TIFF Recap: Day 3

Films seen Saturday, September 6th …

Edison & Leo
This is my biggest disappointment so far. The film is much more lighthearted than I anticipated and the character animation was poor to the extent of distracting. I can understand that in the tedious world of stop-motion that human mouths must be a real chore; it seems here the the mouths were probably separate pieces from the rest of the head and repeatedly swapped out for different shapes to achieve the look of talking. But there’s no attempt to disguise the seams, and the overall effect just seemed like bad dubbing. It’s one thing for the male characters to look this way, it’s kind of a Homer Simpson look going on. But when all the females are like this too, it just looks really weird. And not the interesting kind of weird I was hoping for from this movie. There were a few neat designs, but overall it was fairly simplistic. As for the story, take out a few graphic scenes and some mature dialog and you’ve got a lightweight children’s story.
5/10

Vinyan
How to describe this one? I think the best sequence is early on, as the camera races through a crowded Thai marketplace at night as a husband searches for his wife who has disappeared into the sea of people. The scene is tense, driving by the wife’s desperation to locate a local gangster who can help locate their son who may have been taken in the chaos following the tsunami. The premise is intriguing, as it leads to a dangerous trek through Burmese villages. But there are only so many plausible places for this story to go, and it eventually veers far, far away from any of those. And instead of having the story drive the tension, there are a few occasions where the director has resorted to visual and especially annoying audio effects to assault the system. The last bit of the movie is perplexing, though memorable, seemingly having little to do with where the story started out from. Maybe I’m missing something.
4/10

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
This was a very fun and enjoyable movie. It doesn’t have the same maturity and heart of say, Juno, nor the absolute zaniness and hilarity of Superbad (contemporary films it’s sure to be compared to), but as far as all-night teen adventures go it hits the mark. It’s very funny and believable and will do well with mainstream audiences. As expected, Michael Cera and Kat Dennings were very good; Ari Graynor has a bunch of scene-stealing moments.
7/10

Religulous
I didn’t go into this expecting a philosophical treatise on the world’s religions and the concept of faith … I doubt most people would, but I wanted to get that point out of the way. As a comedy routine at the expense of religion, though, this totally hits the mark. The hypocrisy and illogic of all religions is fertile ground for humor, and Maher mines it well. This film won’t be converting people to actually take a critical look at their beliefs and admit any shortcomings with their chosen religion, but for the skeptics out there who like a good laugh, this certainly delivers. Amen to that!
8/10