tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-159454782024-03-07T00:24:00.467-05:00Moviemartyr @ TIFFJeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.comBlogger232125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-26835092477803578282011-09-18T18:32:00.003-04:002011-09-18T18:35:46.826-04:00TIFF - Day 11<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUDYxE5wutukXQdWTxsObaZPb1S_2A2UJQ82cwxhtcrPo2NE8Ey-XCc0beGkKoPXZmjOii0Gm8dmUbnbuPP0MGBIZUQGmDat6plFvkMYpEu7LcqOQjg_-iXQtZoR5Px1yn2qCew/s1600/Turin-Horse-3.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUDYxE5wutukXQdWTxsObaZPb1S_2A2UJQ82cwxhtcrPo2NE8Ey-XCc0beGkKoPXZmjOii0Gm8dmUbnbuPP0MGBIZUQGmDat6plFvkMYpEu7LcqOQjg_-iXQtZoR5Px1yn2qCew/s320/Turin-Horse-3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5653831411591854114" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal">Some quick hits, written on the airport shuttle, to finish up the fest:<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Twixt (Francis Ford Coppola)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Equal parts idiotic and idiosyncratic, one wonders how this Twin Peaks knockoff could possibly be a personal film for Coppola until one recalls that the dude made <i>Dementia 13</i>. This is very stupid stuff, graced with a visual style that is roughly akin to an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmy-CtePMIU">outdated computer game</a>. As a mystery, it’s fairly sloppy, essentially content to let the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe show up and explain the whole thing. Perhaps in having the protagonist exercise his personal demons through the resolution of this mystery, Coppola’s making some sort of statement about auteurs who produce termite art, but really that is a tenuous thing to hold a goofy ass movie like this on. Scattered moments of fun here and there (e.g. Elle Fanning’s teen vampire with braces), but really nothing that would merit any attention at all were it from a less famous director.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 39/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Turin Horse (Bela Tarr)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fairly amazing, though it might help that Sjostrom’s <i>The Wind </i>is one of my all-time favorite films. Tarr distills his already spare style down even further, producing minute variations on already spare elements (potato cooking, wagon dragging, trips to the well). Cumulatively, they create a powerful statement on a state of life that seems to be wavering between resignation and perseverance. The sequence shots here are rather incredible (talk about a movie that makes you contend with its space!), and the horse wins my TIFF award for Best Actor (Sorry, Mr. Shannon). <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 87/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Almost more powerful for being so undercooked, this formally accomplished drama charts the various levels of exploitation that a young, disaffected girl exposes herself to. Leigh’s singlemindedness keeps a firm POV from emerging on this material, and that elusiveness helps to draw us in and endure the various tortures inflicted upon our young heroine. Though there seems to be no doubt that Emily Browning did precisely what was asked of her, there’s probably some missed potential here in offering a fuller portrait of this girl. I am not sure that platitudes were the answer, but more understanding of attitudes would be appreciated. This may be an “art film” first and a “good film” second, but I found its surfaces seductive enough.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 66/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-84253859853320941752011-09-18T15:45:00.001-04:002011-09-18T15:46:10.560-04:00TIFF - Day 10<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJcbwq7yr5vtwKdq9x8oTglA2N4-w3a70LQ7xk6S7fPubTXt_4-SdASyRaew3oPuRWzUmI-Uhby2kJNYijZlxDRuA-Z7QeLta7Ev9CXVya-rlmLK2XZXlAokz4NSSacKh6QDvPw/s1600/DeepBlueSea-5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJcbwq7yr5vtwKdq9x8oTglA2N4-w3a70LQ7xk6S7fPubTXt_4-SdASyRaew3oPuRWzUmI-Uhby2kJNYijZlxDRuA-Z7QeLta7Ev9CXVya-rlmLK2XZXlAokz4NSSacKh6QDvPw/s320/DeepBlueSea-5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5653788101929557746" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes)</b> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is definitely guilty of playing like “Shakespeare for Dummies” at times since Fiennes is trying as hard as humanly possible to make sure we can follow the plot here. News reports, captions, protest signs, and big bold titles are used to make characters’ relationships blindingly clear. Numerous action scenes are included, with violent gunfights and bloody knife brawls frequently staged. It’s as if the film has been conceived out of a prevailing fear that we might lose interest otherwise. The original play is about war, to be sure, but something about the shift to contemporary trappings makes some of this stuff seem a tad desperate. Nonetheless, most of the drama works very well. A long scene in which public sentiment is swayed toward and then away from Fiennes’ Coriolanus is genuinely stirring. Brian Cox’s attempts to find ethics in politics make for good drama. The highlight, without a doubt, is Vanessa Redgrave’s performance. As a mother who has groomed her son to be a noble soldier, she is an indomitable presence, and her closing monologue is a Shakespearean screen turn for the ages. Gerard Butler, predictably, is a deficit, but he’s mostly asked to serve as a punching bag. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 60/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (Bruce Beresford)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>This is a dopey generation gap comedy, in which three generations of women come to better appreciate one another as they spend a week or so in a hippie grandma’s Woodstock abode. The title is an apt description for what lies within this rather routine film. Beresford could make something like this in his sleep, and apparently does here. There are charms to be had (Fonda is initially engaging, until it becomes apparent she has no character to play, Elizabeth Olsen also has been given next to no character, but genuinely inhabits her role) Women, I think are the target audience here (there are several male butts on display, but no female nudity), which is fine, but it seems curious that the most inspired segment comes at the hands of the leading male character. Near the end of the film, a teen who is an aspiring documentary filmmaker debuts his first work. Suddenly the narrative elements of this very conventional work are reconfigured into <i>Love in Woodstock</i>, an experimental (if somewhat crude) film within the film that probably sheds more light on the rhythms and conflicts in these relationships than all of the script’s clichéd dialogue combined.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 42/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Filled with gorgeous moments and wryly observed condemnations about those of us who pretend to be happy, this is a strong, second-tier von Trier effort. The much-discussed opening, in which planets seem to kiss and the world ends beautifully, sets a breathlessly romantic tone that is immediately given a challenge by the bulk of the film’s depressed handheld camerawork. While I am somewhat underwhelmed by the depth of ideas here (Woody Allen has played the same take on depression for laughs with arguably greater profundity… not that Lars isn’t after a few laughs here…), there is still a great deal to admire. The performances, not just from Cannes prize-winner Dunst, but from the entire ensemble, are excellent. The juxtaposition of intimacy and scale becomes bewildering in itself. Throughout, the attempt to achieve normalcy seems desperate, driving home the film’s thesis. The ending, which sees the image utterly wiped away, is perfect. <span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 76/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>An adaptation of Rattigan’s play, I suppose, but Davies more than makes it his own. We can tell we’re in his territory when, before the credits even give way to image, we’ve already experienced a ticking clock, a persistent rainstorm, and the promise of a suicide. This is a real “movie movie”, in which kitsch lacquered in nostalgia somehow becomes almost overwhelmingly heartfelt. There are several sequences here that left me breathless. By chopping up Rattigan’s text, the film enhances the potency of what remains. These three pathetic characters are equally tragic, all cursed by a present tinged with too much nostalgia. The frankly carnal nature of the central drama keeps things from ever feeling too staid. Probably underrating this.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 79/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Albert Nobbs (Rodrigo Garcia)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Albert Nobbs is “such a kind little man,” except that he’s a woman in disguise in this curio of a film. Glenn Close plays the titular character in an intensely interior manner that seems somewhat at odds with the superficial tone of the film at large. Any iota of intelligence that’s here can be found in her performance, but even still, it’s not really a film that’s aiming for intelligence. Take genders out of the equation here, and you’re left with a simple plot, worthy of a silent melodrama. There’s a strange resistance here to presenting Nobbs as a proto-feminist, which should probably be viewed as an asset. Strangely, though, Nobbs’ quest for money and survival becomes her defining characteristic, which would probably be more compelling if she were not so completely “soft in the head.” A strange film, anchored by a strange performance that’s so tightly contained that it scarcely counts as a double role.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 50/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Kill List (Ben Wheatley)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Essentially a British variation on the Tarantino-scripted <i>From Dusk Till Dawn</i>, with little of the verve that made that something of a classic. A large part of the problem here is that Wheatley’s improvisations cannot possibly compare to Tarantino’s meticulously crafted speeches. What we end up with is a film that is one-third kitchen-sink drama, one-third hitman saga, and one-third a brush with the occult. These three segments flow into one another less than holistically (indeed, a late-breaking flashback montage tries to cobble it all together), making the final act’s left-field twist seem rather dumb. The only thing that sustains the trajectory is a slowly building sense of non-specific dread. Conceptually clever, and not terrible by any means, but not well-executed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 49/100<o:p></o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-24801271408338483362011-09-17T01:18:00.002-04:002011-09-17T01:22:28.052-04:00TIFF - Day 9<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-8xj09mZkw6_WctjES5-cRfw0mzv8-_godPZc8SQzTsDnVKvXViMDXrgsa4o3uWMVFKD-u7ojyoyS8EfSIgw61E39eOQEVO9rZdTeFmSveVVs_d6kt_Gg1X1naRJMo9ZkWU6RA/s1600/TakeShelterNew.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG-8xj09mZkw6_WctjES5-cRfw0mzv8-_godPZc8SQzTsDnVKvXViMDXrgsa4o3uWMVFKD-u7ojyoyS8EfSIgw61E39eOQEVO9rZdTeFmSveVVs_d6kt_Gg1X1naRJMo9ZkWU6RA/s320/TakeShelterNew.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5653193637057743778" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Outside Satan (Bruno Dumont) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dumont exerts his mastery on an open-ended narrative here, gradually turning narrative withholding into spiritual mystery. Though familiar territory for the director, he’s as good as anyone as working in this post-Bressonian mode. The light application of miracles inserted into a few hours of mundane human drama makes for a powerful, almost metaphysical, viewing experience. This is an achingly physical film, filled with repetitive, labored trudges across the French marshes, yet its meanings all seem to lie just outside of our earthly realm. Call it the anti-<i>Ordet</i>, if you will, but this is a deeply uncanny and unsettling film. It’s as if Dumont is retelling a myth about good and evil with no clear idea where the lines between the two lie. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 68/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Habemus Papum (Nanni Moretti)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This starts charmingly as a gentle, middlebrow sendup of the Papal selection process, but it indisputably runs off the rails by its midpoint. Moretti, something of a footnote in his own film, plays a psychiatrist tasked with assessing the mental state of the reluctant new Pope (Michel Piccoli). Unfortunately, the Pope quickly flees the Vatican, and the film becomes as unmoored as its subject. Endless scenes involving a volleyball game between the Cardinals and the new Pope’s obsession with Chekov miss their satiric marks entirely, making what was a novel comedy turn into drudgery. Potent in a few moments (e.g. the Pope’s confession, “I’m an actor” hits with blunt force), but far too diffuse to sustain any comedy. I suppose Moretti is attempting to critique the Catholic Church’s disconnect from the real world, by focusing on a process that shows its leaders in a state of self-imposed exile, but any coherent theme is lost among the digressions.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 49/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wasn’t entirely sold on Nichols’ <i>Shotgun Stories</i>, but this second feature, which sees him switching inspiration from Greek tragedy to Biblical parable, suggests a second look is in order. Michael Shannon, giving a superb performance reminiscent of Robert Duvall’s best, plays a man convinced by his nightmares that a judgment day of sorts is coming. We’re made privy to his hallucinations, and Shannon’s work makes us aware of the tragic consequences that ensue when a man of action has to respond to a situation that he can’t fix with his hands. I am a sucker for male melodrama, and this worked me over. Scenes, such as the one in which we see the protagonist arrive at his counselor having already done his homework are heartbreakers. Indeed, the very premise, in which we are asked to watch a family disintegrate merely out of an obsessive desire to protect said family, is potent stuff. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 77/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is a by the numbers British kitchen sink melodrama with unusually ferocious performances from its three leads. Surely an “actors’ movie” first and foremost, it’s somewhat disappointing then that only Mullan seems to craft a full-blooded characterization. The overall trajectory toward hard-won redemption feels somewhat forced and Considine’s tendency toward brief scenes seems like a shame. I would love to see these actors froth at the mouth in Mike Leigh-length shots. There are some nice details in the set design (the protagonist’s apartment is decorated with broken Hummel figurines and the photograph clearly removed from a shattered frame), but this is essentially a two-note film, alternating between redemption and confrontation, working the audience over ruthlessly with animal abuse and rapes.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 55/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold)<br /></b>While the qualifications here as an adaptation of the novel are certainly questionable (it’s missing the second half, for starters), I found plenty to groove on here aesthetically. Maybe credit must go to cinematographer Robbie Ryan, but this feels as if Philippe Grandrieux got a hold on the Bronte work. The first half of the film, especially, rubs our noses in nature and the abuse that Heathcliff faces. While the plot rears its head more explicitly in the second hour and the older actors are outclassed by the younger, on a visual level things remain rather intoxicating all the same. