parabola.ca

Now that my schedule’s all confirmed, here are some notes on the films about why I’ve selected them. As with last year, I’ll sort by programme and mark my must-sees with a *.

Canada First!

Oh wait … none this year! This is a surprise as I usually have at least a few picked out, some of which end up being among my favorites of the year. I did have some of these titles from first time Canadian directors on my “Maybe” list, but they just got beaten out by other selections.

Contemporary World Cinema

• At the End of Daybreak: a Malaysian family drama that builds up the tension to shocking events. I have to admit, the trailer really sold me on it.
  
  

  At the End of Daybreak

• Castaway on the Moon: Korean dude tries to commit suicide and ends up stranded on an island in the middle of Seoul’s Han River, where apparently no one takes his pleas for rescue seriously. Strange shut-in girl watches him from afar and I think we can guess where it all leads. Looks humorously quirky and funny!
  
  

  Castaway on the Moon

• *A Gun to the Head: a wild-night-on-the-town flick which looks a little rough around the edges, but is directed by New Pornographers keyboardist Blaine Thurier so it’s a must-see in my books.
  
  

  A Gun to the Head

• Police, Adjective: I’m not too sure what to expect from a “witty Romanian film about small town life”, but it’s receiving rave reviews. Director was responsible for 12:08 East of Bucharest, which I remember was much buzzed-about at TIFF06.
  
  

  Police, Adjective

• Suck: each year I need at least one silly-looking Canadian film (see Control Alt Delete, Just Buried) and this one’s by Rob Stefaniuk, who gave us Phil the Alien back in ‘04.
  
  

  Suck

Discovery

• The Disappearance of Alice Creed: a UK thriller that sounds like it has plenty of twists and turns.
  
  

  The Disappearance of Alice Creed

• Samson and Delilah: two teenagers in an Australian Aboriginal desert town come together and deal with personal tragedies. Built buzz at Cannes (won Camera D’Or for best first feature) and takes place in a setting that I know next to nothing about.
  
  

  Samson and Delilah

Gala Presentations

Second showings, of course. I’ve actually got a few on my list this year and would have also gone to Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but I’ll be out of town for the last day of the festival.

• Chloe: the latest thinker from great Canadian director Atom Egoyan, with a great cast of Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, and the rising Amanda Seyfried. Moore’s character thinks Neeson’s his cheating on her, so she hires Seyfried to tempt him.
  
  

  Chloe

• Cooking with Stella: directed by Dilip Mehta, written by him and his sister Deepa Mehta, and starring Don McKellar and Lisa Ray. McKellar alone makes it a CanCon must-see. He and Ray play a Canadian couple working in New Delhi “who inherit a household of Indian servants.”
  
  

  Cooking with Stella

• *Micmacs: doesn’t matter what the plot description is, I’m sure it will be wonderfully and strangely funny coming from writer/director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (the amazing Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Amélie, and A Very Long Engagement).
  
  

  Micmacs

Masters

• *Antichrist: I think my favorite description is calling this Lars von Trier’s “latest provocation.” I’m expecting something shocking and disturbing in this story about a couple who descends into madness when dealing with the loss of their child. Much controversy has been generated by this film since draining audiences at Cannes.
  
  

  Antichrist

Midnight Madness

A sign of my age is that I’m only braving one midnight showing this year. I definitely want to see Jennifer’s Body, but it’ll be coming out the following week in theaters anyway.

• The Loved Ones: a creepy-looking Australian horror flick.
  
  

  The Loved Ones

Real to Reel

I usually make it a point to select at least a few documentaries, but it was a shocker that none made the cut this year! None of the subject matter really jumped out at me.

Short Cuts Canada

During my first couple of TIFFs, I saw some real gems in this under-appreciated programme. Unfortunately, the past couple of years have been somewhat disappointing because the groupings varied wildly in quality; it wasn’t worth it to see three or four mediocre shorts and be rewarded by only one or two. But this year looks very promising.

• *Short Cuts Canada Programme 2: ok, this is really just all about seeing Guy Maddin’s Night Mayor, “about the night mayor of Winnipeg, an inventor of Bosnian descent who harnesses the power of the aurora borealis to transmit distinctly Canadian images across the Great White North.”
  
