TIFF: Mustang, 3000 Nights

Amir continues our coverage of the Toronto International Film Festival with a duo of middle eastern films directed by women, the first of which is one of five films shortlisted for Oscar submission selection by France.

Mustang (Turkey/France)
Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s first feature is an astonishingly assured debut. The story of five orphaned sisters who live with their grandmother and uncle in rural Turkey is at once a joyous celebration of youth and a rage-inducing depiction of young girls’ lives in religious, conservative societies. Locked inside their house after they are found innocuously playing with male classmates at the beach, the girls are forced to stay away from school and spend their days getting primed to be housewives.

The first half takes on a mostly comic tone, as the girls defiantly rebel against increasingly harsh measures by finding inventive ways to step out of the house or sneak off with their boyfriends. One forced marriage and an unfortunate disaster later, however, the film takes a sharp turn for the serious. [More...]

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What's Next for Jennifer Lawrence

Murtada here with some casting news. With commitments to her two franchises coming to an end soon, Jennifer Lawrence is getting busy considering all types of movies. November 20th brings The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 her 4th and last outing, for now, as Katniss Everdeen. Next summer’s X-Men Apocalypse is supposedly the last time we will see Lawrence as Mystique.

This week came news that she is attached to an adaptation of the book Red Sparrow about a Russian intelligence officer trained as a seductress and her handling of a rival CIA operative. This movie could re-team her with Francis Lawrence her first Hunger Games director. It’s a hot property in Hollywood that previously had director/actress combos of Darren Aronofsky/Natalie Portman and David Fincher/Rooney Mara interested.

More projects and some recent Lawrence quotes after the jump.

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TIFF: Jake Gyllenhaal in "Demolition"

This review originally appeared in abridged version in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

All throughout Demolition, which opened the 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival which closes this coming Sunday, new widower Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is putting the title into action. His wife has just died, he is convinced he feels nothing about it, and he begins to tear things down and scatter their parts about. The general idea is ‘take something apart to see how it all fits together’ but he doesn’t bother with the fitting back together part.

He’s also demolitioning his own life, of course, in the process. This peculiar destructive streak starts out small with his morning routine. At first, in montage, this includes lots of preening and shaving (including his chest. *sniffle*) to turn him into a smooth starched and well dressed executive but it’s quickly abandoned. Cue: sexy scruff and increasingly erratic behavior. (Unfortunately we are not shown the return of the chest hair. Stingy move, movie!)

Everything has become a metaphor…”

…Davis intones in the middle of the picture to his confused and impatient boss and father-in-law (Chris Cooper), as an attempt to explain his new and frankly worrisome headspace. But he’s right. Everything is a metaphor in Demolition and thus, apart from Gyllenhaal’s work, the movie sparked polarized reactions. More...

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TIFF's Red Carpet, Much Improved

Jose here, with a new life mission: make someone as happy as Kate Winslet looked at the premiere of The Dressmaker.

 The Oscar winner was the epitome of radiance as she walked the red carpet in a stunning Badgley Mischka design. Official reports say she was blowing kisses to the crowd, signing autographs and putting on her best face for her fans, however I choose to believe she was smiling because she saw how improved the looks were at the festival by the time she arrived. See the looks after the jump. 

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Beauty Break - Tilda as AnOther

Here's Murtada with a couple of gorgeous pictures of a movie star to brighten your evening. We’ve already seen the striking first still from A Bigger Splash, now come more enticing images to get us more impatient for this film. As if we weren’t already...

Tilda Swinton looks a bit different in these photos, no? Well there’s a reason for that. Because she’s Tilda Swinton she doesn’t just give an interview to promote her movie. She gives it in character. In A Bigger Splash Swinton plays a rock star, called Marianne Lane,  involved in a quartet of sex and intrigue with Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson. For the AnOther Magazine cover story she conducted the interview as her character Lane. Here’s how AnOther put it:

“This entire interview is a work of fiction co-authored by Tilda Swinton, Glenn O’Brien, Luca Guadagnino and Dave Kajganich, based around events in the film A Bigger Splash.”

Another interesting tidbit from the interview is that Lane is mostly silent throughout the movie. Speaking to reporters at the Venice Film Festival where the movie played earlier this month, Swinton explained why,  “It was a moment in my life when I really didn’t want to say anything”. To explain Tilda's silence, Lane is recovering from a throat surgery under doctor’s orders not to speak -very believable for a rock star.

In the US we'll have to wait till May 2016 to see this movie. Those of you in London shouldn't miss it when it plays the London Film Festival next month.

What do you think of Tilda as Marianne?