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b>Rating: 75/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-63938742417250630402011-09-16T17:27:00.002-04:002011-09-16T17:32:28.172-04:00TIFF - Day 8<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOiRtvWrRI9oKZW1hzRfi_QW50GgI1tyHEngLWzg9j522c2kTWbQdP1gAW_OyjSMNEog5ghuJ1cAVMeqwmUgftLKgcpAXGtEtYtJElf3mfFUFuDcyQ2CTe0vfOYMhMbnYamZtqLQ/s1600/That-Summer-2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOiRtvWrRI9oKZW1hzRfi_QW50GgI1tyHEngLWzg9j522c2kTWbQdP1gAW_OyjSMNEog5ghuJ1cAVMeqwmUgftLKgcpAXGtEtYtJElf3mfFUFuDcyQ2CTe0vfOYMhMbnYamZtqLQ/s320/That-Summer-2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5653072337610469954" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>That Summer (Philippe Garrel)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My basic opinion that if you’ve seen one recent Garrel film you’ve seen them all might have been something of an asset here. Indeed, all of the director’s familiar tropes (suicide, infidelity, film sets, Louis Garrel, etc…) are present and accounted for here. Perhaps this is why this film, notably the only one I’ve seen so far at this year’s festival that garnered no post-screening applause whatsoever, didn’t strike me as being particularly bad. Indeed, I found plenty to appreciate here, no matter how predictable its overall tale of doomed love might be. Garrel always verges on self-parody (e.g. after finding out his girlfriend is pregnant, a man tells her “No more suicide attempts, ok?”), but that’s because his movies are delivered with such absurd conviction. He keeps returning to the same well, but that repetition makes his movies feel more heartfelt. This one struck me as being surprisingly bracing, with an effective high-wire performance from Monica Belluci. The inevitability of the relationships’ demise gifts them with a real romantic pulse rarely achieved in this sort of drama. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 58/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Breathing (Karl Markovics)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Issues of guilt, death and abandonment are looked at from the point of view of an apprentice undertaker in Karl Markovics’ uninspiring debut <i>Breathing</i>. Though things begin well enough, introducing us to an 18-year old protagonist in a spare, seemingly accomplished style, as soon as Markovics begins to integrate narrative elements, things go awry. The lead character is entirely too passive to suggest any sort of interior activity. His on-the-job interactions are meant to demonstrate his overriding reticence in dealing with other people, I suppose, but they could just as easily be indicators of ineptitude. When he begins to seek out his estranged mother, things get even worse. A horribly misjudged series of scenes (including an extended trip to Ikea) reveal an entirely conventional narrative core, which eventually overrides any formal concerns. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 35/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Terrafirma (Emanuele Crialese)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Crialese works in a familiar register here, with this contemporary story set on the isle of Linosa coming across as a companion piece to his <i>Golden Door</i>. After an extended opening which establishes the rhythms of the lives of the local fisherman, the film takes up the issue of illegal immigration. Instead of becoming didactic, though, he keeps things allegorical, firmly grounded in the experience of the island’s people. The pre-existent “law of the sea” is the best argument given against the Italian government’s laws against aiding and abetting illegal immigrants. The tourists, who come to the island hoping to shutter out any social realities, are stand-ins for the Italian populace at large. Though I wish I got more of a sense of the family’s emotional issues (the father figure who disappeared at sea seems like he should be a more glaring absence), there is plenty of great imagery on display here and a humanist perspective that genuinely comes through.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 57/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Michael (Markus Schleinzer) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A fairly stupid, intensely empty-headed movie about a pedophile with a boy stashed in his basement. I’m not sure if the intended effect here was to shock or to create black comedy, but the film fails to work on either front. The supposed formal rigor that was attributed to the film at Cannes turns out to be superficial at best, delivering neither a sense of routine nor a deadening repetition of events. Schleinzer’s mock-rigor is about as convincing as the mock-shock that the film feigns in its exploration of its seedy subject matter. The last fifteen minutes, or so, in which we sit through misplaced suspense about the fate of the captured boy, expose the film as the cheap stunt that it is.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 30/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Day (Doug Aarniokoski)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A strange post-apocalyptic action film. Taking place almost entirely in one location, the first half is something of a chamber drama, in which (poorly acted) characters bemoan the state of humanity. Just as things begin to look what everyone feared when we learned that McCarthy’s “The Road” was being brought to the screen, Aarniokoski drops any pretenses and turns this into a home invasion thriller. As the cast fends off a group of largely anonymous cannibals and fight among itself, the film finds itself in familiar, yet acceptable, territory. Fans of this sort of thing will no doubt be pleased with the level of gore and sadism here. The obviously low budget is worn well.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 51/100<o:p></o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-17761438555098400912011-09-15T17:38:00.001-04:002011-09-15T17:39:32.140-04:00TIFF - Day 7<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkRU_NITWI9H9gLCjJ6kHDjLBgkdtVgamHQNgfYUtik1goTGL39PvcyKC-91fHVHeonHLiKAQsCIbqQkFAZqu0MNbaRBEdVyl1MuI2vV4hRH_ZMeyfU931-45KAtu-8ubalVYvqA/s1600/Damsels-in-Distress.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkRU_NITWI9H9gLCjJ6kHDjLBgkdtVgamHQNgfYUtik1goTGL39PvcyKC-91fHVHeonHLiKAQsCIbqQkFAZqu0MNbaRBEdVyl1MuI2vV4hRH_ZMeyfU931-45KAtu-8ubalVYvqA/s320/Damsels-in-Distress.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652704048967378962" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the overbearing film festival climate is to blame, but this light, witty comedy from the usually sophisticated Stillman hit a sweet spot for me. Set at a traditionally females-only east coast private university, the film follows a group of young women who are hilariously earnest in their “outreach” efforts to the local male population. Volunteering at the campus suicide prevention clinic and dating far beneath their means are their most notable acts of charity, and their unorthodox methods of helping (donuts, hygiene tips) provide many of the laughs here. Like Stillman’s past films, self-imposed social rules and standards are exploredS, and while this might not be his most insightful work, it’s quite possibly his most consistently funny. The characters here always threaten to become caricatures, but deftly avoid true glibness, giving the film the feel of a high-wire act that favorably recalls Heckerling’s <i>Clueless</i>. It’s disconnected from reality, but in a pleasing way. The cast is excellent, with Gerwig the note-perfect standout.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 74/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Like Crazy (Drake Doremus)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not sure what this was going for exactly. With a zillion snippets of conversation, it recounts several years in the mundane romance of two young college students who run into visa trouble. The toll that distance takes on their on-again, off-again relationship is anything but revelatory, and you would think that director Doremus would isolate more distinctive moments from their lives if he was going to chop them up like this. Instead, we get an infinite number of shots of the two inadequate leads sulking and absurdly stupid moments like the one in which she breaks the bracelet he gave her (inscribed “Patience”!) while having sex with another man. Neither of these lousy actors seems to have much of a character to play, and audiences who keep waiting for their tale to develop into something that works on a deeper level will be doing so in vain. Pretty unlikeable. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 42/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Snowtown (Justin Kurzel)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There’s a thin line between creating a pervasive atmosphere and dragging one’s feet, and I think Justin Kurzel, in his debut film, falls on the wrong side of it. This true-crime story of what is apparently Australia’s worst series of serial killings, is told entirely from the perspective of the perpetrators, who acted in a small group. This gambit ensures that <i>Snowtown</i> is exceedingly seedy and capable of taking audiences into a dark place, but I found myself largely undisturbed by it. There’s little effort to focus on psychology here, as the film seems more caught up in procedure. The most surprising moments come as we see these people make a clear demarcation between the evils of, say, child molestation (many of their victims were homosexuals and pederasts) and the apparent acceptability of torturing people to death. Things are definitely not sensationalized here, as events are neither played for thrills nor turned into opportunities for lyricism. This gives <i>Snowtown</i> some hard-earned grit, but perhaps costs it perspective on the events that it depicts.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 47/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Pariah (Dee Rees)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One suspects that the fluke success of <i>Precious</i> is desired for this well-acted and well-shot but predictable coming out drama. This is a far less singular effort, to be sure, which might be seen as an asset for those who found the histrionics of Daniels’ film to be a bit too much. In my view, as well done as it is and as vividly as it realizes its Brooklyn setting, <i>Pariah</i>’s decision to focus on its teenage protagonist’s anxieties and sensual experiences comes at a price. The film seems content to view the girl as a lesbian first and an emerging mind (she’s a straight A student) only as an afterthought. A better film would have paid more mind to her intellectual coming out. There’s little doubt here that the resilient young Alike will find her way in life, which limits the potency of the drama somewhat. Still, well done, if precisely what one would expect it to be.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 53/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A true mindfuck, this maternal drama is recognizable as the product of the director who brought us <i>Tetsuo: The Iron Man</i>. Tsukamoto uses an extremely loud soundtrack, vibrating camerawork, superimpositions and double vision in an attempt to approximate the mind of his mad heroine. A new, single mother, who soon has her child taken away from her, Kotoko’s waking hours are spent imagining horrible fates that might befall her child (many of which the director makes real). Her reclusive nature makes the film recall Polanski’s <i>Repulsion</i>, to be sure, but this is a more extreme (if less subtle) vision of madness. Gory scenes in which Kotoko cuts herself are interspersed throughout the narrative, and fantasies often threaten to take over, leaving us uncertain of where reality lies. This portrait of a modern-day Medea is a largely uncompromising vision of madness, taken farther than many viewers will like, but it’s been made with enough horrible conviction that it becomes tough to shake.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 69/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Lovely Molly (Eduardo Sanchez)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In many respects this deliberately paced spiritual successor to <i>Blair Witch</i> is a tired retread of an overdone conceit. Still, I found it to be a somewhat unsettling viewing experience, so there must be something done right here. The narrative here is a simple tale of possession in which a recovering drug addict/abuse victim returns to the home where her dead father assaulted her. The gradual encroachment of madness here gives the film a deliberate pacing that really doesn’t pay off, but the sheer unpleasantness of Molly’s slow decline was enough to make the film work for me. Sanchez’s mixture of conventionally shot scenes and those done in the first person works well, and the film often manages to feel creepier than it has any right to, given how stupid it all feels by the time it’s ended.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 50/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-73259821749547773112011-09-14T20:40:00.001-04:002011-09-14T20:42:05.231-04:00TIFF - Day 6<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRU7R377HRb8r4k2XX_1F6OnGZZTgdFKOqyKQCRKJlcb0MZnBVqljePi80-SxEo3vJ1fHCPCBRoxyPKWyl5T2bkIYXhIWS0EtLazBfBactxUNFfnZYd0HaCX7YyOd_G4P_WQU3Q/s1600/Kid-With-A-Bike.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSRU7R377HRb8r4k2XX_1F6OnGZZTgdFKOqyKQCRKJlcb0MZnBVqljePi80-SxEo3vJ1fHCPCBRoxyPKWyl5T2bkIYXhIWS0EtLazBfBactxUNFfnZYd0HaCX7YyOd_G4P_WQU3Q/s320/Kid-With-A-Bike.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652379941973008770" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Faust (Alexander Sokoruv)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Beginning with a graphic vivisection, Sokoruv’s <i>Faust </i>initially suggests a radical shakeup of Goethe’s text. It really isn’t one. The script here modifies the details of the original plot (indeed, the pact with the Devil is only signed in the final reel), but its spirit is true to Goethe’s play. Faust and the Devil travel about a German town and the surrounding areas (the scope here is smaller than the play or the Murnau adaptation), discussing the human condition. It’s engaging enough from moment to moment, and the central plot involving Faust’s romantic/guilty feelings toward a girl in the town is well-executed, but I was a bit too tired to get a firm appreciation of the picture as a whole. Stylistically, we seem to be in Terry Gilliam’s territory as much as Sokoruv’s. Fisheye lenses and other visual distortions abound, and the performance style seems as likely to irritate as draw empathy at any given moment. Various gross-outs, such as a dying homunculus or the Devil’s grotesque, seemingly cancerous body help to keep interest from flagging. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 59/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Your Sister’s Sister (Lynn Shelton)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This confirms that my previous walkout of Shelton’s <i>Humpday </i>was the right call. She’s an incredibly inept director, barely elevating this “script” to the realm of bad theater, despite the fact that it asks next to nothing of her. The cast, each of them terrible in their own ways, struggle through awkward, overextended improv sessions, hoping to give some sort of energy to a plot that deserves no respect whatsoever (a man with a crush on an unattainable girl sleeps with her lesbian sister, only to discover than she’s loved him all along). There are too many clumsy establishing shots, a supremely embarrassing montage near the end, and an absurdly pat resolution to the idiotic premise. Certainly proof that extremely talky movies need not be extremely smart or clever. