TIFF 2013 - August: Osage County, Third Person & When Jews Were Funny

My last three movie day of the festival was yesterday and it was a bit of a mixed bag...

The day started with August: Osage County which was a great way to start off the day.  The movie is based on the pulitzer prize winning play by Tracy Letts (who also did the screenplay) and stars a plethora of big names including Meryl Streep as matriarch Violet Weston and Julia Roberts as one of her daughters.  It's basically a dysfunctional family drama/dark comedy about a pill popping, abrasive mother dealing with her three daughters and all of the family skeletons after the family returns home for their father's funeral.

I had seen the play when it passed through Toronto with Estelle Parsons as Violet and I was blown away by the production.  When I heard that Streep had been cast in the movie version I was excited to see what she would do with the role because, of course, we always expect Meryl to be great.  And seriously, every time I start to think that maybe she might be a bit overrated I see one of her performances, and this one is no exception.  She is tears into the character of Violet and was absolutely riveting and most of the cast holds their own as well, including fantastic performances in particular by Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper.

The director John Wells showed up to introduce the film though didn't return for a Q&A afterwards...I think he may have been busy at the press conference for the movie.

Movie Grade: A

Then it was back to the Ryerson for the second screening of Third Person, the latest from director Paul Haggis.  It's a story about love and the love lives of three men in three different cities.  In Paris, Michael (Liam Neeson) is a writer trying to finish his latest novel while dealing with his relationship with the damaged and prickly Anna (Olivia Wilde).  In Rome, Sean (Adrian Brody) is finishing up a business trip when he runs into Monika (Moran Atias), the damsel in distress of his dreams (or so she seems).  Finally in New York, Rick (James Franco) is an artist with a romantic past with Julia (Mila Kunis) who is possibly the most troubled and screwed up of all the women.  Without spoiling the movie, these three stories are all interconnected in some way and as Haggis put it himself in his introduction, you will benefit from watching carefully to spot details that may help you figure it out.

Haggis, producer Michael Nozik, producer/star Moran Atias and star Adrian Brody turned up for a Q&A following the movie.  Haggis was a bit testy about not wanting to answer questions about the movie, saying that he wanted to make the type of film that people would debate about afterwards and that the puzzle pieces are scattered throughout.  He also talked about how the movie got made and gave a lot of credit to Atias for being persistent.  Atias and Brody talked about their storyline and got into some of the details about filming (including some misfortune with her awful fake teeth).

Movie Grade: B+

Finally, I ended the day at the premiere of the Canadian documentary When Jews Were Funny by Alan Zweig.  Zweig interviews dozens of comedians, from the Borscht belt original Shecky Greene through Howie Mandel and Gilbert Gottfried to the more currently relevant Marc Maron and Andy Kindler to discuss comedy in general, Jewish comedy in particular and the influence of being Jewish on their particular brand of comedy.  Some of the segments were more entertaining than others, most notably with Bob (Super Dave Osborne) Einstein and Judy Gold for me.  The movie goes off on more than one tangent and I came away not really sure what point of view Zweig was trying to get across.  Is it a commentary on assimilation?  A discussion on how hardship breeds comedy?  A projection of the future of comedy?  A study of what it means to be Jewish?  I really wasn't sure.

Zweig and a few people included in the film where there to take questions after the screening and he didn't do much more to enlighten me about his intentions.  Interesting was the discussion of some of the people he had asked to be part of the film who declined (which came up when someone asked about the lack of women in the movie...where he thankfully cut off any "women aren't funny" suppositions).

It was my last documentary of this year and I came away feeling a bit disappointed that I didn't love either of them.

Movie Grade: C+

TIFF 2013 - The Double and The Invisible Woman

Jesse Eisenberg plays a dual role in The Double, both as the meek apologetic worker bee Simon and his sociopathic doppelganger James who slowly takes over his life.  And he's great as both of them, but the movie may have been a bit weird for my taste.  Based on a Dostoevsky novella, and set in some strange version of the past, the movie explores the themes of paranoia,  identity and longing for a connection.  Mia Wasikowsa (Eisenberg's real life girlfriend) shows up as the unattainable object of Simon's desire only to be used and abused by James, and Wallace Shawn is entertaining as the boss who humiliates Simon on a regular basis while praising everything that James does (which, of course, he's stealing from Simon).

