TIFF 2014 Vow

I will do this better next year. I will do this better next year. Steep learning curve I experienced schedule-wise at the Toronto International Film Festival. One must build in travel from theater-to-theater time, doublecheck "types" of screenings, have plan "B"s for screenings at the ready, interview time for some glitz, writing time for some sanity, reign-handing to people to cover non-festival news while you're abroad, queueing time for your limited public screenings. And that's just the obvious ones learned through trial by error. TIFF 2014 here I come. 

But I did eventually write up each and every film save one. Herewith links to all of my TIFF 13 adventures

Podcast a group discussion of TIFF 13: Oscar buzz, our favorite films, and more
Ambition & Self Sabotage on Gravity and Eleanor Rigby: Him & Her
Mano-a-Mano Hallucinations Norway's Pioneer & Jake Gyllenhaal² in Enemy
Quickies Honeymoon, Young & Beautiful, Belle
Labor Day in a freeze-frame nutshell
Jessica Chastain at the Eleanor Rigby Premiere
August Osage County reactions Plus Best Picture Nonsense
Rush Ron Howard's crowd pleaser
The Past from Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi & Cannes Best Actress Berenice Bejo
Queer Double Feature: Tom at the Farm and Stranger by the Lake
Boogie Nights Live Read with Jason Reitman and Friends
First 3 Screenings: Child's Pose, Unbeatable and Isabelle Huppert in Abuse of Weakness 
TIFF Arrival: Touchdown in Toronto. Two unsightly Oscars

Post Festival Additions:
Amir interviewed Asghar Farhadi on The Past
Amir on the David Cronenberg Exhibition - Long Live the New Flesh!
Amir's Fest Roundup - Pt 2
Amir's Fest Roundup - Pt 1 
August Osage County - an exceedingly rough draft months in the making  

Podcast: All About TIFF, Our Festival Takeaways

For this week's podcast, a special Toronto International Film Festival edition. Your regular players Nathaniel, Katey and Nick welcome Tim Robey from the Daily Telegraph and Angelo Muredda from Film Freak Central to discuss our experiences at this year's TIFF. We cover festival favorites like the joyful experiment Strange Little Cat, super-lengthy documentary At Berkeley and Clio Barnard's follow up to The Arbor, The Selfish Giant and spend time with 12 Years a Slave which blew (most of) our minds. (It also blew the TIFF audience's mind and took home the coveted People's Choice prize, that Oscar bellwether, with Philomena in second place) 

We also hit mainstream titles like the Daniel Brühl pictures Rush and The Fifth Estate. No one really liked Labor Day which Angelo calls "my summer of erotic pies" and which reminds us uncomfortably of previous Kate Winslet projects. Some slightly more divisive experiences include the sci-fi wow of Gravity, Jafar Panahi's Closed Curtain, the erotic thrillers Stranger by the Lake and Eastern Boys, animation giant Sylvain Chomet's first live action feature Attila Marcel, as well as two doppelganger movies The Double &. Enemy starring Jesse Eisenberg & Jake Gyllenhaal respectively.

Mixed in with these pre-release screening buzz-discussions there's plenty to chew on in terms of Oscar's Best Foreign Film category including possible entries from Singapore (Ilo Ilo), Romania (Child's Pose), Chile (Gloria) and Cambodia (The Missing Picture). And, last but not least our panel loves Jonathan Glazer's long awaited Birth follow up Under the Skin (starring Scarlett Johansson) and offers up advice for any readers who'd like to go to TIFF next year.

Clockwise from top left: Strange Little Cat, Gloria, Gravity, Eastern Boys, and 12 Years a Slave

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download it on iTunes. 
(I tried something new in the processing / uploading so let me know if the sound is okay and how it compares to other weeks) 

TIFF 13 Takeaways

TIFF: "Gravity" & "Eleanor Rigby: Him / Her"

Here's to grand ambition, the spiritual cousin of self-sabotage; whatever scale filmmakers are working on, it's a thin (blood)line that separates them. An noble arguable failure and an unwieldy arguable success from the Toronto International Film Festival will illustrate…

GRAVITY
The very talented multi-hypenate filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón has been MIA from cinema for the past seven years. He's presumably been huddled over various computers or engulfed in endless meetings trying to work out the logistics of bringing this epic outerspace survival drama to the screen. [more...]

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TIFF Quickies: Young & Beautiful, Honeymoon, and Belle

Brief notes on three more TIFF pictures

HONEYMOON
Maybe I would be a fan of Jan Hrebejk if I saw more of his pictures? He's been submitted three times for Oscar consideration in Best Foreign Film but of the three I've only seen his most recent Kawasaki Rose which I liked quite a lot. We don't yet know if the Czech Republic will submit his latest, Honeymoon, but it's an involving drama about our past selves and how well we know the ones we love. I really liked the gradual unfolding of its story-puzzle which takes place during a wedding weekend in which an uninvited gayish stranger spoils the proceedings for the bride and groom though they don't quite know why. Or maybe someone does but they're not saying. The relationships were intriguing and the groom is the sexiest ginger bearded actor this side of Fassbender. Though it maybe pushes too hard aesthetically in its climax, the final shots really moved me. 