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 26/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>W.E. (Madonna)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As hopelessly self-absorbed as one would expect a movie directed by Madonna to be. Still, this is a competently, if conventionally made romantic drama with some real flashes of wit (e.g. She says, “You certainly know the way to a woman’s heart.” He replies, “I wasn’t aiming that high.”). Two plotlines are juxtaposed here, usually with clanking obviousness. The first details the trouble marriages of Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough), including her “fairy tale” romance with Prince Edward. The second, set in 1998, sees a woman named after her (Abbie Cornish) gain some degree of self-sufficiency through spending her husband’s money at an auction of Wallis’ estate. The fundamental premise here is so privileged that the script’s pleas to look at what was given up for fame and love seem destined to fall on deaf ears. Still, I found this glossy, enjoyable, and surprisingly unembarrassed by its melodrama. I’m sure to be in the minority, but I’d take this over <i>The King’s Speech</i> and its portrayal of monarch-as-underdog any day.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 48/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This seems to be, like many (if not all) Dardenne movies, a parable about forgiveness and unconditional love. In it, a troubled child finds himself systematically abandoned by adults, with the exception of a veritable stranger with no obligation to him. Her acts of kindness and capacity for forgiveness seem to approximate a state of grace here, and the suspense in this film seems to come from whether or not the boy whom she loves will recognize this miracle when faced with it. While I felt that this overtly Bressonian plotline was somewhat tidy, the details that comprise it are frequently striking. There are many heartbreaking scenes here, such as those involving the boy’s father (Jeremie Renier, very well cast) and the bravura tracking shots which show the boy racing somewhere… anywhere on the titular bike. The confrontations between characters here are especially well done, achieving a raw ferocity rarely seen outside of Pialat. Simple, but rather certain of what it is setting out to accomplish, which makes it feel like a breath of fresh air.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 67/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>ALPS (Yorgos Lanthimos)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>ALPS</i>, in which a group of people offer to stand in for recently deceased family members, is so much in the vein of <i>Dogtooth</i> that one wonders if Lanthimos is already running out of tricks. One could assemble a checklist of similarities between <i>Dogtooth </i>and <i>ALPS </i>(e.g. pop-culture non-sequitirs, awkward, overly precise dialogue, a plot involving a secret outside culture’s brush with a “normal” world that is only slightly less outré, rehearsals that seem to eradicate personal identity, etc…) and when finished with the exercise, it would be very difficult to see what makes <i>ALPS </i>distinctive, indeed. Is this just a cynical bid for auteur status, or do these motifs have more to offer? For most viewers, it seems that getting more of the same has been somewhat disappointing. <span> </span><i>Dogtooth </i>struck the international film community as the product of a unique voice, but at the same time there’s not much else like <i>ALPS</i>, outside of its predecessor (and <i>Attenberg</i>, I suppose). Trying to appraise this on its own terms, one suspects it’s trying to say something about the codedness of human interactions and our intense desire for familiarity. Lanthimos’ tricks still work, but this is generally a calmer, more sedate film than <i>Dogtooth</i>, which means its impact is reduced as well. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 58/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Moth Diairies (Mary Harron)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Like a teen drama that crawled off of the WB network, Mary Harron’s mostly inoffensive lesbian vampire tale is never as salacious as you want it to be. Indeed, things are so calm here at times that the overall vibe is closer to a <i>Harry Potter</i> movie than anything. In this movie, girls creep around a boarding school, suspecting that the latest addition to their roster might be a vampire. By midway through the film the mystery has its answer, and there’s little left for the viewer to do. Frequent invocations of Le Fanu’s <i>Carmilla</i> only underscore how unoriginal this is. One hopes that some interesting subtext will emerge here, but given the extreme frankness of the film in dealing with lesbianism, there’s really nothing left for the vampire myth to disguise. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 37/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Sleepless Night (Frederic Jardin) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A straightforward police thriller with a focused plotline and an inspired locale, <i>Sleepless Night </i>stands out from most Midnight Madness selections. The plot, involving a police officer who is trying to rescues his son from drug dealers, doesn’t get in the way of the action, or slow down the film past the first fifteen minutes. Instead of a series of outrageous set pieces, Jardin delivers a consistently exciting tone here, with tension about the officer’s success riding high throughout. This cop is no superhuman with crazy kung-fu at his disposal, which actually raises suspense levels. The bulk of the film is set inside “Le Tarmac,” a sprawling nightclub. It’s a wonderful decision that helps to erase the sense of contrivance inherent in most action films. <span> </span>Worth seeking out.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 56/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-27260976524786790192011-09-14T02:21:00.003-04:002011-09-14T02:26:05.019-04:00TIFF Day 5 - Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Incident<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3TCNa6tmaN8u_ut5GPtFp8wK_O4EqSzFtCP78xIj4VKIrhvQ39ZqpvojNHBtQkfYmjzaswaijJCZzodhHeRcBL34XAfPTm4W5hi4Vv3s1PhmVBFu8XVzGMPxqJML5Qnodsm94pQ/s1600/MarthaMarcyMayMarlene-2%255B1%255D.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 161px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652096780196194258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3TCNa6tmaN8u_ut5GPtFp8wK_O4EqSzFtCP78xIj4VKIrhvQ39ZqpvojNHBtQkfYmjzaswaijJCZzodhHeRcBL34XAfPTm4W5hi4Vv3s1PhmVBFu8XVzGMPxqJML5Qnodsm94pQ/s320/MarthaMarcyMayMarlene-2%255B1%255D.jpg" /></a><br /><strong>Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)</strong><br />Pretty much what the positive advance buzz suggested it would be, this drama about an escapee from a cult/commune plays more like a horror film. Each cut threatens to find our heroine (Elizabeth Olsen, very solid) trapped back on the proverbial ranch, which lends the entire film a deeply unsettling feel. Olsen’s performance is largely non-verbal, but her nervous tics and constant backward glances make her anxiety palpable. “Fear… makes you truly present,” one character states, and that couldn’t feel more appropriate than in this film where the past is so ferocious that it threatens to overtake the present at any given moment. I’m less sold on the interactions in the present. The “real” family here behaves somewhat less than plausibly at times, some of the parallels between past and present are too tidy, and these scenes are often perfunctory opportunities for Olsen to spazz out (I imagine this stuff could make for a singularly fucked up sitcom). Still, a wonder of sustained tension that really helps viewers to understand how traumatic this type of trauma must be.<br /><br />Rating: 69/100<br /><br /><strong>The Incident (Alexandre Courtes)</strong><br />Dismal. Four bandmates in a heavy metal band (for no reason whatsoever are they in a heavy metal band) take a day job at the local insane asylum. During a blackout, the patients rebel, taking down the hospital staff. Half of the run time here takes place before the run-time, and it’s excruciatingly slow-paced. After darkness falls, the film only offers a series of scenes in which people run around in the dark hitting one another (you’d be hard pressed to tell one character apart from another here). The last fifteen minutes are finally gruesome and mildly effective, but it’s far too little too late. Apparently, IFC picked this up for a Pay Per View release. That’s probably more than it deserves.<br /><br />Rating: 21/100Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-78732344423360034362011-09-13T19:14:00.003-04:002011-09-13T19:18:08.402-04:00TIFF Day 5 - Rampart, Whore's Glory, Roman's Circuit, The Woman in the Fifth<br><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHJ6eWKUdZeMPPx8uWaghxsm9z5_G0VVyZtDkeY7up8qDIsKCyghxB1yAInv5p-ZueYVRw2Q_r4TD2GhG5ddOKvy4bPK5wkF2Mo5Q1gAzrok7p3waMMaVT-M2_16IgEM6VTreAIA/s1600/Roman%2527s-Circuit-2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHJ6eWKUdZeMPPx8uWaghxsm9z5_G0VVyZtDkeY7up8qDIsKCyghxB1yAInv5p-ZueYVRw2Q_r4TD2GhG5ddOKvy4bPK5wkF2Mo5Q1gAzrok7p3waMMaVT-M2_16IgEM6VTreAIA/s320/Roman%2527s-Circuit-2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651986605749575090" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">In the interests of not falling hopelessly behind (these seven movie days are killer!), I’ll be brief:<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rampart (Oren Moverman)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Set in Los Angeles in 1999 and dealing with police corruption and brutality, this is exactly the sort of drama you would expect it to be. Harrelson is committed to a character that is barely more than swagger and debauchery. The script is something of a mess. It tries to incriminate every aspect of the Los Angeles justice system and the protagonist’s home life in an attempt to be comprehensive, but really it never gets below the surface. Ultimately, a very light, unsatisfying retread of <i>Bad Lieutenant </i>with no obsessive core to drive it. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 37/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Whore’s Glory (Michael Glawogger)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A triptych of depravity. Rarely have I wanted a shower after viewing a film more. Glawogger shows us sights here that most of us will never see, though he seems as interested in architectural spaces as the people who live in them. The whores all seem like individual personalities, so no sense of what constitutes a typical life in any of these places emerge. Indeed, the best information here is usually gleaned through a process of comparison between one whorehouse and the next. While the women in the Thai brothel “The Fishtank” seem reasonably well adjusted and even go out to hire “bar boys” after their shifts end, the young girls who work in the Bangladeshi “City of Joy” seem to have little but the avoidance of homelessness on their minds. Admittedly, I found myself grooving on the soundtrack from time to time, taking questionable aesthetic pleasure in what could only be described as sheer abjection.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 52/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Roman’s Circuit (Sebastian Braham)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can tell that I’m in the minority in finding this one intriguing, but then again I am currently writing a thesis on French philosopher Henri Bergson’s theories on memory and perception, making me part of this talky film’s very narrow target audience. It’s a promising debut, at times recalling Shane Carruth’s <i>Primer</i>, due to its stylistic commitment to its theoretical underpinnings and its willingness to indulge in babble. The schtick in this drama set in academia is that memories, when recalled simultaneously, tend to bleed into one another. Braham uses this as an explanation for why our patterns of behavior repeat, and this makes for an interesting thesis, if not quite a powerful dramatic core (I literally felt no emotional involvement here whatsoever). Formally, this means the early scenes end with abrupt cuts while later scenes blend into one another without any cuts whatsoever. It’s intriguing stuff, even if it’s extremely dry, and it suggests that Braham is a potential talent to watch.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 54/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Woman in the Fifth (Pawel Pawlikowski)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not at all what I expected from the director of <i>My Summer of Love </i>and <i>Last Resort</i>, this comes across like a classier, less thrilling David Lynch film. In it, Ethan Hawke plays an American author who travels to Paris in hopes of reuniting with his estranged wife and child. Instead, he falls into relationships with two beautiful, dangerous women and hobnobs with Arabic gangsters. The style here relies heavily on translucent surfaces, out of focus images and reflections, giving the movie a dreamlike feel. The narrative is purposefully opaque, and never congeals into something that can be firmly interpreted, which is sure to frustrate some viewers. The Lynch comparison doesn’t do Pawlikowski many favors, given that his film is entirely too aimless and sedate to draw us in. Fine but forgettable. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 46/100<o:p></o:p></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-34186193091170889112011-09-13T02:41:00.004-04:002011-09-13T02:44:31.114-04:00TIFF - Day 4 - Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Livid<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrl2bIrDtyklo4tYXF4-LnzRKeeSP3t2jVKUultszdDGBeY7V74AFkyk96G9NBrDBUBhLwlkydCMH3-HERvp8gfCx8IqjaAGb5-knqrZ-nliO_aU29GctpzZa62pcDRM2MEJM6g/s1600/Livid.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXrl2bIrDtyklo4tYXF4-LnzRKeeSP3t2jVKUultszdDGBeY7V74AFkyk96G9NBrDBUBhLwlkydCMH3-HERvp8gfCx8IqjaAGb5-knqrZ-nliO_aU29GctpzZa62pcDRM2MEJM6g/s320/Livid.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651730924609046962" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Thinking back about <i>Paradise Lost 3</i>, I realize that it’s possible I like it more for its extra cinematic impact than its cinematic qualities and I’m okay with that. While the third entry in this epic documentary saga is certainly made more proficiently than the second, most of the outrage that it stirs up is recycled from the seminal first entry (and the events recounted here are as outrageous as ever). New exonerating proof emerges here, thanks to changes in Arkansas’ laws governing appeals based on new DNA evidence. I do wish, however, there was more time actually spent with the West Memphis 3 in this film. That might not have been possible, due to their incarceration, but they, like Berlinger and Sinofsky, now almost seem like minor players in a movement and drama that has taken on a life of its own over the past eighteen years. The film’s efforts to hypothesize that the stepfathers on one of the three murdered boys could have been responsible for the killings seems slightly unscrupulous, even if the film eventually backs off on its accusatory tone.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>This was a final cut, but given the recent release of the West Memphis 3, twelve minutes of the film will be added.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 60/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Livid (Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>A visiting nurse coaxes some friends into robbing a creepy house on Halloween night, to disastrous results in this slow-burning horror movie from the directors of the cult hit <i>Inside</i>. While watching, <i>Livid </i>seems too slow. It takes forty-five minutes before any scares crop up. Still, in retrospect the dread that the directors generated in the film’s first half are probably more effective than the outright shocks that follow. There’s nothing original to see here, as the hauntings in question involve vampiric ballerinas and a creepy old hag. <span> </span>The final moments attempt to class the joint up (the filmmakers claim to have been inspired by old Hammer films), but they end up making the time spent watching feel silly.