More than worth the price of admission was the witty, entertaining and very funny introduction and Q&A with the film's director Richard Ayoade.   Best known for the UK television series The IT Crowd and possibly his acting in last summer's The Watch, Ayoade previously came to TIFF with his directorial debut Submarine and provided some high quality entertainment for the crowd.  Extremely self deprecating and quick witted, his commentary on people leaving the theatre (likely on their way to their next movie) was interspersed with actual answers about the motivation and process of making the film.   He even managed to lighten up Jesse Eisenberg :-)

Movie Grade: B- Q&A: A+

Ralph Fiennes directs and stars as Charles Dickens in The Invisible Woman,  the story of Dickens' secret mistress, the young Nelly Ternan played by Felicity Jones.  It's a pretty basic story, older rich man gets involved with young beautiful girl made all the more interesting by the fact that he was able to keep the relationship somewhat secret as such a public figure.  The story is told from Nelly's perspective and in flashbacks from her current life as a married schoolmarm in the late 1800s.  There were several really lovely scenes in the film, and Fiennes and Jones are both quite good in their roles, as is Joanna Scanlan as Mrs. Dickens but the movie was a bit slow in parts for me.

Fiennes seemed quite emotional both introducing the film and speaking about it afterwards, and gave credit to many people for helping him get to the finished product.  Jones charmingly spoke about what it was like to be directed by Fiennes (mostly like being directed by Dickens), and how making this movie made her look at the female characters in Dickens' novels differently.  They both spoke about the idea of 'the invisible woman' and how the film contains several depictions of female characters that could be described that way.  They were both quite eloquent and charming.

Movie Grade: B

TIFF 2013 - Three Movie Sunday!!

8:30am on a Sunday morning is an early screening.  It says something when you're getting in line before the coffee shop is open.  Matthew Weiner, who showed up for the early morning start to introduce his directorial debut You Are Here started his into by calling us 'his people' who consider going to the movies going to church.

And I have to be completely honest with you.  Maybe it was the early morning or the fact that it was my 5th movie in less than 48 hours but I may have nodded off for a bit in the middle of the film.  I'm pretty sure I saw enough of it to render an opinion though :-)

The film is primarily the story of two childhood friends played by Owen Wilson and Zach Galifianakis and their trip back to their hometown after the death of a parent.  They each have their issues of course, Wilson's Steve is an empty charmer with empty relationships and Galifianakis' Ben clearly has some mental health problems. They tangle with Ben's sister and newly widowed stepmother played by Amy Poehler and Laura Ramsey respectively.   I think it could likely benefit from a tighter edit, and there were a few scenes that seemed out of place, so overall it fell a little bit flat for me.

I asked my friend what she thought the over/under was on how many questions it would take for someone to reference Mad Men and we both figured (correctly) that it would come up on the first question for Mr. Weiner.  And the second.  And the third.  People did a pretty good job of structuring their questions so that they encompassed both the show and the film but I would have probably been pretty annoyed if I were him.  To his credit, he didn't seem to be, and appeared to be happy to discuss the film (and his television experience).  He said that he had written the script about 8 years ago with Wilson in mind and it took him a long time to get it made, also commenting on the scheduling challenges of trying to finish the post production on the movie while still running his incredibly successful TV show.

Movie grade: B-

It's a somewhat early call, but I think Can a Song Save Your Life might just be my favourite film at TIFF this year.  The movie, written and directed by John Carney (who brought us Once) stars Mark Ruffalo as Dan, a down and out record label exec and Keira Knightly as Greta, the singer/songwriter to grabs his attention and gives him a chance at redemption by helping her pull together an album.  The cast is rounded out by some real life musicians (Mos Def as Dan's partner, Adam Levine as the boyfriend who treats Greta badly and Cee-Lo Green as a hip hop star) as well as Catherine Keener and Hailee Steinfeld as Dan's estranged family.

Like Once, the storyline is pretty basic, and the movie succeeds largely on the fantastic music and great performances by Knightly and Ruffalo.  The movie was filmed outdoors all over New York City and just has a great vibe to it.  The audience I watched with (it was the second screening after the premiere on Saturday) all seemed to enjoy it as much as I did, greeting Carney excitedly afterwards when he came up to the stage for a Q&A.   He was very entertaining, with stories of the filming process (and dealing with the paparazzi in NY), discussing the songs in the film and the people who contributed to the movie and seemed inordinately pleased with how much of a douche Adam Levine had to act like on screen.

Apparently some of the studios were as pleased with the movie as I was because there was apparently a bidding war over Saturday night for the rights to the film.  It looks like the Weinstein Company came out the winner so I'd imagine this one might get a release before the end of the year, if only to make sure the songs are eligible for the Oscars.

