Gladsome

2006-09-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

Sadly, the dream of seeing fifty movies died on the last day, along with my aim of posting timely reviews, because the people who jet in to Toronto from all over the world to watch movies bring their exotic germs with them. On the last day of the festival, I was too sick to see six. My final tally stands at forty-eight movies in ten days, which is still pretty awesome if you ask me.

Behold, my ten-days-after-the-fact recollections of the dregs of the festival:

BREAKING AND ENTERING - ***
Bland architect Jude Law has an affair with the refugee mother of a boy who breaks into his office. The story never quite takes flight, but the movie triumphs in capturing everyday life in a very specific place and time. After the movie, I felt like I knew London's King's Cross neighbourhood inside and out.

THE FOUNTAIN - **
From Darren Aronofsky I knew to expect an immaculately crafted puzzle of a movie, and I got one. But unlike his previous work, The Fountain is so focused on the symmetrical structure of its multilayered story and the expression of its thematic concepts that it forgets to give any thought to the people it's ostensibly about. Hugh Jackman plays a conquistador, scientist and meta-astronaut in three eras, each unwilling to accept the loss of his wife. There's also something about a tree that can preserve youth, I think, and I'm sure it all makes sense on the flow chart Aronofsky must have used instead of a script, but I was trying too hard to understand who these people were. I never found out.

THE KING AND THE CLOWN - ****
Now, THIS is entertainment. Roving street entertainers in feudal Korea get into trouble when they incorporate the King into their bawdy comedy skits. Arrested, they can only be saved from execution on one condition: if the King finds their act funny, too. The story really takes off from there, but what really makes the movie a gem is its attention to historical detail. When it comes to creating a world of the past that you feel you could step into, this one's right up there with Master and Commander.

EXILED - ***
Bad-ass gangsters forced to execute an old friend in Macau help him pull a hit of his own first, to leave a little something for his wife and baby. The first half of this blood-drenched comedic caper is hard to follow, but once two thirds of the cast of characters is mown down in an early bloodbath, things get leaner, and the story achieves a distinct wit.

SEVERANCE - ***1/2
The Office meets Hostel as a group of co-workers land in a nightmare en route to a team-building weekend in Hungary. The weak characterization made my eyes roll as the setup unfolded, but once the mysterious man in the woods started wreaking havoc, I was hooked. Not since Scream 2 has a movie achieved such intense horror and huge laughs in the same scenes.

THIS FILTHY WORLD - **1/2
John Waters delivers a monologue on his life and work, full of off-colour humour. A must for fans, but not quite a movie.

AS THE SHADOW - *1/2
A woman sleeps with her language teacher, and lets him lodge an illegal immigrant at her apartment. And that's about it. The woman is lonely and bored, which is established with about thiry minutes of her going about the little routines of her life with zero flair. When people say they don't like art movie, they have ones like this in mind.

TIME - **
A jealous young Korean undergoes radical cosmetic surgery to regain her boyfriend's attention, but doesn't let him know she's still the same woman. It's an intriguing premise, but the meditative pacing provides enough time to reflect on the issues raised, and then to nod off completely.

THE BOOK OF REVELATION - **
A handsome Australian dancer is abducted by three beautiful women and held for three days to serve their sexual desires. Women aren't often the perpetrators of gang rape in real life, and I didn't discern much of a point to this provocative premise as the movie dragged on. Most of the movie follows the young man's efforts to rebuild his life after his secret ordeal, but it's hard to feel for the survivor of such a transparently fictional horror.

L'HOMME DE SA VIE - ****
An affable French family man befriends his neighbour at the cottage, a cosmopolitan gay man who scorns commited relationships. As they debate their philosophies and enjoy one another's company, their prejudices and insecurities subtly reveal themselves to the audience, but not to themselves. Few films so effortlessly portray a real extended family living in a real home, and as the movie follows the casual rhythms of a Summer in the country, it reels us in.

FLANDRES - *
Some miserable poor people from an ugly town go to fight in a war, most of them die, and then the survivor returns to be unhappy again. Oh, and there's an abortion. This is despicable filmmaking, filled with utter contempt for humanity, and devoid of joy or hope. No, thanks.