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 41/100<o:p></o:p></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-61984664167134782742011-09-12T16:58:00.000-04:002011-09-12T17:00:07.997-04:00TIFF - Day 4 - Dark Horse, Girl Model, Crazy Horse<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZffFHXPDB_61keu9BCWpLLt230ZxbZBq-C0zAsft2HVC2_nC6TDZoR3TGpXE0wtLeQe5fZpcqp8zz16Fg8kg8-XoVLNXFNhBjLEYRJEg56D_A6Qiong44InzZSsfLfHrzFvh5Q/s1600/CrazyHorse.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJZffFHXPDB_61keu9BCWpLLt230ZxbZBq-C0zAsft2HVC2_nC6TDZoR3TGpXE0wtLeQe5fZpcqp8zz16Fg8kg8-XoVLNXFNhBjLEYRJEg56D_A6Qiong44InzZSsfLfHrzFvh5Q/s320/CrazyHorse.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651580760086793394" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Solondz continues to shoot fish in a barrel in <i>Dark Horse</i>, his latest exploration of arrested development. Focusing on a thirtysomething man who collects toys and lives with his parents, this comedy starts out by playing broader than Solodnz’s recent work. When his desperate wedding proposal meets with an unexpected acceptance the possibility of change arises. Of course happiness is fleeting at best in a Solondz film, so it’s only a matter of time before our rotund hero’s dreams are crushed. The narrative, which drifts off into the absurd after a major character falls into a coma (Solondz’s Bunuellian tendencies are at their worst here), is really just an excuse for the director to air his current grievances about culture and demonstrate his witty dialogue (her reaction to their first kiss? “Oh my God… It wasn’t horrible.”). Selma Blair makes less of an impact than one would expect as the would-be spouse and as the hero’s parents Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow barely register at all. The moral seems to be that none of us will ever live up to each other’s fantasies, but this might be best seen as a minor work, where the accumulation of cheap shots that Solondz lobs at pop culture targets (e.g. pre-show movie “entertainment”, <i>Tron: Legacy</i>, bad pop music) are designed to at least take some of the heat off of the characters. They can hardly be blamed for being awful, Solondz seems to be arguing, given how awful all of New Jersey is. <span> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 46/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Girl Model (Ashley Sabin & David Redmon)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This documentary tracks Nadya, a pretty 14 year old girl from Novosibirsk, who travels to Japan in hopes of achieving a modeling career. She discovers a ruthless industry instead, seemingly designed to exploit the families of young girls in the hopes of turning out a rare money maker. I appreciated the film’s jaundiced view of a world that I know next to nothing about, but at the same time, I felt that the filmmakers refused to press on any tough questions. The close alliance of these modeling agencies with the sex trade is underexplored, for example, and the degree to which Nadya’s family could have anticipated a terrible outcome for her trip is left vague, probably to boost drama (at one point she clearly states that her friends warned her that the business was a scam). Ultimately a sad portrait of young girls left to fend for themselves in a world that is too willing to exploit them, <i>Girl Model </i>is hamstrung by its somewhat slapdash construction and lack of formal interest.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 38/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Crazy Horse (Frederick Wiseman)<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">With <i>Crazy Horse</i>, a documentary about the famed Parisian burlesque club, Wiseman varies his trademarked approach somewhat. Instead of merely observing anonymously, he shows several numbers here that have been obviously staged for his camera. These are a mixed bag, quality-wise, but they are generally interesting, especially insofar as they present the bodies of the female dancers at the Crazy Horse as assemblages of abstract parts. What works better here are the glimpses at the behind-the-scenes workings of the clubs. A conversation in which a costumer talks about achieving the appearance of a round buttock under stage lights is fascinating, for example, as are the few glimpses that we get into the business details of the club. These highlights do not comprise the bulk of the run time here, though, which suggests that <i>Crazy Horse </i>would be better still if it were as long as most of Wiseman’s other output. Beyond this, it’s interesting that Wiseman manages to get interviews from the club’s artistic directors by merely taping them as they are interviewed by other media personalities. This might be a violation of his usual fly on the wall style, but it’s a clever one. Odd too that there should be so little focus on repetition here, given that the girls perform essentially the same show each night after exhausting rehearsals. Wiseman’s desire to show us what a night at the Crazy Horse is like keeps <i>Crazy Horse </i>from showing us what life at the Crazy Horse is like to some degree.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 51/100<o:p></o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-74056786918142060772011-09-12T13:38:00.003-04:002011-09-12T13:44:24.578-04:00TIFF - Day 4 - Lipstikka, The Descendants<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKuo1E3o_VZEwmrPVITbELIw2sLX-FTWG6LIUo3__LPOyn6nn-ej8p7repaSZRfT9QUCqIhsHIynr9VFLR31k89uvUbRSsHQ7ccN6T7ZSiE4cFE_aNLOeuDs2wszSuG4swmUAywA/s1600/descendants.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKuo1E3o_VZEwmrPVITbELIw2sLX-FTWG6LIUo3__LPOyn6nn-ej8p7repaSZRfT9QUCqIhsHIynr9VFLR31k89uvUbRSsHQ7ccN6T7ZSiE4cFE_aNLOeuDs2wszSuG4swmUAywA/s320/descendants.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651530059470485506" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Lipstikka (Jonathan Segall) </b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">An absurd late-breaking plot twist undoes the largely credible relationship drama <i>Lipstikka</i>. Spanning a decade or two, the film examines the mostly unrequited relationship between two Palestinian women who relocate to the United Kingdom. There’s an odd distance between them when they meet in the present day, and director Segall uses flashbacks to fill in the gaps. The pivotal moment here occurs back in Israel, when the two have an unfortunate encounter with some Israeli soldiers, lending the film some political power that it can’t quite seem to focus into anything productive. Back in the present, their mindgames make for trashy fun. The two lead performances play well against each other and the director is unafraid to indulge in his salacious instincts. Still, the script can’t resist fucking things up. A final revelation about one of the women renders all of the interactions that have come before totally incoherent and leaves the viewer with unsatisfactory questions that distract from the emotional core of the film.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 36/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Descendants (Alexander Payne)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Heartfelt to a fault, Payne’s latest sees him largely dropping the satiric edge of his earlier work and working in a much more conventional tone. The question of “what’s really important in life” is central here, and Payne’s answers are all clichés. The plot, involving a workaholic’s recentering brought about by his wife’s impending death, begs for an airing of resentment and pain that has built up, but what we get is considerably kinder and gentler than one would expect. It is telling here that the best scene of the movie, in which a black sheep daughter learns of her mother’s inevitable decline, is probably the film’s rawest (Shailene Woodley is the lone performance of note here). Payne resists anything remotely biting, which is odd, given that an early scene involving a forced apology among children suggests a comedy of manners about behaving nicely under terrible circumstances. There’s the rare line here that suggests a movie with something to say about the rage that must surely be felt in this situation (e.g. “You were putting lipstick on a corpse!”), but trite homilies win the day. A subplot involving the future of a patch of unconverted Hawaiian beachfront property offers plenty of opportunities for Payne to pander with so-called hard-won wisdom. A braver movie would be far more direct and less willing to comfort us with lessons learned from sitcoms.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 44/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-46651598238127054002011-09-12T10:37:00.002-04:002011-09-12T10:39:50.048-04:00TIFF - Day 3<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pE0dqxl89qPM-2T_FRpklOGTK-ABOufGm8_HNZVNhg3_Dfcs6N-jpeX_cDODRaVdoku4Qjeyd6RLhBls-CuON-BuBTfFplIqbPTdgTbTVlMnMykIhh9-muB_FVuYOZXIot6jfw/s1600/House-of-Tolerance-3.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pE0dqxl89qPM-2T_FRpklOGTK-ABOufGm8_HNZVNhg3_Dfcs6N-jpeX_cDODRaVdoku4Qjeyd6RLhBls-CuON-BuBTfFplIqbPTdgTbTVlMnMykIhh9-muB_FVuYOZXIot6jfw/s320/House-of-Tolerance-3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651482462648442914" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Trishna (Michael Winterbottom) </b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Trishna </i>is Michael Winterbottom’s second adaptation of a Thomas Hardy, following his 1996 <i>Jude</i>, but while that film retained its period trappings and British locale, <i>Trishna </i>is a contemporary recasting of <i>Tess of the d’Urbervilles</i> set in India. This transfer has its benefits (there’s a travelogue quality to this country-spanning film that’s not to be discounted) and its drawbacks (moving the action from the English countryside, it’s lost much of its elemental power). Hardy’s plot is retained, for the most part, but Winterbottom gives the second half of the film an overheated vibe, out of <i>In the Realm of the Senses</i>. Here the film threatens to alienate audiences who have been drawn in my lilting music and pretty pictures, but it does credibly lift the tale to the realm of tragedy. What we end up with is lesser than <i>Jude </i>and certainly inferior to Polanski’s <i>Tess </i>adaptation, but still a damn fine adult romantic drama nonetheless. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 63/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello) </b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Early in <i>House of Tolerance </i>a patron of the titular French brothel observes that the place never changes. “It changes slowly,” replies the woman he’s about to bed. In this bracing film Bonello brings that gradual sense of change as the “twilight of the 19<sup>th</sup> century” gives way to the “dawn of the 20<sup>th</sup>” into sharp focus. Through an accumulation of detail, as opposed to an overt presentation of back stories and dramatic incidents, we gain a sense of the mores of the women and men who work in this high-class brothel. The limits to the social relationships between the prostitutes and their patrons become clea. In its languid pacing and pictoral beauty it naturally recall’s Hou’s <i>Flowers of Shanghai</i>, but it reminded me of Demme’s <i>Beloved </i>adaptation, of all things, with its central trauma serving as a haunting reference point around which a forgotten way of life swirled. Still, this is probably a livelier film than either, with boldly imagined set pieces that are as close to pure cinema as anything I’ve seen at this year’s festival thus far. The final formal salvo struck me powerfully, with a cut to contemporary times inducing a real tear or two after Bonello’s ballsy imaginary ones. Not until the house was gone did I realize how deeply invested in it, which is probably something close to the point.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 71/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Monsters Club (Toshiaki Toyoda) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">No need to waste time here, as I can’t imagine that this terrible film, inspired by the writings of the Unabomber, will be much considered. I will say that Toyoda has at least made this material its own, transferring it to a snowy forest in Japan and adding a fixation on pancake makeup that could have come from a Matthew Barney film, but it’s difficult to see how he’s thought critically about Ted Kaczynski’s ravings (which are quoted at length here) or advanced his point of view beyond an adolescent anti-establishment stance.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 18/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Alois Nebel (Tomas Lunak) <o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the lousy tradition of <i>Waltz With Bashir</i> and <i>Persepolis </i>comes this crudely animated Czech trauma drama. The Holocaust, predictably, provides the central event from which the titular protagonist’s troubles sprout. When one considers his occupation (train station operator) unfavorable comparisons to <i>Closely Watched Trains </i>inevitably crop up. The cheap, inadequate black and white animation is going for a noir style, but this is a psychological drama with little action, making the choice seem more likely borne out of financial necessity. Ultimately, this goes for slow-burning psychological drama, but as with <i>Waltz With Bashir</i>, I find such a goal difficult to achieve when human faces have been replaced with crude flash animations. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 23/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Low Life (Nicolas Klotz & Elisabeth Perceval)</b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Klotz and Perceval’s <i>Low Life </i>presents an odd mix of socially aware, didactic drama and the navel gazing of young lovers. There are passages in <i>Low Life </i>that I adore, most of them luxuriating in self-absorption. One masterful shot, for example, set at a party without audible dialogue, sees two young lovers fight, make up, and break up again. It has a real pulse and typifies what works best in <i>Low Life</i>. The use of ambient music, the felicity of youth and the feel for a life spent at night mostly waiting around (or is it posing?) are all strong here. This mood doesn’t really last past the first hour, though. These young aspiring artists and scholars become increasingly tied up in the political problems of some local immigrants as the film moves on, shifting its focus radically. The film remains engaging, to be sure, but I was somewhat disappointed that the surface beauties I was reveling in had given way to something more explicitly important. Still well worth seeing, and very, very French, but something other than the movie I selfishly wanted it to be.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Rating: 56/100</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <span style="font-weight:bold;"> <p class="MsoNormal">You’re Next (Adam Wingard) <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>You’re Next </i>is nothing less and nothing more than an expertly made and audience-pleasing slasher film. Wingard clearly knows his target audience here, and as such has crafted a gory and suspenseful thriller with a satisfyingly large body count. I can’t imagine it won’t be seen as something of a classic in a few years. Though there are a few funny nods to the conventions of the genre (one character wants to flee for safety at the first ominous bump upstairs; the final girl is entirely capable of defending herself), this is too happy to perfectly execute a proven template than to reinvent it entirely. The comic elements here, which arise largely from the family dynamics of the family placed under siege by mysterious fox-masked killers, only add to the general sense of hysteria. The inevitable plot twists, when they come, scarcely stop this rapidly paced film in its tracks and the ending does not disappoint. Really, just an extremely proficient, extremely enjoyable genre film with a good sense of what it needs to do.