Movie grade: A

I have never seen as many reserved seats at the Elgin theatre than for the world premiere of Atom Egoyan's Devil's Knot.  I figured it was because Egoyan is a local and had a big section for all his friends and family but it was also because so much of the large cast attended the screening.

The movie is a dramatization of the story behind the West Memphis Three, the teenagers who were tried and convicted of killing three young boys in 1993 only to finally be released from jail in 2011 after  years of fighting and appeals.  I don't feel like I need to call this a spoiler as there has been so much coverage of the story, including the trio of Paradise Lost documentaries.    The sprawling cast includes Colin Firth as Ron Lax, an investigator who helped the defense team and Reese Witherspoon as the mother of one of the victims, through whom much of the plot is filtered.  There were good performances throughout the movie and it was very well plotted and felt suspenseful, even though I was familiar with the story.

In the post film Q&A, Egoyan discussed activism in filmmaking, the influence of the documentaries (he probably correctly noted that in reality most people have not seen them and that a mainstream movie would bring much more attention to the story), and finally laughingly instructed the audience to ask some questions to his cast since he 'lives here...you can ask me anytime'.  The cast almost uniformly agreed that they got very involved in the case, discussing information gleaned online and through other readings during filming.  When asked about whether they were familiar with the story before getting involved in the film the most entertaining answer came from James Hamrick (who plays one of the accused Damien Echols) who informed us that he was born in 1993 when the events took place and the most touching answer came from Robert Baker (who plays a police officer) who grew up in the area and vividly remembers living through it.

Movie Grade: A- (that's two winners for Firth this year)

TIFF 2013 - The Railway Man & Labor Day

Saturday morning's downpour meant a soggy hour waiting in line to see The Railway Man at the Elgin.  It didn't get much better when the movie froze about 25 minutes in to the screening.  Thankfully the TIFF staff were great about keeping us up to date and were able to restore the screening after about a 20 minute delay.  Even more thankfully, the movie was great and the cast and crew attended for a lovely Q&A for the second screening of the film.

The movie stars Colin Firth as Eric Lomax, a WWII victim of the "Death Railway" and tells the story of the search for his torturer encouraged by his wife Patti (played by Nicole Kidman).  The story takes place both in the 1980s as Eric is finally dealing with the horrors he experienced during the war and in flashbacks to the war itself and I have to say that the casting of Jeremy Irvine as the younger version of Eric was fantastic, as well as the casting of the younger and older versions of Nagase (his torturer).  Stellan Skarsgard also appears as a fellow survivor and has a few great scenes with Nicole Kidman as she tries to find out why her husband has night terrors and has shut her out.  I thought it was a very good movie made all the more powerful by the fact that it was a true story and was made with the involvement of Eric and Patti themselves.

As mentioned, a big chunk of the creative team showed up to discuss the movie including both sets of the actors playing Lomax and Nagase as well as Patti Lomax herself.  Eric passed away late last year and was unable to see the movie finished, though he did get a chance to spend some time on the set.  The filmmakers discussed the 14 year journey to getting the film made (they jokingly said they had to wait until Firth was old enough to play the character).  Patti told a lovely story about how her husband came to the realization that Firth was actually famous when they were told he was going to play the part.  The actors talked quite a bit about how they worked together to create the older and younger versions of the characters (Irvine's initial response that he immediately started to work on his Colin Firth impression was charming).

It was a very good movie: A-

Tonight's film introduction started with  "Welcome to the Jason Reitman theatre", and a promise (apology?) that he would not be back at the Ryerson again tomorrow night.  Reitman then introduced the  world premiere of Labor Day by noting that first, the TIFF/Ryerson audience is who he thinks about when making a film and then saying he hoped that we liked it (and weren't expecting a comedy) because it was a different film than he has made in the past.  He also very touchingly dedicated it to his mother who was in the audience.

The movie stars Kate Winslet as depressed single mom Adele, who ends up providing a ride for a wounded, escaped convict Frank (Josh Brolin) on one of her few forays out of the house to buy some back to school clothes for her son Henry.  As Frank, Adele and Henry end up spending the titular weekend together in her home while the town and authorities search for him they discover that he's more than they expected.  Are they his hostages or not?  Was he really guilty of murder?   How can this situation possibly end in anything but tragedy?  The tension level throughout the film was pretty high and I wasn't sure where things were going until the very end but was very satisfied by the outcome.   Also in something of a theme today I have to mention that the casting of Tom Lipinski as the young Frank was fantastic.