INVISIBLE WAVES - **
An inept Japanese hit man hides out in Thailand after a job, but his own life might be on the line. The pace is static and reflective, which is refreshing for a while, but is it wrong to want something to happen?

BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A - **
An inmate is found dead in a Japanese juvenile prison, and an unseen investigator must get to the bottom of the murder. The story is told in a highly unconventional minimalist style, trading action for enigma. It's a failure, but an interesting one that's never less than unique. When Takashi Miike tries something new, it's worth paying attention, even if you might want to bring your iPod.

BUNNY CHOW - **
Three Johannesburg stand-up comics mess up their love lives and take a road trip to a gig at a rock festival, passing their time with playful banter all the way. The cast is likeable and charismatic, and it's nice to see young, upwardly mobile multicultural South Africans on the screen, but Bunny Chow feels like it was shot in two days for ten dollars. I'd like to see what this director and these performers could pull off with some real money and time, because what they've done so far feels like a better-than-average video blog.

If these last reviews seem a bit negative, it's because the Festival is always front-loaded, with the movies most likely to win acclaim and attention shown before anyone gets tired of the whole event. Still, I think it's unreasonable that of the nine movies I saw in the last two days, only one was good.

2006-09-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

THE BUBBLE (**) follows a romance between a gay Israeli and Palestinian in bohemian Tel Aviv, surrounded by a colourful supporting cast of friends. For most of the movie the likeable characters keep the story engaging, but then the plot takes a tragic turn that feels completely false after all that we've learned about the characters. We all know that a story introduces a gun in the first act if it requires a shooting in the third, and director Eytan Fox evidently likes to use Arabs as similar plot contrivances.

In MON MEILLEUR AMI (***1/2) a callous Parisian antiquities dealer finds he has no real friends when his irritated business partner makes him a large bet that he doesn't. To fill this hole in his life, and mostly to win the bet, he hires an amicable taxi driver to teach him how to get people to like him. Somehow, the movie is uproariously funny while gleaning deep insights on the nature of friendship.

LITTLE CHILDREN (***) feels like a suspense movie as desperate housewife Kate Winslet and aimless stay-at-home dad Patrick Wilson drift incrementally toward some very sexy infidelity. These two characters and the relationship between them are never less than fascinating, but the movie is cluttered with a gratuitous subplot about a neighbourhood pedophile, and the ending is a thudding anticlimax. Looking back, the movie wasn't actually about much at all, but it sure felt like it at the time.

STARTER FOR TEN (****) is the crowd-pleaser of the year, an endearing and very funny romantic comedy that never takes a wrong step. Adorable James McAvoy leaves home for university, and finds love both heartbreaking and real as he pursues his dream of victory on Unversity Challenge, a TV trivia competition. It's basically a formula plot, but the script is tight, and it throws in some real surprises en route to its destination. Also, it's one of the best movies made about campus life.

BUGMASTER (*1/2) is an unendurable mess. It's a fantasy set in old Japan, about some people with some powers to manipulate or fight some sort of spirits or something. The movie has an overcomplicated mythology that its characters spend most of their time cursorily explaining to each other, and they seem as confused I was. There's some imaginative special effects work that's hard to appreciate since you can't tell what's going on. In her introduction, the producer mentioned that the film might undergo some tinkering before its release in Japan next Spring. I hope they tinker a lot.

2006-09-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

BLITZKRIEG REVIEWS!!

As I expected, it's not actually possible to watch six movies in a day, review them all in a notebook between films, and then type them all up before bed. So, to catch up a keep this blog current it's time for two-sentence reviews of everything I've seen to date.

LAKE OF FIRE (***1/2) is a brave documentary about the state of the abortion debate in the U.S. It leads to the conclusion that the anti-abortion movement is so dominated by fundamentalist loonies that intelligent and moderate arguments on that side aren't getting made, and the pro-choice advocates are made so combative that they can barely admit that abortion is a bad thing. A mind-opening film.