  

  Night Mayor

• Short Cuts Canada Programme 3: nearly the entire lineup looks strong …
  • Runaway: animated story about a runaway train; looks Triplets of Belleville-esque in style and humor.
  • Pointless Film: “two men haggle over the price of a used futon.”
  • Man v. Minivan: “Shane’s future brother-in-law thinks a visit to a strip club is the best way for Shane to start his wedding day.” Hilarity ensues?
  • Soap: “With a nod to the Coen brothers, and nostalgically set in the eighties, Soap uses dark humour to relay its tale of a woman forced to take control of her life.”
  • Homeland Security: “Concerned about the fidelity of his wife, customs agent Phil takes out his frustration on a group of young ladies heading south of the border for a bachelorette party.”
  • The Island: “A ‘fantasy island’ for gay people is imagined by a director fed-up with homophobia.”
  

  Runaway

• Short Cuts Canada Programme 4
  • M: “a hypnotic abstract animated film that plays with delicately hand-drawn structures.”
  • Danse Macabre: “a corpse enacts a final erratic ballet in this exquisite experimental dance film.”
  • The Armoire: “a young boy descends into an abyss of secrets, fantasies and memory when he realizes that his best friend has gone missing.” This is directed by Jamie Travis, who brought The Saddest Boy in the World to TIFF06 which was one of the funniest things I saw all year even at only 13 minutes long.
  

  The Armoire

Special Presentations

• City of Life and Death: a story of those trying to survive the massacre in Nanjing when the Japanese invade.
  
  

  City of Life and Death

• Defendor: amusing-looking tale where Woody Harrelson thinks he’s a superhero, Defendor, and looking for this nemesis, Captain Industry. Also with Kat Dennings, Sandra Oh, and Lisa Ray.
  
  

  Defendor

• J’ai Tué Ma Mère: Quebecois director Xavier Dolan is only 20 years old, but wrote, directed, and stars in this film which picked up three awards at Cannes; he stars as a gay teenager, raging a battle against his mother.
  
  

  J'ai Tué Ma Mère

• *Mr. Nobody: Sarah Polley’s in the cast? Must-see. But the movie sounds cool anyway, as Jared Leto is the world’s oldest man after humans have discovered immortality. As he gets closer to death, his fractured memories look back at three possible love stories from his past.
  
  

  Mr. Nobody

• *My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done: my jaw dropped at the thought of Werner Herzog directing a David Lynch production, so I knew this had to be at the top of my list.
  
  

  My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

• Perrier’s Bounty: crime caper with excellent actors Cilian Murphy, Jim Broadbent, and Brendan Gleeson.
  
• A Prophet: a young Arab man get caught up with the wrong people in a French prison; won a Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes, and nominated for the Palm d’Or.
  
  

  A Prophet

• The Road: I’m a sucker for anything set in a post-apocalyptic world, so with a cast including Viggo Mortensen and Guy Pearce, count me in! Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men).
  
  

  The Road

• *Up in the Air: with the star power of George Clooney, hopefully this continues director Jason Reitman’s hot streak of intelligent comedies after Juno and Thank You for Smoking.
  
  

  Up in the Air

• The Waiting City: I seem to have a tradition of seeing movies where a young couple finds themselves stuck in a foreign city.
  
  

  The Waiting City

• *Whip It!: Ellen Page, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig, Juliette Lewis, Alia Shawcat, Ari Graynor, and more — so many funny women in Barrymore’s directorial debut set in the world of roller derby.
  
  

  Whip It!

• *Youth in Revolt: “an outrageous and heartwarming tale of Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), and his quest to win the heart of Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) and hopefully lose his virginity along the way.” Also has the guy who played Raj in Aliens in America!
  
  

  Youth in Revolt

Vanguard

• The Ape: “A descent into hell, Jesper Ganslandt’s disturbing and suspenseful second feature begins with a man waking up in unfamiliar surroundings, only to find the life he knew the day before is gone.”
  
  

  The Ape

• Leslie, My Name is Evil: it wouldn’t be TIFF without a film that had Don McKellar and Tracy Wright in the cast somewhere. This one is directed by Reginald Harkema (Monkey Warfare, TIFF06). “Perry (Gregory Smith), a sheltered chemist, falls in love with Leslie (Kristen Hager), a former homecoming princess, when he is selected to be a jury member at her hippie, death-cult murder trial.”
  
  

  Leslie, My Name is Evil

My plan this past weekend was to drop off TIFF advance orders for Sven, Mike, and myself on Sunday by getting to the box office before it closed at 7pm.  Sakina and I left my place in Mississauga at about 6pm, since I figured an hour would be plenty of time for what is a 25 minute drive, especially on a Sunday evening.

Little did I know that the highway would be suffocated with the traffic of tweens and their guardians.  Destination: Jonas brothers concert at the SkyDome!