Reitman and the cast took questions after the movie and there were many for Reitman about his motivation for making this more serious/darker movie (at one point he said he felt like he was in a therapy session :-) ).  There was also a really awkward question for Kate on how she dealt with the (mild spoiler alert) unfortunate pregnancy plot point in the movie which elicited gasps from the audience.  All credit to her, she handled it really well and gracefully, actually admitting that she slipped out for the screening because she found it "really weird" to watch right now.

Also a very good movie...two for two today!  A-

TIFF 2013 - A night with the Jasons

Jason Reitman's live read was one of the coolest experiences of TIFF last year so I was very excited for tonight's reading of Boogie Nights.   As he's been doing for the past several years (mostly in LA) and brought to TIFF for the first time last year, Reitman gathers a group of actors to read a script of a movie while he conducts the party reading off the non-dialogue portions of the script.  This year's effort was the screenplay of Boogie Nights and starred the following:

As Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) - Jesse Eisenberg (how's that for avoiding type casting)
As Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) - Olivia Wilde
As Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) - Josh Brolin
As Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) - Jason Sudekis
As Reed Rothchild (John C Reilley) - Dane Cook
As Rollergirl (Heather Graham) - Dakota Fanning
As various other characters - Scott Thompson, Jordan Hayes, Jarod Eihnson and Marc-Andre Grondin

As expected, it was a highly entertaining effort.  Highlights included Eisenberg's singing, Wilde and Fanning doing to the coked up scene and pretty much any time Sudekis or Cook were involved in the scene (these two are obviously very used to performing live for an audience).   I really hope that Reitman continues to bring one of these to TIFF every year.

After that we went outside and straight back into line at the Ryerson for Bad Words, the directorial debut of Jason Bateman.  Bateman also stars, as a foul mouthed 40-year old high school dropout and possible genius who enters a spelling bee competition (via loophole obviously) and sets out to win for reasons of his own, destroying the dreams of many children and parents in the process.   His co-stars include Philip Baker Hall and Allison Janney as spelling bee brass, Kathryn Hahn as the reporter following the story and newcomer Rohan Chand as a fellow competitor.

Bateman has described the movie as the "Bad Santa of spelling bees" and the description is an accurate one.  I thought it was quite funny (and judging by the reaction of the crowd I was in the majority) though fairly predictable.

Bateman, Hahn and Chand took the stage for a Q&A after the movie and he was as charming and lovely as I have grown to expect over the past few years of TIFF appearances.  There was a great deal of discussion around how far you can push the envelope in the name of comedy and a charming answer when youngster Chand was asked about the material and he said that his parents had said that the script was "a little advanced" and that his script often had much of the dialogue blacked out.  Bateman pandered to the Toronto audience in the nicest way possible, saying that it was his goal as a director to make it to this festival and said that he hoped to move into more directing in the future.

News first thing this morning was that the movie was acquired by Focus Features so it will likely be hitting theatres sometime next year.  It's worth checking out: B+

TIFF 2013 - A Story of Children in Film

Well, it's that time of year again!  Not back to school or end of summer for me....September is all about the Toronto International Film Festival rolling into town bringing stars, media, tourists, lineups and almost 300 movies to choose from.

Following my usual process of pouring through the program book and spreadsheeting my way to possible choices, I firmed up my schedule to 20 movies over the 10 days of the fest.  I should interject here that I am pretty damn impressed that the move to online ordering TIFF made last year went as smoothly as it did and continues to work very well.  Though as an early ticket package purchaser I know I'm lucky that I don't have to sit in the virtual waiting room waiting to see what's available when individual tickets go on sale.

So, on to the movies....

Unfortunately, A Story of Children and Film was a bit of a letdown as my first film of the festival.  The documentary, written and directed by Mark Cousins, the movie uses the framing device of a home video of his niece and nephew to show the various moods of children and then cuts to numerous clips of movies that illustrate the particular mood or emotion.   I found the descriptions of the types of camera shots and filming techniques quite interesting but the movie seemed a bit meandering and many of the movies highlighted were way more obscure than I would have expected.

Cousins attended the film and I must say that I enjoyed the discussion and Q&A after the film more than the movie itself.  He is clearly passionate about the subject matter and was engaging and well spoken.  For the Q&A: B+, for the movie itself: C+

My Quest to see EVERYTHING on Broadway

I spent 8 weeks in Manhattan this fall and one of my goals while there was to be able to leave the city being able to say that I had seen absolutely everything playing on Broadway.