In STRANGER THAN FICTION (***1/2) Will Ferrell plays a repressed IRS auditor who discovers that he's the protagonist in an arty novelist's book in progress, and gets a little worried when the narration in his head foreshadows his death. As the premise gets siller, the film gets more tender, thanks to Ferrell's understated performance. One quibble: I don't know of any literature professors who would praise the hackneyed story-within-the-story as "poetic", as one does here.

THE ART OF CRYING (***) is a sad Danish comedy about a dysfunctional family stuggling to cope as the father's mental problems, dismissed as personality quirks in their rural community, take a toll on everyone else's lives. The youngest son, who adores his father, misguidedly tries to help him in ways that make us laugh, cringe, and despair.

EMPZ FOR LIFE (**) is an amateurish documentary on one man's efforts to fight gangs in a part of Toronto that made headlines with its outbreak of gun violence last year, and it nearly passes on relevance alone. But director Allan King insists on an unobtrusive fly-on-the-wall style, and so wastes his access to these subjects by leaving helpful questions unanswered, and leaving his film no more revealing than overheard conversations among strangers.

I DON'T WANT TO SLEEP ALONE (**) is a movie you should watch with company if you agree with its title. Tsai-Ming Liang's latest is full of his usual long, static tableaux that give you plenty to look at for the minutes they're on the screen, but unlike his previous film, this time there's nothing else to sustain you for a two-hour slog.

THE ABANDONED (***) is the creepy-as-hell story of an American woman who returns to her remote Russian birthplace, and finds that her birth parents' house is very, very haunted. The movie starts out weakly as the shocks seem arbitrary and the characters act stupid, but once the nature of the events becomes clear, the twisted logic of the scary scenario becomes absorbing.

I might have liked the Dutch comedy WAITER (**1/2) more if I hadn't just seen Stranger Than Fiction, which shares its premise of a fictional character in a work in progress trying to get a happier plot out of his creator. It has some very funny moments, but lacks any of the American movie's warmth.

Documentary THE KILLER WITHIN (**) should be fascinating with its intimate portrayal of a one-time murderer who admits his past to family and colleagues and tries to rationalize his act. Unfortunately, there just isn't enough material here for a feature film, as the interviewees start repeating themselves in the second half, and it starts to feel so padded I expected the director to take his subjects on a trip to the zoo to bring us to the ninety-minute mark.

SHORTBUS (****) is John Cameron Mitchell's long-awaited hardcore sex film, but for all the notoriety of its "Oh my God, they're actually doing it!" footage, it's actually the rare insight into love and yearning that you'll remember it for. This movie reminds us that porno is to real sex as typical romantic comedies are to love, and this movie's depictions of sex and love might seem familiar to anyone who's experienced either.

Unique French anime RENAISSANCE (***) is easier to admire than to enjoy, because its innovative look is too minimal and distracting to let us get into its convoluted story of a corporate scandal turned deadly. The animation is all stark black and white, like silhouette cutouts, stripping all of the characters and places down to shapes we can't stop seeing as shapes, but that are always beautiful nonetheless.

That's 29 movies down, 21 to go! In case anyone's wondering, I'm still enjoying this.

2006-09-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND - ***1/2

This one's not the story of Idi Amin, and not the story of Uganda under Idi Amin, but the story of one man who happened to be there. This specific focus gives the movie an intimate feel, avoiding the textbook feel of so many docudramas. That the main character couldn't be much further from being a hero helps it avoid tearful piety, as well. It's a daring approach to set a movie in the shadows of one of the twentieth century's greatest horrors and infuse it with a sense of fun.

James McAvoy plays a bored, immature Scot, fresh out of medical school but tragically ignorant of African reality, who moves to Uganda for excitement. By chance, the newly installed president befriends him and hires him as his personal physician. Forest Whitaker plays the mad dictator with enough charisma to undestand his power, and makes his erratic swings into madness seem chillingly natural. As we enjoy following the young doctor from party to party in Kampala, the atrocities mount around the country, and he eventually learns that it's possible to play a role in great evil just by not paying attention.