The route was slow-going from Mississauga all the way to the Spadina exit and as we slowly made our way it was clear we weren’t going to get there on time. The deadline for dropping off orders was Monday at 1pm, so that wasn’t really a concern.  It was mainly an annoyance knowing that I’d have to make the trip again the next morning, and juggle my work hours to do it early in the day. We arrived at Nathan Philip Square at about 7:15; I tried anyway to see if there were any volunteers hanging around who could simply take my order envelopes, but no such luck.

The next day I left work at 11:15am, made the trip all over again, and got to the box office at about noon. After a short wait in line, I hand over our envelopes and watched them go into box 49.

By the time I got back home and set up my laptop to work there for the afternoon, it was nearly 1pm and time for the lottery draw to determine the first box the festival would use to start filling orders from. As a sign of the changing times, instead of trying to find out the results by calling the box office, I simply waited for the news to spread on Twitter.  Much to my surprise, it was box 48 that was selected!!

So basically it comes down to this: if I had managed to drop things off on Sunday evening as planned, we would have been in a box in the late 30s or early 40s — and our orders would be some of the last to be processed.  But as it turned out, we were in the second box of orders and so we got tickets to ever first choice that we wanted.

All thanks to the Jonas brothers.

Just a quick note to kick things off for this year’s fest. I have a draft schedule nearly done, which you can view here; so far I’ve slotted in 28 out of 30 films. Yes, I’m only going with the ‘lite’ Festival Pass this year. Since the second Thursday evening (U2 concert) and the entire final Saturday (to celebrate Dean’s recent wedding) are booked with other happenings, fitting in a full slate of 40-50 films wasn’t feasible.

Films seen Saturday, September 13th …

The Wrestler
While maybe not offering up anything as stunning or innovative as his earlier work, the latest from Darren Aronofsky is a very solid and enjoyable film. You get really invested in Mickey Rourke’s character, and despite his obvious failings you want to root for him. A sad, touching, and very well-executed movie.
8/10

Borderline
Isabelle Blais is excellent as the (trying to be) former party-girl, attempting to reconcile her previous wild ways but who still hasn’t quite moved past some of that behavior.
7/10

RocknRolla
Guy Ritchie back at his best. Lots of action, a twisty plot, and plenty of humor.
8/10

Inju, la bête dans l’ombre
In the end, I don’t think the story quite holds up. Some interesting elements, but there was something lacking. A few times it was hard to tell if the scene was supposed to be silly-funny or was serious and just done poorly.
5/10

Afterwards
Maybe it was last-film-of-the-festival fatigue, but I can’t seem to recall the specific end of the movie. I remember the main character’s epiphany of where his journey had brought him, but his final voiceover is just a blur. Unfortunately I think this character was a little weak to carry the film, and for something that moved at such a leisurely pace, this was a detriment.
5/10

Films seen Friday, September 12th …

Martyrs
Gory, disturbing, and thoroughly messed up … as advertised. But it was entertaining from the get-go.
7/10

Tokyo Sonata
I’m still having a hard time judging this one. It was an interesting story of dysfunctional family members dealing with their own issues, but something seemed off with how the story turns partway through. There’s some good, dark humor and I liked following the characters’ stories … but something in the end — that I can’t put my finger on — wasn’t quite satisfying.
6/10

Pontypool
I was very intrigued by the idea of Bruce McDonald doing a horror film. But then I heard it wasn’t really a horror film, per se, as it focused on characters in an underground radio studio reporting on the unseen chaos outside; so my excitement was a little tempered as I wondered how they would sustain the film with such a narrow focus. But I needn’t have worried. Stephen McHattie was awesome as radio personality Grant Mazzy, and his eccentric personality carries the film along nicely. There is also plenty of suspenseful action that hits close to home in the studio, so the setting isn’t as isolated as I once thought.
8/10

Deadgirl
Controversial premise, to be sure, but I think it avoids some outrage by having a supernatural element. Overall it was ok, with a few scares along the way.
6/10

Films seen Thursday, September 11th …

Gomorrah
Explores the many reaches of an organized crime syndicate. The film was engaging, but there wasn’t much of an overall plot … just a bunch of stuff that happened, albeit often violent and tragic and worth the viewing.
6/10

The Brothers Bloom
A fun movie, but mostly memorable for the excellent cast rather than the story. There’s an offbeat tone that is likely to turn off some people (not as much as for Brick, though), but I enjoyed it.
7/10