Number of Shows on Broadway Nov/Dec 2012 (or starting previews) :  36
Number of Shows I had already seen before arrival:  13
Number of Shows that remained unseen:  6

If you're doing the math you might assume that I saw 17 shows during my little sojourn.  But no, all told, I saw 25 shows in my 8 weeks in New York.  My original goal just kept getting derailed by intriguing off broadway or one-off charity performances.

Here are some thoughts about some of the ones that I saw...

Most unexpected delight:  The Mystery of Edwin Drood (which I saw twice) stars broadway legend Chita Rivera, Stephanie J Block, Will Chase and Jim Norton.  This musical revival based on the last unfinished novel by Charles Dickens is structured as a play within a play and leaves the ending up to the audience, who get to choose whodunnit among other options.

Most Inexplicable Early Closing:  The Performers starring Henry Winkler, Cheyenne Jackson, Alicia Silverstone and Ari Graynor, which closed 5 days after its opening night.  I managed to catch the final performance for this one and found it pretty funny with a couple of great performances by Graynor and Jackson.  I guess broadway just wasn't ready for a show about the porn industry.

Most Easily Understood Early Closing:  The Anarchist starring Patti Lupone and Debra Winger in a new play written by David Mamet.  Winger played a parole officer evaluating longtime inmate Lupone.  They talk, and talk, and talk in circles.  And then it ends.

Laziest Performance:  Matthew Broderick in Nice Work if You Can Get It.  I get that the character is supposed to be a bit of a lazy dilettante but there were many times during the performance that Broderick seemed to be phoning it in.  If not for the supporting performances of Kelli O'Hara, Judy Kaye and Michael McGrath I may have considered it a bust of an evening.

Best Dancing on Broadway:  The fantastic group of boys in Newsies. Who knew that a Disney flop of a movie could turn into such a fun show? The energy of these guys is amazing.

Most interesting stage set up:  The theatre for Once, where the bar on stage becomes functional at intermission allowing theatre patrons to jump up on stage and belly up to the bar.  The show is pretty good too.

Best Makeunder:  The gorgeous Jessica Chastain in The Heiress somehow managed to come across as dowdy and awkward in her portrayal of an uptight spinster caught up in a whirlwind romance (or is that a con game) with a dashing suitor (Downton Abbey's Dan Stevens).

Best Bang for my Buck:  If you've been to the theatre in the late spring or fall you are likely familiar with the annual fundraising drive for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.  The cast mades a post curtain call announcement about the charity, usually there are cast members at the doors with buckets as you exit to collect donations and every once and a while you get a bigger fundraising effort from the cast (I watched Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig auction the shirts off their backs after a performance a few years ago).  The Gypsy of the Year Awards is the show that serves as the finale of this fundraising effort, with performances by many of the current productions, some special guests and performances and announcement of the winners of the fundraising awards.   In one afternoon I saw performances from the casts of The Lion King, Bring it On, Newsies, Once, Mary Poppins, Chicago, Mamma Mia and several others.

Most Against-type Performance:  Laurie Metcalf was incredible starring as a brilliant woman slowly losing her mental faculties in The Other Place.  If she isn't nominated for a Tony I will be really surprised.

Most interesting 'Couple' comparison:  Over the period of a few days I saw two preview performances of plays centred around a young couple and all the problems surrounding them.  The first was Picnic, starring Maggie Grace and Sebastian Stan.  The second was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Scarlett Johansson and Benjamin Walker.  Picnic was more enjoyable for the fantastic supporting cast, including Mare Winningham and Ellen Burstyn, but the central couple really lacked chemistry.  In comparison I was completely impressed by Johansson and Walker (who I fell in love with in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson a few years ago) as Maggie and Brick.

Best Example of a Star Performer overcoming the material:  Carolee Carmello, who starred in Kathie Lee Gifford's quickly closed Scandalous blew the roof off the theatre.  It didn't matter that the story, about the first and most famous female evangelist, wasn't that compelling to me.

Favourite performances by 'Hollywood Stars':  Jake Gyllenhaal in If There Is I Haven't Found it Yet, Paul Rudd and Michael Shannon in Grace, Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale in Glengarry Glen Ross, Neil Patrick Harris in the one night concert performance of Assassins and Jessica Chastain, Dan Stevens and David Strathairn in The Heiress.

Many of these shows have since closed as Broadway gets ready for a slew of openings in the next few months prior to the Tony nomination cut off.  Lucky for me, I'm heading back to the city for another spell and will once again attempt to see everything before I go...stay tuned!