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)