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 70/100<o:p></o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-59474470359097367082011-09-11T09:46:00.001-04:002011-09-11T09:48:11.325-04:00TIFF - Day 3 - The Artist<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZgW1IZwbA4TObLA_mpRhIZJ5yXrBOiSqa55p9IjPZ2Y89AN8pD9JIuxRQoQ6bKH6eqrTvWDgzQvIiImiWxs_9qPm5RzFa5nV-nRKezb6AAVA5NoQEfjFVrolW0hZ0QkJS_ogmbg/s1600/Artist.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZgW1IZwbA4TObLA_mpRhIZJ5yXrBOiSqa55p9IjPZ2Y89AN8pD9JIuxRQoQ6bKH6eqrTvWDgzQvIiImiWxs_9qPm5RzFa5nV-nRKezb6AAVA5NoQEfjFVrolW0hZ0QkJS_ogmbg/s320/Artist.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5651098405104401122" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius) </b><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Opening in 1927, in the glory days of the silent era, the mostly silent film <i>The Artist </i>begins as a paean to Hollywood’s pre-talkie glory days. The opening moments, in which we see film star George Valentine (Jean Dujardin) screaming “I won’t speak” while in some villain’s torture device, suggest a more comic take on the sound vs. silent drama than is ultimately provided here, however. Indeed, after the first act, which is neatly sectioned off from the rest of the film, the movie is more <i>Raging Bull </i>than <i>City Lights</i>, examining a self-destructive case of overblown male pride. This dramatic turn is brave, to be sure, but somewhat misguided. As good as charming star Dujardin is channeling Douglas Fairbanks here, he is not half as interesting when he spends the final two thirds of the film glowering. His co-star, Berenice Bejo, seems a tad miscast as well, not quite having the certain “it” that the script insists that she does. These complaints are major ones, given that the film depends upon glamour to such an extent. The dramatic turn poses other problems too, mostly involving the shallowness of the plotting. For example, while having Valentine’s wife express her discontent by drawing silly faces on photos of her husband might be effective shorthand in the first part of the film, it grows increasingly insufficient as the film grows increasingly dramatic. The central romance as well is equally vague, straddling some weird space at the intersection between unrequited obsession, an obligatory debt of graditude, and an extended meet-cute. By the time it ends, <i>The Artist </i>gives the impression that the era when the talkies learned to speak was an uncomplicated one, and that the films of the time were equally simple, which is something of a disservice to one of cinema’s most aesthetically productive eras. All in all, less than the sum of its dog reaction shots and song and dance routines. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 43/100<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-17661631074371821632011-09-10T04:02:00.002-04:002011-09-10T05:44:02.906-04:00TIFF - Day 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOcdDJy4feRUzZh_Z7MJoDodTSpUYMcIBsjP53ElhNqDzH6I8yt2FS9GGhBDx_wRWOUR7sYMBRbTmCl2FFEXe-7h_lUQhlXFePaqhPRqegOCMctHWjqBbqsyBSwXmv4sw01qV_Q/s1600/White-on-White-4.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 320px; height: 161px; text-align: center; display: block; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650637126568951890" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOcdDJy4feRUzZh_Z7MJoDodTSpUYMcIBsjP53ElhNqDzH6I8yt2FS9GGhBDx_wRWOUR7sYMBRbTmCl2FFEXe-7h_lUQhlXFePaqhPRqegOCMctHWjqBbqsyBSwXmv4sw01qV_Q/s320/White-on-White-4.jpg" /></a><br /><div><strong><img class="gl_video" border="0" alt="Add Video" src="http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif" /></strong></div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong></strong> </div><div><strong>Duch, Master of the Forges of Hell (Rithy Panh)<br /></strong><br />This documentary about a Cambodian Communist who oversaw the deaths of over 12,000 citizens during the Khmer Rouge genocide is important and powerful if somewhat diluted by its run time. The film opens with a Pol Pot speech playing out over a montage of documentary footage, but what follows is largely a single extended interview with the titular Comrade Duch. Over three decades after he oversaw an unfathomable atrocity, he’s mellowed into a startlingly reflective, soft-spoken old man. As such, the movie comes across at times as offering him a platform for his apologies and justifications. This would be immoral, to be sure, and Panh by allowing the man to speak allows him to largely indict himself. When he reveals that he’s converted to Christianity because it offers the hope of forgiveness, the reaction is one of disbelief. Panh doesn’t rub our noses in the horrors, offering only scattered images that he intercuts infrequently throughout the interviews and a few recreations of the torture methods used. These are appropriate, as Duch’s key role was one of education, instructing and brainwashing children in the ways of effective torture. Absolutely startling and gut-wrenching at times, yet somewhat tempered by the sheer scope of the genocide it’s trying to portray. The second hour of the film, which shows Duch poring over reams and reams of meticulously kept records about the actions at S21, where he was head, grow somewhat numbing after a while. Like those records, this is an important historical document, no doubt, but as cinema I think it’s held to an even higher standard.<br /><br />Rating: 52/100<br /><br /><strong>whiteonwhite:algorithimicnoir (Eve Sussman)</strong><br /><br />My review of this will on some level be useless to anyone else, as this algorithmically generated film will be different for anyone who watches it in the future. In it, a series of over 3000 film clips and voice over recordings are shuffled together, resulting in an international detective movie that never resolves itself into a coherent narrative. For me, this is less troubling than it might sound, as I can scarcely follow the intricacies of the plotting in your average <i>Bourne </i>movie. For those less likely to tune out plotting, I expect Sussman’s experiment will still have plenty to offer. Her exercise puts the generic in genre, showing how coded the experience of watching spy movie is in the first place. The cool, professionally shot images each evoke something just out of reach. Also visible, on a side screen in the installation are the code commands that call up the random clips. With metatags like “walking” “anxiety” “phone” and “writing”, several things become obvious. First, most films could be broken down so vaguely and incorporated into this mix. Second, the ability of voiceover narration to tie images together is never to be underestimated. Third, the establishing shots, which come between voiceover segments are nearly as potent as the dialogue in creating the impression that this randomness is building toward something. Ultimately fascinating (I could happily spend a few more hours with it) and a true testament to theorist Lev Manovich’s assertion that in the digital age the interface programmer might supplant the director as the leading creative force in cinema.<br /><br />Rating: n/a (but awesome)<br /><br /><strong>Restless (Gus Van Sant)<br /></strong><br />As twee and unsufferable as the reviews from Cannes suggested (certainly can’t blame high expectations this time), this emo teen romance is actively annoying instead of affecting. Henry Hopper and Mia Wasikowska play two too-cute teens with a morbid fascination with death. The question of how young adults handle death when it rears its head is potentially fascinating (see Elephant), but the treatment here insists that they do so by retreating further into childhood. As such, <i>Restless</i> is an endless series of scenes in which the two doomed young lovers play act (pretending to meet his dead parents at their grave), trick-or-treat, attend children’s sporting events, and so on. Sincerity itself is not a problem, but the terrible dialogue that is peppered throughout this script (“I like your cracker house” is her first pick-up line; the moral?: “death is easy, love is hard”) simply cannot be taken seriously. Van Sant should be ashamed, really. Harris Savides’ photography is the lone saving grace.<br /><br />Rating: 28/100<br /><br /><strong>Keyhole (Guy Maddin)<br /></strong><br />You might have a general sense of what to expect from Guy Maddin at this point, yet he’s a consummate risk-taker at the same time. His sexualized homages to film genres of old always walk a high-wire act between absurdity and inspiration. It’s my sad duty to report that for the first time in over a decade, he hasn’t pulled off one of his stunts. <i>Keyhole</i> starts promisingly as a mix of gangster film, old dark house thriller and paean to Homer’s Odyssey. The opening hail of literal machine-gun montage truly impresses, but sets the stage for a movie that entirely fails to live up to any expectations it creates. All of <i>Keyhole</i> takes place in one very ornate house, as Ulysses (Jason Patric) must ascend to his wife’s bedroom to reclaim her. The reference to Homer’s poem is obvious, but it still scarcely makes sense given that the film that follows takes place in a blatantly non-Homeric (though very homoerotic) fashion. Psychobabble is made literal, as the house is filled with ghosts who Ulysses must overcome to reclaim his mate. Cocks grow out of walls and the golden fleece is none other than a patch of pubes. The climax sees the characters literally regressing their home to an earlier state. This all sounds stupid and perhaps vaguely chuckle-worthy, I’m sure, but in practice it’s dreary. The tone of the film is monotonous and repetitive, and Maddin’s trademark playfulness is in generally short supply. There were a few clever moments, I suppose, and Maddin has a real ear of classic gangster talk, but this was a massive disappointment that I can’t imagine pleasing much of anyone.<br /><br />Rating: 33/100<br /><br /><strong>Good Bye (Mohammed Rasoulof)<br /></strong><br />While Rasoulof’s recent political persecution makes <i>Good Bye</i> a particularly brave film to make, it is somewhat less powerful than it could be. Telling the story of a woman who chooses to have a child because it will increase her chances of obtaining a visa to flee Iran, the film invokes comparison to the work of the Dardenne brothers. Like a mix of <i>La Promesse</i> and <i>Lorna’s Silence</i>, <i>Good Bye</i> focuses on transactional detail to the extent that the heroine’s pregnancy becomes another bargaining chip. Unfortunately, the comparison does Rasoulof few favors. While he mixes up the typical Iranian style somewhat with tight compositions and an expressively dark lighting scheme, his predilection for long takes (as opposed to the Dardennes’ jump cuts) makes the film a slog where it should be suspenseful. With the exception of one virtuoso shot that sees an apartment raid grow increasingly horrible and absurd, it seemed that Rasoluf would have benefitted from tighter editing. Coupled with a narrative structure that senselessly withholds key information from us, the film feels like an odd mix of art house film and thriller. Another problem lies with Leyla Zareh’s lead performance, which is too withdrawn for this type of film. I can’t tell if Rasoulof was after cultural verisimilitude (here’s where I profess to having no knowledge of how women in Iran act) or what, but she gives us too little (as opposed to, say, Lorna’s frequent histrionics). If this sounds harsh, rest assured that this is an extremely solid and detail oriented political film. It just seems a few snips from greatness.<br /><br />Rating: 57/100<br /></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-61637944166446112502011-09-09T10:39:00.003-04:002011-09-09T10:48:25.444-04:00TIFF - Day 1<br><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbe1XoEJ7gW4XlFiW8IQiyrTqY-QSrF2vgeWnqEofy1xzpj_WWNUfWj9Lcs0JGdEifNCdjfaOl0R9oXS9ohyUBd1BIBYEy4kan_268qj9uroqU00NOzkGFfjgXsoyOlJKtfbf7w/s1600/Raid.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJbe1XoEJ7gW4XlFiW8IQiyrTqY-QSrF2vgeWnqEofy1xzpj_WWNUfWj9Lcs0JGdEifNCdjfaOl0R9oXS9ohyUBd1BIBYEy4kan_268qj9uroqU00NOzkGFfjgXsoyOlJKtfbf7w/s320/Raid.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5650369704369584514" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Slow Action (Ben Rivers)</span><br /><br />Kicking off my TIFF festival nicely was Ben Rivers’ <i>Slow Action</i>. A mock ethnographic documentary, the film is a strong test case in cinema’s ability to make images suggestive through mere context. For much of the run time here, we’re faced with landscapes of four imaginary “utopian” islands that don’t really exist as an amusingly deadpan narrator describes the cultures of the supposed indigenous people. It takes a force of imagination to will these people into existence, a feat somewhat assisted by the absurdity of the cultures, each of which seems to spring from an unearthed <i>Baron Munchhausen</i> tale (my favorite were the Elevenians, who worship holograms and communicate through trigonometry). The viewer is placed in a curious double-bind that lays bare the ethics of any such study. If we dismiss these absurd cultures we’re guilty of ethnocentrism. If we buy into the patently false claims of the narrators, we are being naïve. As the film unfurls, the ideal of a utopia becomes increasingly troubled, abstract, and subjective. Funny too.<br /><br />Rating 64/100<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)</span><br /><br />This documentary about the morality of the death penalty struck me as being shockingly mundane, especially given its unusually-colorful director. Examining a triple homicide that is so bland it might have been picked for its sheer banality (to better shift the issue into focus), the film takes the form of an extended case-study. In practice, this means a work that is largely comprised of a series of interviews with the perpetrators, the victims’ families, and relevant law enforcement officials. Herzog’s style is functional at best, not markedly more accomplished than the police crime scene video he sometimes incorporates into the montage. One can surely read autuerist themes into the senselessness of the murders, I suppose, but I imagine one could do that for most any murder.<br /><br />As a film about a controversial issue, it might flounder even more. Herzog adopts an emphatically anti-death penalty stance and largely refuses any other viewpoint. As such, there’s no particular moral development and little self-reflection (the director’s infamous voiceover is sorely missed here, replaced by bland on-screen text). The information that we receive as the film plays out does little to illuminate or challenge any preconceived stance the viewer might have on the issue. Sins of the father? Check. Victims of socioeconomic circumstance? Check. Tasteful emotional appeals from just about everyone? Check. Herzog, for his part, is respectful of his interviewees, almost to a fault, except when he relies on their local color to provide an easy laugh or two.<br /><br />Rating: 39/100<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">From Up On Poppy Hill (Goro Miyazaki)</span><br /><br />I have seen a few complaints that Studio Ghibli’s <i>Arietty </i>was a bit too down to earth to justify an animated treatment. Compared to the nostalgic and entirely realistic <i>From Up on Poppy Hill</i>, <i>Arietty </i>is downright surreal. Set in a glorified early 1960s Japan, the film involves the early romantic stirrings and political activism of a young girl, Umi. Umi’s questions about her family history are played out against larger concerns about Japan’s history, as much of the plot involves a bureaucratic decision to tear down a student center housed in an old building. Things are charming, as one would expect from a Ghibli production, and characters exude an infectious can-do spirit. Still, it would be disingenuous to fail to point out how predictable the film was. The second half of the film briefly threatens to shake things up by delving into bizarre territory, raising the specter of incest as Umi’s sexuality begins to emerge. Before long, however, Miyazaki has completely removed any complications from the scenario and the film ends up feeling overly idealized as a result. Essentially a mix of <i>Only Yesterday</i> and <i>Kiki’s Delivery Service</i>, but less enchanting than either. The few grace notes (e.g. a silverfish scurries by as Umi goes into the boys’ clubhouse for the first time) are the highlight here, but compared to the studio’s general output, this offers only minor pleasures.