2006-09-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

TAKVA - **1/2

Takva is a Turkish film about a simple and faithful man whose reputation as such wins him unwanted responsibility when he is entrusted with his mosque's financial affairs. His new duties expose him to ethical dilemmas and shady characters he's not equipped to deal with.

Erkan Can is convincing in the lead role, and the scenes of worship are esctatic to watch, but the film eventually collapses into obscurity as the causes of his distress become inscrutable.

2006-09-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

PAN'S LABYRINTH - ****

Pan's Labyrinth is a bizarre hybrid, equal parts wondrous and gruesome fairytale, and brutal war story. Each would be a great film alone, and together they constitute a masterpiece. It tells the story of Ofelia, the young stepdaughter of a cruel-hearted fascist general near the end of the Spanish Civil War. Life is bleak in their forest outpost, but escape may be at hand when the mischievious Pan informs her that she's actually a princess in his magical realm, and that she can reclaim her rightful place there with a few adventurous tasks.

Most of the movie takes place in the real world, and it's to Del Toro's credit that he makes it every bit as interesting as his vivid fantasy realm. As Communist guerrillas gain strength in the surrounding mountains and a kindly housekeeper risks capture to supply them with food and medicine, Ofelia makes deeper incursions into creepy monsters' lairs. Each scene is crafted with the masterful tension and visual perfection we've come to expect from Del Toro. The only frustrating thing about the movie is knowing what how enchanting children would find it if it were only 92% less grisly.

2006-09-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

WILD WEST COMEDY SHOW - ***

Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show is a document of the actor's stand-up tour, which took five of his favourite up-and-coming comics through thirty shows in thirty days, from Los Angeles to Chicago. Eschewing the arch, ironic, and aggressive humour now in vogue, Vaughn uses his celebrity to promote the personality-based comedy of honesty, in the Richard Pryor tradition.

Not content to put the show on the screen, director Ari Sandel intersperses performance footage with a thorough record of the tour's progress. At first this is frustrating, as the hilarious routines keep getting interrupted, but the strategy pays off as we get to know and like the comics as people. By the end, when their routines bring down the house we're as happy to see them succeed as we are in stitches.

2006-09-12T19:12:00.000-07:00

A GOOD YEAR - **

A Good Year is a light comedy about a materially-obsessed workoholic who rediscovers what's really important in life, with help from the earthy locals of the picturesque village he finds himself trapped in. If this synopsis leads you to expect a movie free of any surprises, try this one on for size: Ridley Scott directed it, and the star is Russell Crowe.

These two are known for their ambitious projects and peerless craft. Maybe they were attracted to this piece of fluff just to make a movie they didn't have too care about too much, and they're satisfied that they didn't fuck it up completely. Crowe is as good as can be in the stereotyped role of a top London investment banker who inherits a down-at-heel chateau and vineyard in Provence from the gourmand uncle who raised him. The servants and local townspeople seem to exist only to impart vital life lessons about taking it easy and drinking more, and the obligatory love interest materializes before long. The self-absorbed millionaire learns to pamper himself more, which counts as wisdom in a movie like this, and everyone goes home happy. As featherweight escapism full of pretty sights, it passes, but so does a postcard.

2006-09-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE - ***

...but how does she feel about that? In this teensploitation horror flick, six teenagers head to an isolated ranch for a weekend of debauchery. Among them is the most popular, most desired girl in school, who remains aloof from her peers even as she accepts their invitations. Then, as the genre requires, The ones who stray from the pack start getting picked off one by one.

The horror elements of the movie seem kind of half-hearted. The deaths aren't very creative, the killer's identity is revealed early and without suspense, and it's just all-around not very scary. What keeps the movie compulsively watchable and often spellbinding is the titular teen queen herself. Mandy Lane speaks only when necessary, abstains from sex and drugs, and always seems like she's going along with the crowd though she never ends up doing anything she doesn't want to. Amber Heard plays the crucial role of this graceful enigma perfectly, so that when an adult tells her that she doesn't seem to fit among her friends, we know exactly what he means, In this film full of mortal danger, the question that generates the most suspense isn't "Who's the killer?" nor "Who dies next?" but simply "What's going on behind those eyes?"