Of note: Fans of Nastassia Kinski will be delighted at the marquee treatment she receives here. She's not in the film but her late 70s early 80s stardom is a key plot point. B/B+

François Ozon and a British Costume Drama after the jump

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TIFF: Paranoid Mano-a-Mano Hallucinating With "Pioneer" and "Enemy"

TIFF is still raging but most journalists are now running on fumes, including me! And NYFF press screenings start next week. Give me strength! I know I know... you're waiting on writeups for Oscar hopefuls like The Railway Man, Gravity, and Twelve Years a Slave which is A LOT to get through still in the next few days but here are two films from Norway and Canada which I wanted to discuss. They both pit wounded unraveling men against themselves and each other for our viewing pleasure.

Wes Bentley vs. Aksel Hennie in "Pioneer"

PIONEER
Paranoia thrillers aren't really my cuppa as movie genres go but this not so distant history expose drama from Norway is just gripping. It deals in part with the American and Norwegian battle over oil drilling contracts and pipeline off Norway's massive jagged coast. Not So Spoiler Alert: Norway won making it one of the wealthiest nations in the world. But the political history is the setting rather than the focus, as we follow one diver Petter (Askel Hennie) who gets caught up in the unethical goings on which happen to have a body count. Not-So-Spoiler Alert 2: Big Oil is corrupt business no matter what flag it's flying under.

It helps quite a lot that Pioneer's opening sequence is just superb, with tensions and character detail already in media res as we meet an American diver (Wes Bentley) squaring off with the Norwegian brothers (Hennie & André Erikson) he's competing with for a trial diving mission. The men are being tested for the ability to withstand the unwithstandable oceanic pressure situations and scientists look on and experiment with the air they're breathing to see what keeps them functioning and alive. Soon they're hallucinating. When their first mission begins, the movie gets even more tense with some of the alien beauty of the James Cameron filmography elevating its underwater sequences. Once we've come up for air, shaken and much worse for the wear, the movie levels off into more familiar paranoia thriller tropes but it's so moodily lit, engagingly scored (by Air!), and slippery with the shady 'who can he possibly trust?' twists, that I didn't care and by then I was already well-hooked. The American actors (Stephen Lang, already totally typecast as the "this is a dangerous mission and I am secretly evil!" guy -- I've seen him do it like 3 times recently, and Wes Bentley) aren't half as subtle as the Norwegian stars which makes for some weird cartoon vs. human tonal shifting within scenes but it's good and very accessible filmmaking. It's still in the running towards becoming Norway's next top Oscar nominee. B+ 

P.S. Speaking of Oscar submissions, Mexican actress Stephanie Sigman, Miss Bala herself, plays one of the divers wives and speaks Norwegian in the film. Who knew?

Jake Gyllenhaal Versus Jake Gyllenhaal in "Enemy"

ENEMY
Take Jake Gyllenhaal's lonely OCD decoder in Zodiac and bring along his evocative cinematography and color palette. Split him in two with one version schlumpy and Adam Goldberg like (out of date reference?) and the other cockier like Gosling on a motorbike. Mix in Eyes Wide Shut's plinking/cagey 'sex party'. Plop it down to in Talent Agency and University settings as nondescript/sterile as the stockbroker firm in American Psycho and throw a curveball with inexplicable Video-Store detours from ye olden times. Stir it all together for a Franz Kafka stew. Add a little sprinkling of Isabella Rossellini, and a final glaze of blonde love interests (Melanie Laurent & Sarah Gadon) who are both confusingly disappointed; You're sleeping with Gyllenhall, ladies. Cheer the fuck up!

Do all that and you might get this eery, compelling, off putting, possibly slight but mercifully tight (90 minutes. Huzzah!) cinematic adaptation of Jose Saramago's "The Double". I kinda dug it but I have no idea if it's any good or what happened or where I am anymore and what aiiiiiiiieeeeeeee that last sound/shot. WTF 

Podcast a group discussion of TIFF 13: Oscar buzz, our favorite films, and more
Ambition & Self Sabotage on Gravity and Eleanor Rigby: Him & Her
Quickies Honeymoon, Young & Beautiful, Belle
Labor Day in a freeze-frame nutshell
Jessica Chastain at the Eleanor Rigby Premiere
August Osage County reactions Plus Best Picture Nonsense
Rush Ron Howard's crowd pleaser
The Past from Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi & Cannes Best Actress Berenice Bejo
Queer Double Feature: Tom at the Farm and Stranger by the Lake
Boogie Nights Live Read with Jason Reitman and Friends
First 3 Screenings: Child's Pose, Unbeatable and Isabelle Huppert in Abuse of Weakness 
TIFF Arrival: Touchdown in Toronto. Two unsightly Oscars