Gigantic
The more I think about this film, the more flaws I find. It was entertaining at the time, though. I don’t buy that Zooey Deschanel’s character would have any interest in Paul Dano’s, and there were some plotlines that didn’t seem necessary (scientist friend) or were just straight inexplicable (imagined (?) stalker who provided the beat downs). Editing issues, or something that I’m missing?
5/10

24 City
Wow, borrrring! I don’t get the good reviews this part-documentary/part-fiction film received. Stuck with talking heads throughout, the stories told by the interviewees/characters tended to just ramble on and on and weren’t interesting at all.
3/10

Revanche
This is the kind of film that I love the film festival for, in the sense that’s it something I likely wouldn’t come across anywhere else. Not knowing much about it, it was a nice treat to watch as this suspenseful film unfolded and took unexpected (certainly by Hollywood standards) turns.
7/10

Films seen Wednesday, September 10th …

Ashes of Time Redux
Not the film to see when you’re sleepy and can’t pay attention. I couldn’t keep track of who the brothers and sisters were, or the romantic connections. Nodding off here and there, I completely lots track of the story. Will have to re-evaluate this film one day, and so for now assigning a grade wouldn’t be fair.

The Catsitter
Played before Cooper’s Camera. A hilarious short film that perfectly sets up the concluding punchline.
9/10

Cooper’s Camera
Funniest movie I saw. Jason Jones gets the lame but well-meaning dad schtick down without going overboard, and the 80s feel of the movie seems perfectly done. An xmas movie about family, but probably not something you want to be watching with your young (or old & prude) relatives! Gets an extra point because I have a soft spot for funny xmas films. I’ll eventually add this to my DVD collection.
9/10

Medicine for Melancholy
The grown up and serious version of a movie like Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, where boy and girl meet each other and explore the city together. Likable cast and the characters’ conversations touch on some interesting subjects.
7/10

Control Alt Delete
A silly comedy that gets surprisingly decent mileage out of the joke of a guy who gets it on with his hardware … the electronic kind, that is. The Y2K conceit is pretty stale, though.
6/10

Films seen Tuesday, September 9th …

Maman est chez le coiffeur
Completed my trifecta of French-Canadian coming of age stories set in the 60s, each with different approaches and styles. This one was more family-focused and grounded/realistic, but not without many moments of humor. The three children of the film’s family each had their own issues to deal with, and the story felt very genuine.
7/10

Short Cuts Canada Programme 3

• Pat’s First Kiss – the animation style was jarring at first, but then kinda neat. A funny story of the creepy encounter that gives this film its title. 6/10
• Forty Men for the Yukon – an interesting and humorous look into the lives of a couple of old guys in a tiny Yukon town. 6/10
• Bedroom – a 15-minute take of a couple in bed discussing their dysfunctional sex life; serious tone, but also with very funny moments. 6/10
• Midi – I didn’t really get what was going on, and it only made a bit of sense after re-reading the description afterwards. 4/10
• Passage – now that’s an awkward sexual experience. I still wonder if the final scene is frustration or revenge. 7/10
• Sunday – not sure what to make of this one. The build up was good and the ending was cool, but I don’t fully understand how they are connected. 6/10
• Green Door – very funny story of mistaken identity and unrequited love. 8/10

I’m pretty behind on these recaps as there just hasn’t been much down time to tackle them. So what I’m going to do is cut down a bit on the comments to just some essential notes; the longer I go without writing something then the more likely it is I’ll forgot what I watched!

Films seen Monday, September 8th …

Hunger
Powerful film of the abuses the human body can withstand; doesn’t shy away from graphic depictions. Very strong directing, especially for a first timer.
8/10

New York, I Love You
As expected, very well done even though only a rough cut (and the producers asked the press not to comment). Nearly all of the stories were good, and I liked the little transitions between them (sometimes a quick moment with some of the characters, rather than just straight jumping into next story).
8/10

Uncertainty
Got tickets to this day-of, after missing out in the lottery. The separate directions of the story — which are intercut quite well — aren’t that noteworthy by themselves, but as a whole the film shows how life is filled with decision points and even a minor one can drastically affect how things play out. That said, even an action/thriller or family-drama can lead to the same conclusions.
7/10

The Hurt Locker
Doing away with the politics of the conflict, this film focuses squarely on the action in the battlefield. But rather than the chaos and adrenaline of battle, this tensely shows a bomb squad unit and the nerve-wracking situations they face.
8/10

Un été sans point ni coup sûr
Nice little story in the summer when the Expos arrive to Montreal. Coming of age story for a boy who just wants to play ball, but doesn’t make the neighborhood team. An alternate team is put together by his father, who also comes to appreciate that times are changing and maybe so should he.
7/10