<br /><br />Rating: 41/100<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Raid (Gareth Evans)<br /></span><br />The impressive Indonesian film <i>The Raid</i> opens with a shot of a gun and a ticking watch, giving the impression that it will be something of a thriller. Instead, it’s a full-out action epic, with what is probably the best martial arts fight scenes seen on screen in the last few years. With a slim plot that seems entirely remake-ready, the film charges headlong into a series of elaborately choreographed face-offs between a SWAT team who are invading a kingpin’s illicit apartment building and the junkies and thugs who live there. Director Evans goes for the visceral here, emphasizing the brutality of each hit and frequently focusing on gory outcomes of fights. The film seems to alternate between flat out rumbles (many of which approach <i>Romper Stomper</i>'s climax in scale and intensity) and more suspenseful moments. The latter are somewhat less successful, as is a decision to put a trio of extended dialogue scenes in the film’s back half, but this is undeniably kinetic and definitely the work of a filmmaker with incredible action chops.<br /><br /><br />Rating: 66/100Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-42895601711706981202011-08-25T00:49:00.004-04:002011-09-06T22:18:08.173-04:00TIFF '11 ScheduleHere's my festival schedule, pending some tinkering. Tips on what I'm doing wrong are always appreciated...<br /><br />September 8 <br />18:00 - Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)<br />21:30 - From Up On Poppy Hill (Goro Miyazaki)<br />23:59 - The Raid (Gareth Evans)<br /><br />September 9<br />16:00 - Restless (Gus Van Sant)<br />17:30 - Keyhole (Guy Maddin)<br />20:15 - Good Bye (Mohammad Rasoulof)<br /><br />September 10<br />10:00 - The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)<br />12:00 - Trishna (Michael Winterbottom)<br />15:15 - House of Tolerance (Bertrand Bonello)<br />18:15 - Monsters Club (Toshiaki Toyada)<br />20:00 - Alois Nebel (Tomas Lunak)<br />21:45 - I Wish (Hirokazu Kore-eda)<br />23:59 - You're Next (Adam Wingard)<br /><br />September 11<br />9:15 - We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)<br />12:30 - The Descendents (Alexander Payne)<br />14:30 - Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)<br />16:30 - Girl Model (Ashley Sabin / David Redmon)<br />18:15 - Crazy Horse (Frederick Wiseman)<br />21:00 - Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Joe Berlinger / Bruce Sinofsky)<br />23:59 - Livid (Julien Maury / Alexandre Bustillo)<br /><br />September 12<br />11:00 - Rampart (Oren Moverman)<br />14:00 - Whore's Glory (Michael Glawogger)<br />19:15 - The Woman in the Fifth (Pawel Pawlikowski)<br />22:15 - Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)<br />23:59 - The Incident (Alexandre Courtes)<br /><br />September 13<br />10:00 - Faust (Alexander Sokoruv)<br />12:15 - Your Sister's Sister (Lynn Shelton)<br />14:30 - W.E. (Madonna)<br />16:30 - The Kid With a Bike (Jean-Pierre Dardenne / Luc Dardenne)<br />19:30 - ALPS (Yorgos Lanthimos)<br />22:00 - The Moth Diairies (Mary Harron)<br />23:59 - Sleepless Night (Frederic Jardin)<br /><br />September 14<br />9:15 - Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)<br />12:00 - Like Crazy (Drake Doremus)<br />15:15 - Snowtown (Justin Kurzel)<br />17:45 - Pariah (Dee Rees)<br />21:15 - Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto)<br />23:59 - Lovely Molly (Eduardo Sanchez)<br /><br />September 15<br />9:00 - Cardboard Village (Ermanno Olmi)<br />12:00 - That Summer (Philippe Garrel)<br />15:00 - Love and Bruises (Lou Ye)<br />18:00 - Terrafirma (Emanuele Crialese)<br />22:00 - Michael (Markus Schleinzer)<br />23:59 - The Day (Doug Aarniokoski)<br /><br />September 16<br />9:30 - Outside Satan Bruno Dumont)<br />11:45 - Habemus Papum Nanni Moretti)<br />14:15 - Take Shelter Jeff Nichols)<br />18:00 - Tyrannosaur Paddy Considine)<br />21:00 - Wuthering Heights Andrea Arnold)<br />23:59 - Smuggler Katsuhito Ishii)<br /><br />September 17<br />9:30 - Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes)<br />12:00 - Peace Love & Misunderstanding (Bruce Beresford)<br />14:45 - Melancholia (Lars von Trier)<br />18:15 - The Deep Blue Sea (Terence Davies)<br />21:00 - Albert Nobbs (Rodrigo Garcia)<br />23:59 - Kill List (Ben Wheatley)<br /><br />September 18<br />9:45 - A Simple Life (Cedric Khan) - or - <br />10:00 - Twixt (Francis Ford Coppola)<br />12:30 - (The Turin Horse Bela Tarr) - or - <br />12:45 - Elles (Malgoska Szumowska)<br />16:00 - Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh)Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-31400353763159434662010-09-17T20:14:00.002-04:002010-09-17T20:15:10.002-04:00More ratings...Day 7 <br /><br />Potiche (Francois Ozon)<br /><br />Rating: 62/100<br /><br />Buried (Rodrigo Cortes)<br /><br />Rating: 73/100<br /><br />Brighton Rock (Rowan Joffe) <br /><br />Rating: 60/100<br /><br />Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance) <br /><br />Rating: 54/100<br /><br />Kaboom (Gregg Araki) <br /><br />Rating: 42/100<br /><br />Red Nights (Julien Carbon | Laurent Courtiaud) <br /><br />Rating: 37/100<br /><br />Day 8<br /><br />13 Assassins (Takashi Miike) <br /><br />Rating: 67/100<br /><br />I Saw the Devil (Kim Jee-woon)<br /><br />Rating: 53/100<br /><br />Sandcastle (Boo Junfeng) <br /><br />Rating: 37/100<br /><br />Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apitchatpong Weeresethakul)<br />Rating: 88/100<br /><br /><br />Day 9<br /><br />Sarah’s Key (Gilles Paquet-Brenner)<br />Rating: 41/100<br /><br />A Horrible Way to Die (Adam Wingard)<br />Rating: 52/100<br /><br />I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke)<br />Rating: 50/100Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-29082380743967026842010-09-17T19:53:00.003-04:002010-09-17T20:02:43.691-04:00TIFF Day 6<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ENQrF6kEaKHFWgM-a8jJGGZIIvKI5lyFIAYax8c8JzFzj8-KFrxNsVIJLilofQGnZsKw3yP4yuQ_SLNTqIICss_6ZsAMmAGAo6VEh67-1fooZpmIkaUeohsZGjV4InMZjmir-Q/s1600/miral.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ENQrF6kEaKHFWgM-a8jJGGZIIvKI5lyFIAYax8c8JzFzj8-KFrxNsVIJLilofQGnZsKw3yP4yuQ_SLNTqIICss_6ZsAMmAGAo6VEh67-1fooZpmIkaUeohsZGjV4InMZjmir-Q/s320/miral.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5518035119359608162" /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><br><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Miral (Julian Schnabel) </b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote></blockquote>Julian Schanbel’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Miral </i>covers the period from the establishment of Israel up through 1994, but it’s less a historical account of Palestinian oppression in Israel than the tale of several Palestinian women and their relationship to that state of affairs. There is some considerable tension here between the script, which is didactic and blunt, and Schnabel’s direction, which always seems to be looking at the fringes for something of interest within this conventional framework. Extreme close-ups, color filters, Vaseline on the lens, and extensive handheld camerawork give the impression that the sensual backdrop is more interesting to the director than history or the people portrayed. Indeed, the stories of these women provide a mixed bag of material. Things start strongly with the account of a woman’s establishment of an orphanage. This plotline could have easily sustained the film, especially since Hiam Abbas is quite good in the role. Instead, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Miral </i>drifts toward the stories of other repressed women, until it finally settles on the titular girl (Freida Pinto), who is supposed to serve as some sort of hope for the future of the Palestinian state. That message becomes obscured, though, as the final segment is easily the film’s weakest. Abbas, so effective early on, becomes stranded in a tiny role and a ridiculous wig. Miral herself is strident (“You don’t understand anything because you’ve been hiding in the mosque your whole life,” she tells her father) and politically naïve. Pinto adds little to the character that exists on the page, making the future of Palestine seem quite vapid indeed. Still, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Miral</i> is better than its already damaged reputation would suggest. There are well-played scenes here, such as the one in which a woman exaggerates her Arabness to scare off an Israeli girlfriend, that work quite well, regardless of political import. Though the film is unlikely to change hearts and minds about the issue of Palestine, it is an effective, large-scale drama.<p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 53/100</p> <br><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Submarine (Richard Ayoade)</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal">News came this week that The Weinstein Company picked up <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Submarine</i>, Richard Ayoade’s debut feature. The decision to acquire this low-key Welsh comedy seems somewhat odd, as the American indie market is flooded with a million films along this line, many of them better. When we have superior films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Rushmore, </i>there’s no need to import mediocrities like this. </p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In any case, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Submarine </i>tells the coming of age story of one Oliver Tate, a young intellectual who is about to discover his first love. The movie adopts a wry, somewhat distanced tone, but this is entirely familiar stuff, depicting issues such as his parent’s possible infidelity, his virginity anxiety, his mistreatment of an outcast girl, and a cancer scare. The best material here, by far, involves his well-mannered parents, played by Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins. The two adopt comic personas that are based on extreme rationality and parental understanding. Their frankness becomes hilarious, providing the majority of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Submarine</i>’s laughs. As for, Craig Roberts, the young actor playing Oliver, his greatest asset seems to be his vacant stare, which is less damning than it sounds, given that the title refers to the feeling of being underwater brought about by depression. Ayoade’s direction is decent, with a reasonable visual sensibility, but he indulges in too many overlong musical montages, ending every chapter of this three-part film with a whimper.</p> <br><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 45/100</p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell)</b></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <br><p class="MsoNormal">I suspect that a few people might write John Cameron Mitchell’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Rabbit Hole </i>off as clichéd claptrap, but I was completely disarmed and moved by its unerring ability to treat the aftermath of the death of a child with fresh eyes. Much has been made of the fact that this is a change of pace for director Mitchell (he’s previously directed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Hedwig and the Angry Inch </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Shortbus</i>), but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Rabbit Hole</i> is far more a screenwriter’s or an actors’ movie than a showcase for its director or his personality. That’s more than fine in this case, as both the screenplay, based on a Pulitzer-winning stage play, and the performances are top-notch. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal">With affecting clarity and surprising humor, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Rabbit Hole </i>examines the difficult fact that we all have to mourn in our own ways, at our own pace. Set eight months after a couple (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) have lost their only child in a car accident, the film sees the two struggling to mourn in a way that provides them comfort. Much is made here of the idea that there is a socially acceptable way of acting after a tragedy, and many of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Rabbit Hole</i>’s best scenes involve quiet, unstated judgments of others’ coping mechanisms. These pressures are palpable, thanks to Kidman’s performance, which at times works through similar terrain as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">There Will Be Blood</i>’s Daniel Plainview. Social circumstances require the repression of emotions, and much of the film is spent waiting for said emotions to explode. It’s a credit to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Rabbit Hole</i>’s intelligent script that that explosion comes without upsetting the delicate balance of sadness, humor, and healing that it works toward the whole time. A major achievement in a minor key.</p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 81/100</p> <br><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>The Housemaid (Im Sang-soo)</b></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This remake of a Korean film classic is glossier than the ‘60s original. In it, Eun-Yi, a wealthy household’s new maid, enters a realm of emotional manipulation and upstairs/downstairs class struggles. Im’s approach is far kinkier than expected. There are uncomfortable sexual situations galore, each of them a metaphorical struggle for power. The movie’s politics are entirely blunt, with the rich characters all too willing to resort to murder if throwing cash at a problem doesn’t work, but they result in a film that carries a wicked spirit. It’s dumb, but it’s fun, and it builds toward a truly jaw-dropping finale. Not the smartest movie I’ve seen at the festival to be sure, but one of the boldest.</p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 60/100</p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan)</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal">Whereas <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">I Killed My Mother </i>was surprising because it came from a director of Dolan’s age, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Heartbeats </i>is precisely the sort of thing that you would expect from a 21-year-old director. What becomes obvious, in retrospect, is how much Anne Dorval brought to the sensibility of Dolan’s debut film (it certainly fell apart once she left the screen). She shows up here, in a cameo, and it’s the best scene in the movie, by far. The rest of it is shallow stuff, obsessed with questioning the existence of bisexuality, the allure of an unrequited romance, and the way that love makes us abandon other concerns. Ideas are tossed about, but there’s no vision. Slow-motion musical montages don’t advance the mood or narrative, faux-documentary interview sequences end up trumping the main story. Everything seems self-dramatizing and overly aestheticized instead of honest. It’s overextended for what it is, and the three leads all seem like weak performers. Only the wit of the final scene caught me off-guard.