though, that parts of it are sticking with me and I'm still thinking about it 3 days later so that has to say something. I've realized that while I wasn't a huge fan of Eastwood as an actor I've become a pretty big fan of his work as a director and I think this movie will end up settling in there. I'm an even bigger fan of what he does in scoring his films and all of the music works beautifully. An interesting story, good performances, an international cast and some lovely quiet moments. Eastwood, Damon and Howard took to the stage to introduce the film but in the manner in which you'd expect Eastwood didn't have a lot to say and said the film should speak for itself. No Q&A afterwards (Boo!).