2006-09-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

RESCUE DAWN - ****

Rescue Dawn is Werner Herzog's dramatized version of the story in his earlier documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. It follows one American's experience as a prisoner of the Viet Cong, and his harrowing journey is one of the most compelling stories I've seen on film.

Christian Bale carries the film as Dieter Dengler, a naive, jolly sort who's so eager to fly a plane that he joins the military without considering that they're sometimes asked to fight. He's shot down over Laos on his first, highly classified sortie, and we're briskly whisked through his interrogation and torture to a jungle prison camp, where we meet fellow American prisoners played by Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies. They introduce him to prison life, and are flabbergasted by his affable charm under the harshest of circumstances and his unbending determination to escape.

Rescue Dawn invests no time in backstory and explicit character development, relying on the actors to project fully defined people without the help of personal dialogue to spell it out. They are up to the task, and the movie's strategy of leading us relentlessly from event to event pays off as it becomes pure chronicle, which is the treatment a story like this one deserves. Once Bale and company get serious about escaping, the tension becomes unbearable even without the help of any flashy Hollywood tricks.

2006-09-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

CAGES - **

Director Olivier Masset-Depasse missed the lecture in film school where aspiring filmmakers that shaky, grainy, close-up photography is not an adequate substitute for nuanced characterization and true-to-life detail when seeking a sense of realism. Actually, they seemed to have stopped offering that lecture some time ago, so maybe it's not his fault. Either way, the movie wrongly assumes that putting the camera in a character's personal space equals getting your audience into her headspace.

The movie's not without its virtues. The premise holds promise as a paramedic finds herself, for psychological reasons, unable to speak following a grisly traffic accident. Reduced to pitching in at her husband's bar, her newfound meekness strains their relationship, and the pressure builds as they prepare to host an animal-calling competition. When she discovers he's having an affair, she knocks him out and holds him captive. Plus, in true Euro-art-film tradition, there's some top-notch nudity.

Recommended only if you're curious about how such a nutty plot could turn out tedious.

2006-09-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

THE FALL - ****

The Fall is a breathtaking visual epic from Tarsem, last seen applying his inspired eye to serial killer schlock in The Cell six years ago. This new movie tells the story of four legendary warriors who, along with Charles Darwin for some reason, together seek revenge on the evil governor who has wronged them all. This plot is given the look of an exotic legend, filmed in shimmering deserts, azure lagoons, labyrinthine cities, and majestic palaces, with the most original costumes I've seen since, well, The Cell. Several times the movie left me in wide-eyed awe at its sheer beauty.

But there's more. The plot I've described is just the story within the story, told by a despondent bedridden patient to a young girl in exchange for purloined morphine. These hospital scenes are also staged and shot about as well as can be, but obviously can't compete with the visual splendour of the globetrotting storyline. The audience is certain to share the child's impatience with our reluctant raconteur.

The Fall works perfectly on its own terms, but after The Cell's Hollywood formula and this film's silly and arbitrary bedtime story, I'd love to see Tarsem tackle a story we can take wholly seriously. When the jaw-dropping spectacle of the warriors in the desert is undermined by a cute kid's commentary, yes, it's funny, but it's also kind of a shame.

2006-09-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

THE BOTHERSOME MAN - ***

The Bothersome Man is a metaphysical deadpan comedy about what happens to one man after his suicide. It makes no sense at all in the end, though the journey there is never boring, and occasionally fascinating. Call it a Norwegian Donnie Darko.

The man is taken to a pleasant city where some friendly people show him his assigned job and apartment. In no time at all he has a circle of friends, a pretty girlfriend, and a mistress as well. However, he finds the people dull, the food flavourless, and the alcohol ineffective. It seems that this world doesn't accommodate large deviations from the mean, whether in emotions, experiences, conversation topics, or even flavours. It may last for an eternity. Is this a vision of hell?

It's a maddening thing then, when we're left hanging in the end, with the movie unwilling to confrim or disprove the theories we've been forming. Highly recommended for people who enjoy debating just what the hell was going on in that movie they just watched.