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 48/100</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Leap Year (Michael Rowe)</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:12.0pt">A master-slave relationship develops over the course of a month, forcing us to gradually question who’s controlling who in Michael Rowe’s debut feature. Things begin cryptically here, with no clear motivation given for single-woman Laura’s odd, promiscuous behavior. As we watch her tick the days off her calendar, building to an ominously colored February 29th, though, her actions shift into focus, turning the movie into a sub-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Repulsion</i> study in sadness brought upon by abuse. The film is psychologically unconvincing. Monica del Carmen, who plays Laura, is whatever the script calls for in a given scene, with little connective tissue from one vignette to the next. We’re supposed to feel bad for a woman who can be so businesslike or empathetic one moment and so childlike and victimized the next, but there’s nothing bridging the two personalities. Much of this is due to Rowe’s formal approach, which tends to use one shot per scene. That directorial choice would be more acceptable if it were more consistent, but we get odd decisions like the one to open the film outside of the apartment, in a supermarket. A decent first feature, but I suspect that Rowe will have better luck in, say, another four years.</p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 57/100</p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Insidious (James Wan) </b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This haunted house movie is definite hackwork (from the director of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Saw</i>), but it has a clear eye on entertaining the audience, which makes much of its ineptitude forgivable. With a plot that shamelessly rips off the brilliant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Poltergest</i> (Wan claims homage), much of the work has been done for them. The scares here begin to build almost immediately, whether a scene is set in day or night. Better yet, they build off one another, with most scenes offering more than one opportunity for the audience to jump in fright. Every cliché from every haunted house movie resurfaces here. Barbara Hershey, from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Entity</i>, even turns up in a small role. This is fairly straight-faced, totally unambitious stuff that knows what it wants to be. It only really falters in its disappointing last act, in which a trip to the spirit realm feels more like a trip to a wax museum. Still, good fun.</p> <br><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 60/100</p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-63844145520607376502010-09-16T02:16:00.003-04:002010-09-16T02:20:02.720-04:00TIFF Day 5<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fz7sxhSMhILlqpxB8vyhzeL1MUXZmZOUqQ7Q1Qaq-BOsfBpkL5RgQ0uFIZt37beIkDPF0QHTeJtPU4WlKAxlcARijOd1HCFmBO72edpIgnEOOObmndacuiKM5wHTeSa9ji1Jkw/s1600/outside718.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7fz7sxhSMhILlqpxB8vyhzeL1MUXZmZOUqQ7Q1Qaq-BOsfBpkL5RgQ0uFIZt37beIkDPF0QHTeJtPU4WlKAxlcARijOd1HCFmBO72edpIgnEOOObmndacuiKM5wHTeSa9ji1Jkw/s320/outside718.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517391834297004258" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Outside the Law (Rachid Bouchareb)</b></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A polished historical epic about an Algerian family’s struggle against French oppression, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Outside the Law</i> ranges from 1945 to 1962. Covering such a large span of time, things are bound to get lost, even with a 140 minute run time. Unfortunately, what remains most obscured here is how these immigrants developed a political conscience that saw terrorist action as the most effective path to liberation. One or two brief conversations shown in a prison setting do not comprise an ethos. It’s difficult to separate the Algerian identity from the immigrant experience from the political sensibility here, which is somewhat damning, given that the film’s main goal seems to be to provide access to a terrorist’s mindset. Its inability to be revelatory might be more forgivable were it not so glossy or self-serious. There are moments of irony scattered about (e.g. “See You Later, Alligator” plays on a radio as a man is killed), but never a moment of levity. Still, there are things to admire here. The gritty picture of shantytown life and the community’s sliding ethical standards is compelling, and an early scene showing the mass slaughter of Algerian protestors and innocents sparks genuine outrage.</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 46/100</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>127 Hours (Danny Boyle) </b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br /><p class="MsoNormal">Danny Boyle delivers real-life drama, as thrillseeker Aron Ralston gets trapped under a rock and cuts off his own hand to escape. Boyle doesn’t try to make this scenario scary or tragic so much as ironic and relateable, which is a choice that feels questionable. The film’s focus on the sensual dominates, and it lends the ordeal a visceral, sometimes unbearable feel. Some edits, like that from an ant crawling on Aron to a memory of his girlfriend stroking his chest, show real inspiration. Other moments, like one in which Aron takes pleasure basking in the fifteen minutes of sunlight granted by his situation each day, universalize the action. Throughout it all, there’s some gallows humor (e.g. a urine Slurpee) to temper the dread, but that only goes so far. When Aron finally cuts off his arm, the moment is gruesome and painful, to Boyle’s credit. There’s not much going on here, really. The film seems designed as a showcase for the director. Franco makes little impression, given his screen time. Boyle’s visuals are inventive, but inconsistently so. It’s clever to show a change in temperature by focusing on the condensation in a water bottle, but considerably less so to place a temperature gauge on screen. Whenever the high concept gives way to a character study, things weaken considerably into a series of corny flashbacks and flights of quasi-spiritual significance.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 56/100</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <b><br /></b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Home for Christmas (Bent Hamer)</b></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are several stories here, all arranged around a Yuletide theme, but none of them step outside of a very predictable, professional course of action. The performances are all fine, and Hamer resists sentimentality as often as he indulges in it, so the film is not nearly as mawkish as it might have been. Still, this feels inescapably like product. Beyond its mysterious opening sequence, in which a Christmas celebration gives way to sniper fire, it’s forgettable, watchable fare in every way.</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 40/100</p> <b><br /></b> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman) </b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A poetic meditation on remembering and the inability to forget, this documentary from Patricio Guzman examines links between astrology, archaeology, and political memory. Chile, and particularly its Atacama Desert, provides the unique backdrop. Its humidity-free climate makes it an ideal location for both star-watchers and historians. Throughout the film, Guzman interviews those who work there, finding common ground in their relationship to the past. The delayed images of the stars and the buried record of historical past provide equal points of obsession for the people of a country that actively denies its troubled recent past. That immobilization, triggered by the Pinochet coup d’état, has created a wound culture (as Guzman has observed in his other movies), and his work probes that wound, resulting in several heartbreaking, soul-searching interviews. Throughout, we are reminded of the true scale of history, with Guzman shifting effortlessly between macro and micro scales, broadening meaning in all of his chosen topics at once. A cloud of dust particles reminds us of the swirling cosmos. The calcium in the stars reminds us of the bones of Chile's Disappeared. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 65/100</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <b><br /></b> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Granted unprecedented, exclusive access to the world’s oldest cave paintings (discovered in 1994), Herzog offers truly remarkable raw footage in a film that feels compromised by the limitations of its production. The strict limits on the access that Herzog was given to explore the caves means that we’re doing anything but venturing into uncharted territory here. It’s understandable given the precious nature of the caves, but it means that we are watching a guided tour from a filmmaker known for blazing his own trails. In typical Herzog fashion, a few of the talking heads (generally there to help contextualize the paintings) exhibit quirky personalities. A 3D effect is used to help the audience to get a sense of the contours of the cave surfaces. The best moment comes when it is revealed that several of the drawings were designed to simulate motion, almost as a prototypical cinema, as torchlight moves across them. The content here is indispensible, the film as a whole, merely adequate.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 53/100</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>John Carpenter’s The Ward (John Carpenter) </b></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A group of girls in an insane asylum are stalked by the ghost of one of their former peers in this tepid and uninspired horror film from John Carpenter. Seeming like a work from hire from this usually distinctive director, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Ward</i> lacks much of the compositional strength that distinguishes his usual output. There are a few mild scares to be had, but they seem like a weak payoff for a film that is not well-acted enough to function as the psychological thriller that it wants to be. Had this been a direct-to-video work from an anonymous source, it would have felt mediocre, but passable. Coming from Carpenter, who hasn’t made a feature film since the underrated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ghosts of Mars</i>, it’s cause for alarm.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Rating: 41/100</p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-20918107939225671152010-09-15T12:01:00.002-04:002010-09-15T12:04:45.747-04:00The rest of Day 4<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Tih3vjPVYXildfxPv3MDLP3wnNbX7qd3O0CltbsVdSesIKP1pi5CD16msZzkj0eEttX6ZaRfTbzRI7EoWW6piKxxAvoUJTAhAuU0RfPyyfYBfB_VgC1Z8smd73rKqD49rM_uLw/s1600/Tabloid.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 255px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Tih3vjPVYXildfxPv3MDLP3wnNbX7qd3O0CltbsVdSesIKP1pi5CD16msZzkj0eEttX6ZaRfTbzRI7EoWW6piKxxAvoUJTAhAuU0RfPyyfYBfB_VgC1Z8smd73rKqD49rM_uLw/s320/Tabloid.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517171634597748386" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /><br></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><br /></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Tabloid (Errol Morris)</b></p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Morris takes a break from his recent political documentaries with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Tabloid</i>, a frantic portrait of a former beauty queen <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and self-described “incurable romantic” who became a notorious media figure when she kidnapped and possibly raped her Mormon beau. The subject, Joyce McKinney, is endlessly quotable. Her conversational demeanor makes her the best person to recount her life’s story, even if Morris makes it clear that she’s not above taking liberties with the truth. What emerges is a tale of obsessive, mostly unrequited love, which grows increasingly unbelievable as the story unfolds (there are absurd disguises, sexy secrets, and clones). The tabloid press’s unethical obsession with figures like Joyce is a marginal concern here. It mostly permits Morris to play up the sensational aspects of the story, which he does most memorably by flashing headline-like graphics of the salacious terms that his interviewees use (e.g. “SPREAD-EAGLED”).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The result is something less than a profound meditation on Joyce’s life, but it is one heck of a story. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rating: 59 /100</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Hereafter (Clint Eastwood)</b></p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After a harrowing, effects-filled opening, Eastwood’s latest transforms into a quiet consideration of death. Following three characters, the story adopts three approaches toward its subject matter, alternating between intellectual, emotional, and supernatural modes of inquiry. What results is an unpredictable, consistently beguiling work that could only have come from a master filmmaker. Its unrushed demeanor and willingness to hold back from commitment lend it a profundity that escapes the schematic traps of similar films like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Babel</i>. Instead of forcing a point of view upon us, Eastwood simply flirts with various ideas and genres, until his quiet search becomes a quiet release from that search. Because it’s so low key, it’s less immediately impactful than many of Eastwood’s recent work, and the scenes set in London sequences are weaker than the others, but this is a film of uncommon insight and patience. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rating: 64/100</b></p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Vanishing on 7th Street (Brad Anderson)</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b><br> </b></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This apocalyptic horror film, in which a mass disappearance afflicts an unnamed city, attempts to make us scared of the dark once again. Featuring a small cast of characters who must remain in light lest some shadowy boogeymen snatch them up, the movie boasts an intriguing premise at its start, but things barely develop, leaving the impression that we’re watching an extended, gimmicky episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Clumsy expoisition (e.g. one character just happens to be reading about the Roanoke colony’s disappearance at the film’s start) and some terrible performances (Thandie Newton’s in full-on Beloved freak-out mode) harm the overall effect, but really the most damning thing here is Anderson’s inability to capitalize on his dark versus light motif in any but the most obvious ways. <br> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rating: 38/100</b></p>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-55832091503819384972010-09-15T02:55:00.001-04:002010-09-15T02:56:19.686-04:00<br><br />Tabloid (Errol Morris) 59 <br /><br />Hereafter (Clint Eastwood) 64<br /><br />Vanishing on 7th Street (Brad Anderson) 38<br /><br />DAY 5<br><br />Outside the Law (Rachid Bouchareb) 46<br /><br />127 Hours (Danny Boyle) 56<br /><br />Home for Christmas (Bent Hamer) 40<br /><br />Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman) 65<br /><br />Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog) 53<br /><br />John Carpenter’s The Ward (John Carpenter) 41<br /><br /><br />DAY 6<br /><br />Miral (Julian Schnabel) 53<br /><br />Submarine (Richard Ayoade) 45<br /><br />Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell) 81<br /><br />The Housemaid (Im Sang-soo) 60<br /><br />Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan) 48<br /><br />Leap Year (Michael Rowe) 57<br /><br />Insidious (James Wan) 60<br /><br>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-64052329195615547182010-09-15T02:41:00.002-04:002010-09-15T02:43:33.936-04:00Just a few of these for tonight... an especially tight schedule the last two days, some lingering illness, and school commitments threw me a bit behind. <br /><br><br />Made in Dagenham (Nigel Cole)<br /><br><br />Probably the sweetest movie ever made about a May ’68 rebellion, this is plays like a thoroughly tamed Norma Rae. The setting is in the titular town, at a Ford Motors plant, where a group of women choose to go on strike for equal pay. The film is sure to be the target of scorn, some of it rightful, but I found it so light on its feet and enjoyable that I could forgive its utter manipulation (e.g. every man is an ineffectual pig, with the exception of the one played by Bob Hoskins) and its complete predictability. There are nice turns from Sally Hawkins and Rosamund Pike. The audience for this is extremely self-selecting. If this general sort of thing would likely appeal to you, it probably will here, but it won’t convert those averse to braindead, feel-good movies by any means. Cole still isn’t much of a director.<br /><br><br /><b>Rating: 51/100</b><br /><br><br />The Conspirator (Robert Redford)<br /><br><br />Something like the inverse in grace and sophistication when compared to Redford’s superb Quiz Show, this anonymously-directed misfire feels like something that would premiere on cable, at best. The subject, the trial of Mary Surratt, the first woman sentenced to death by the U.S. government, should be a surefire one, but it falls flat at every turn. Famous names fill the roster, but many roles here are stunning miscast (James McAvoy, Justin Long, Alexis Bledel), killing whatever atmosphere is generated. The target audience for this seems to be history buffs, as there are plenty of presumably true details to be gleaned (e.g. soldiers were ordered to stand in front of Mary Surratt as her daughter testified in her defense), often at the expense of quality dialogue or narrative propulsion. Anyone expecting suspense or a competent visual sensibility will need to look elsewhere.<br /><b><br><br />Rating: 37/100</b><br /><br><br />The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet)<br /><br><br />Sylvain Chomet sets out to revive Jacques Tati, an idol, by animating an unfilmed script by the master, but mostly proves that animation is a poor medium for Tati’s style of physical humor. The melancholy mood and small scale here, too, seem a far cry from Tati’s wondrous celebration of life in all its forms. The plot of this film, set in late-50s Europe, involves an underappreciated magician who yearns to protect the innocence of a young woman. It’s an exercise in sustaining delusion, which disturbingly recalls Vertigo, without generating any of the complexity found there. Because The Illusionist at least looks nice, it’s not as overwhelmingly unpleasant for me as The Triplets of Belleville, but that’s hardly high praise. The film is conceptually funny at best most of the time, and the well-realized watercolor visuals are scarcely enough to justify the entire thing. Many seem to be entranced by this, but for me, only the final moments were effective at generating any sort of emotional response.<br /><b><br><br />Rating: 46/100 </b><br /><br><br /><br />The First Grader (Justin Chadwick)<br /><br><br />This feel-good effort about an 84-year old Kenyan who wants to take advantage of his government’s recent offer of free education to all by enrolling in primary school, has enough of a premise to sustain interest for about one-third of its run time. Director Chadwick brings more visual imagination than usual to what is essentially a character drama, and he manages to wring adequate performances from even his untrained cast members. The mix of modern-era grumblings about the decision to educate an old man and that old man’s flashbacks to his abuse at the hands of other tribes can only go so far, however, and the film quickly runs out of things to say about its scenario. What should be a powerful testament to the need for universal education suffers because the core issue becomes subsumed in a morass of petty squabbles. The characters here are too sketchily drawn to register. Kenya itself scarcely earns any sort of distinctive identity by the film’s end.<br /><b><br><br />Rating: 43/100</b><br /><br>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-84110119193511050262010-09-12T03:03:00.004-04:002010-09-12T03:11:37.182-04:00TIFF Day 3<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZOm249KmZmAwXBB4KXih0yKMzX9iFLCZd4mxW5Y1Y55d86zHx0DNeoTCHU0eYWuVxMKmfehC3InoAeGIMQb8goTYwo8KyUGML7rLsXIKx9YenIM9MSyCjRNOxCRdsPGoFRrAPBQ/s1600/KingsSpeech.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZOm249KmZmAwXBB4KXih0yKMzX9iFLCZd4mxW5Y1Y55d86zHx0DNeoTCHU0eYWuVxMKmfehC3InoAeGIMQb8goTYwo8KyUGML7rLsXIKx9YenIM9MSyCjRNOxCRdsPGoFRrAPBQ/s320/KingsSpeech.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515919383620191618" /></a><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><br><b>The King's Speech (Tom Hooper) 49</b> - Crowd-pleasing and bound for Oscar glory, but it runs out of steam quickly. The first hour is charming, touching and funny. The second is overly important, and entirely too willing to turn the King we were struggling to know into a symbol. Firth's performance never evolves beyond a gimmick. Rush's best moments all come early on, but he's surely a frontrunner for awards. Still, that first hour is good, with lots of awkward comedy and very British charm.</p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>What I Most Want (Delfina Castagnino) 36</b> – This ode to female friendship is seventy-odd minutes long, with many of them taken up with interminable, poorly framed shots. It’s something like a female-driven <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Old Joy</i>, but that overstates its quality or ambition. It really only grows interesting in its final reel, as it becomes obvious that the two girls’ concerns in life are being contrasted. Just as tension begins to emerge between the two, the film ends. It’s so minor that it requires expert precision to be worthwhile, but first-time feature filmmaker Castagnino feels like a hack. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman) 57 </b>– This unassuming observational documentary set in a Texas boxing gym is surely the most consistently entertaining thing that I’ve seen at the festival thus far. Wiseman doesn’t particularly deviate from his well-worn template here, but the chosen subject matter ensures that there is no bureaucracy to wade through, so no shot wears out its welcome. There’s a realization here that everyone shown on camera has a story and everyone has a unique motivation for being at the gym. Wiseman’s approach respects that, and therefore respects the viewer’s intelligence. The ringside philosophy picked up along the way (e.g. “You don’t pay your dues, you ain’t get shit.”) enhances the film considerably, although brazenly topical moments involving the Virginia Tech shootings or tech millionaire Richard Garriot seemed like odd distractions.</p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Armadillo (Janus Metz) 54 </b>– Not especially impressive content-wise, but this documentary about the Afghanistan invasion probably looks more like a fictional feature than any documentary since <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Zoo</i>. It’s extremely well-shot. It wrings its hands with predictable ambivalence over the raging boners that the young troops have for combat. When they finally get a taste of battle, the footage that’s been captured is rather extraordinary… to the point that some level of editorial trickery must have been involved. A last-minute questioning of the troops’ action under the gun recalls a similar debate in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Tillman Story</i>.</p><br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Love Crime (Alain Corneau) 56</b> – Starting out as a witty comedy about workplace rivalries, this morphs into something a lot more plot-driven in its second half. The scenes in which Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier threaten each other are terrific. I largely lost interest as predictable the aftermath of a mid-film plot twist played out, though. Corneau’s style here is appealing and stands at a mild remove from the action, which makes sense in a story filled with such startling manipulations.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Break Up Club (Barbara Wong) 26</b> – I’m probably overrating this. It keeps rebooting itself, as it tells the story of a young Hong Kong couple’s on-again, off-again relationship. It moves from personal film diary, to bizarre meta-film in which characters document their own break-up stories, into a glossy and conventional soap opera format. None of these work particularly well, and all of them are undercut by a uniformly inadequate cast. Festival schedule filler all the way… <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I won’t remember this in a year.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Bunraku (Guy Moshe) 20</b> – You know a fight scene sucks when it can’t prompt a reaction from a TIFF Midnight Madness crowd. Three early fight scenes in a row from the overlong <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Bunraku </i>failed to rouse much of anything at tonight’s screening. This is really dire stuff that will probably find some defenders due to its visual style, which combines German expressionism with day-glow Japanese stereotypes. My eyes mostly felt that director Moshe never met a color palette that he didn’t like. The performances are extremely bad, especially in the case of Josh Harnett, who is supposed to be some sort of Eastwood-channeling Western badass. What’s the point of endless visual invention if you are recycling a tired, aggressively boring plot?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-69692324397965594942010-09-12T02:26:00.002-04:002010-09-12T02:27:45.648-04:00Super (James Gunn)<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjrX1tMxuyzTf3WAn0nb6pDYmOKrF39H4FIOhtW8Huy5gFF_X6o4Haby0l45yq-W4YE2NfkO-OczFcBGGMHGOSMjSuYxcHdEsfxNQIkqEFDi0XeYyN2ld8GVOrAJ_YdG9puUqdgw/s1600/Super.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 313px; height: 217px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjrX1tMxuyzTf3WAn0nb6pDYmOKrF39H4FIOhtW8Huy5gFF_X6o4Haby0l45yq-W4YE2NfkO-OczFcBGGMHGOSMjSuYxcHdEsfxNQIkqEFDi0XeYyN2ld8GVOrAJ_YdG9puUqdgw/s320/Super.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515909731016224050" /></a><br /><div><br><p class="MsoNormal">Big screen superhero parodies tend to be as terrible and over-caffeinated as the films that they target, so it comes as a mild surprise that James Gunn’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Super</i> manages at least some level of storytelling coherence. Focusing on Frank (Rainn Wilson), a sad sack short order cook who experiences a religious epiphany after his wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Super</i> surpasses recent attempts such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Kick-Ass</i> in its efforts to make the superhero movie look ignorant. Wilson’s character here adopts the moniker The Crimson Bolt, and soon takes to the streets, fighting crime, wherever he finds it (even if that entails hiding behind a dumpster for hours, waiting for it). </p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Probably as a result of its modest budget, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Super </i>has an indie film feel. Gunn uses a great deal of handheld camerawork and natural lighting, which helps to ground the absurd plot in some level of reality. The film’s gross-out moments, which are myriad, actually do a good job of reminding audiences of the latent psychopathic tendencies that exist in the superhero genre. Watching a petty criminal get hit in the head with a wrench might be funny once, but watching it happen repeatedly, in gory detail is a definite buzz kill. Things get amplified on this front once Ellen Page, who has a manic energy here that she’s not shown before, shows up as a sidekick, and pushes the Bolt to greater levels of mayhem. Her too-brief time on screen energizes the film. Whether Page is bashing a possibly innocent young man’s head in with a statue or rubbing her crotch through her spandex, telling Frank that “it’s all gushy,” she gives a fearless performance.</p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s a shame that Wilson himself isn’t working at that level. His brand of self-deprecating humor soon runs out of targets (he can only make fun of his fat ass so many times…), and Gunn has nowhere to go but toward unwelcome sincerity. As <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Super </i>winds to a close, it seems to forget that it’s a parody, and wants us to endorse the character it’s created. Such a miscalculation is unfortunate. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Super </i>offers less than its title implies, but it’s better than most of its ilk. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <br><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rating: 46/100</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15945478.post-84899832549358263432010-09-12T02:06:00.003-04:002010-09-12T02:07:16.616-04:00Passion Play (Mitch Glazer)<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlakfv3ARrhoIi5t2hF4QPdvuRaGMhfm_oN5vGg0rms4xyeZJqqNJPhKp1xvIkXHeMU_XaJ3NWplRZd_Cq5_frrOUeZeSh3zqGyZQsnIrsRK1QyjXhpCaErGB7D4O82f0Ca1-LUA/s1600/passionplay.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 158px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlakfv3ARrhoIi5t2hF4QPdvuRaGMhfm_oN5vGg0rms4xyeZJqqNJPhKp1xvIkXHeMU_XaJ3NWplRZd_Cq5_frrOUeZeSh3zqGyZQsnIrsRK1QyjXhpCaErGB7D4O82f0Ca1-LUA/s320/passionplay.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515904482531095538" /></a><br /><br><br /><div><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Passion Play</i>, the debut feature from screenwriter Mitch Glazer, has been described as a fable. More appropriately, I’d say, it is a self-indulgent sexual fantasy run amok. Starring Mickey Rourke as a jazz musician who runs afoul of a gangster (by sleeping with his wife, naturally), the film offers superficial romantic noodling that kicks off when he comes across a girl in a carnival who sports real wings (Megan Fox). Perhaps it’s needless to say, but Rourke and Fox are a thoroughly mismatched screen couple, who exude zero screen chemistry with one another. Rourke possesses a down and out shaggy dog appeal only works in a very limited, realistic range of films. Fox is a sex kitten with little depth. This is probably her greatest acting challenge to date, and she fails miserably. When the film asks the two to play off one another, the results are disastrous. When sparks fail to ignite between the two in a story that entirely depends upon us getting caught up in their future together, the whole enterprise collapses. </p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Bill Murray, playing Happy, the previously mentioned gangster, is the clearest asset here, doing what he can by adding his signature comic timing to what is pretty sorry material. Glazer has no obvious skill behind the camera. His imagery recycles noir stereotypes to little effect, and the overall mood here recalls the L.A.-centric work of Alan Rudolph, with next to none of the quirky charm. Based on the way that Glazer trots about his real-life spouse Kelly Preston in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Passion Play</i> (she rarely wears more than underwear, and sometimes wears less), one could uncharitably read the movie as an autobiographical story about trophy wives. That’s disturbing, but par for the course, given the rest of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Passion Play</i>’s vapid, sexist content. A last ditch effort to add a spiritual dimension to the preceding wankery falls as flat as the rest of the film. Awful.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><b> </b></o:p></p> <br> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Rating: 12/100</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div>Jeremy Heilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11025198716777000854noreply@blogger.com1