2006-09-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

HANA - ***

Hana is surprisingly pleasant light entertainment from Hirokazu-Kore-Eda, a director better known for his spare and inward meditations on death and abandonment. There's some death and abandonment in this one too, but only as brief notes in its soap-opera plot.

The movie takes place in a slum of old Edo full of samurai in hard times. It follows one such samurai determined to avenge his father's murder, despite his inexperience in combat. He befriends a young mother and her son, and goes about living his life while biding his time.

It's the day-to-day lives of the neighbourhood folk that occupy the bulk of the movie, and provide humour and depth, but at the expense of momentum. When the denouement arrives, though, it's ingenious and delightful.

2006-09-10T00:26:00.000-07:00

THE HOST - ***

The Host is a crowd-pleasing Korean monster movie that generally adheres to its genre formula, but distinguishes itself with its skill and wit. The story centres on a family of underdogs as the hunt down the monster themselves to rescue one of their own. It's no surprise when the dangerous adventure draws the family closer together, or when sister's archery skills come in handy, but it's relieving when the family sentiment is played for laughs, and clever when the younger brother's experience as a political protester proves just as useful.

Above all, a monster movie succeeds or fails with its monster, and The Host has a good one. It gleefully defies a horror tradition by bringing the beast into full daylight just a few minutes in for an eye-popping rampage. The creature is a superb CGI creation that acts and moves like an animal that might exist, making it all the scarier. It's just a shame so much of the running time is taken up by a subplot, which goes nowhere, about a virus that the monster may be carrying. Still, The Host is a wild ride.

2006-09-10T00:17:00.000-07:00

JADE WARRIOR - *1/2

Jade Warrior is billed as the first-ever Finnish-Chinese co-production. This is its only claim to originality, but it still doesn't help it make any sense.

The movie alternates between modern-day Finland and ancient China. In both places, serious-looking people talk in portentious tones about prophecies and primordial evil spirits. There's not much explaining in all the talking, but there must have been a link between the two stories in there somewhere, right?

Oh, I guess someone mentioned reincarnation and rediscovered artifacts at some point, but it was quite a puzzle, and eventually I sensed that there would be no reward for solving it. The script is a mish-mash of kung fu cliches, Tommi Eronen is the least charismatic lead actor I've seen in a while, and all director Antti-Jussi Annila lets him do is stagger backwards in slack-jawed astonishment at barrages of new revelations.

I'll admit the movie had great art direction and a decent climactic battle. That and a cup of coffee will keep a man awake for ninety minutes.

2006-09-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

BRAND UPON THE BRAIN

Brand Upon the Brain's screening at the Elgin Theatre was one hell of a happening. Guy Maddin's new silent film was accompanied by an eleven-piece orchestra, three foley artists, a dramatic commentator, and a male soprano. The elaborate live supplement to the film provided such richness and polish to the experience that I really can't guess how worthwhile the film will be in general release or on DVD.

The plot, as far as I could discern, concerns a sinister orphanage on an isolated northern island where children are secretly drained of their nectar. Yes, nectar. An intrepid teen detective shows up, dresses in drag, falls in love, and sets about unraveling the evil scheme.

All of this is glorious nonsense, and Maddin's extravagant application of 1920's-homage style never lets us forget it. I was a bit annoyed that his mimicry of early silent movies extended to shaky projection and lighting, a condition that makes it hard to watch long after the joke has worn off. Nonetheless, the gleeful spirit of anarchy that pervades the whole sloppy enterprise makes it a curiosity to treasure.

2006-09-10T00:02:00.000-07:00

YOKOHAMA MARY - ***

Yokohama Mary is a loosely structured absentee portrait of an eccentric street person and occupation-era prostitute, well-known in Yokohama for her striking appearance. It starts out strong with Mary's friend, a gay piano lounge proprietor with terminal cancer, recounting his own storied life. As director Takayuki Nakamura delves deeper into what shaped Mary, he constructs an enticing impression of Yokohama's one-time sleazy nightlife hub with unforced interviews with former patrons and prostitutes.

The movie would be more compelling if it stuck with either of these subjects, if only because there's more availaible to say about them. Mary disappeared from the city years earlier, and the mid-portion of the film skirts tedium as Mary's dry-cleaner and hairdresser get mined for anecdotes.

All is forgiven as the film nears its end with hints that Mary's fate has been discovered, and a degree of suspense builds. When all is revealed, it leaves you feeling warm.

Aside from its specific story, Yokohama Mary is worth seeing for its rare intimate portrait of contemporary working-class and misfit Japan.

2006-09-08T11:56:00.000-07:00

TAXIDERMIA - ****

I give a lot of leeway to any movie that shows me something I've never seen before, and a lot of respect to one that shows me something I could never have imagined. Taxidermia showed me things that I could never have imagined from beginning to end, but some of them I would never have wanted to imagine.

The film follows three generations of Hungarian perverts, freaks, and outcasts as they strive to find some sort of satisfaction of their obsessions in very different times. In the first third of the movie, a bottom-rung orderly at an irrelevant military outpost fantasizes about getting sexual relief. He's into fire, women, urine, and pigs, roughly in that order.

The second and best segment takes place in the heyday of Communist pride, as an obese superstar of speed eating finds love with the women's champion. The scenes showing competitive eating as a legitimate and popular sport, complete with intense training sessions, multi-round and multi-dish international matches, and vomit breaks are among the funniest I've ever seen.

The final portion concerns an ambitious taxidermist who longs to push his trade in exciting new directions that I won't spoil here. Suffice it to say that you must find the human body beautiful both inside and out to enjoy watching this one.

What makes Taxidermia more than a parade of grotesqueries is the sincerity and empathy Gyorgy Palfi brings to the misfits he creates. As silly as it is, nobody ever smirks at the material or looks down upon the characters, which soothes the eccentric in all of us.

2006-09-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST - ***

12:08 East of Bucharest is one of those mini-budgeted movies whose financial constraints shape it so definitively that it resembles every other movie ever made for this little money. The movie rises above this gritty, amateurish familiarity with its keen eye for local and personal detail, and by three masterful drily comic performances.

The story revolves around, and largely consists of, a provincial afternoon call-in television talk show, whose topic for today is the sixteenth anniversary of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu's fall from power. As the host and two guests prepare for the show, we get a glimpse of the sleepy pace and decrepit atmosphere of life in this crumbling post-Communist backwater. It is to debut director Corneliu Porumboiu's credit that these mundane events are never boring to watch. Once the show begins, the comedy kicks into high gear as the guests defend their dubious claims to have defied the regime before its fall, and squabble with callers over the petty details of the past.

I don't know much about Romanian comedy, but the three actors on the show elevate pettiness and pride to a deadpan grace that would be at home with Britain's best.

2006-09-07T23:33:00.000-07:00

BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN

The first ten minutes of the movie were absolutely hilarious. Then the projector broke.

I'm still glad I didn't sell my ticket to one of the people offering a hundred dollars for it in the queue, because once it became apparent the projector could not be fixed quickly, director Larry Charles and apparent fan Michael Moore got up on stage for a little random Q&A that turned into an improvisational stand-up routine. Then, star Sasha Baron Cohen, in character as Borat, got up to make us all laugh. I asked him to re-enact the rest of the movie, but no dice.

Midnight Madness programmer and all-round good sport Colin Geddes finally announced that the screening would have to be rescheduled for tomorrow night in time for the last subway, so it was a pretty good deal.

I'll be seeing The Host at midnight tomorrow (which, unlike Borat, might never play on a Toronto movie screen again), so I have one Borat ticket I can't use and not enough time to sell it on eBay. Sigh.

2006-09-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

THE LIVES OF OTHERS - ****1/2

The Lives of Others tells the story of an East German Stasi surveillance agent assigned to monitor a reliably socialist playwright, with unpredictable results. It stands alongside Downfall as a worthy and honest examination of German history, and it's one of the best films of the year.

Introducing the film, director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck said he spent three years researching and writing the script, and it shows. Each line of dialogue is perfect and necessary, and the way the plot unfolds and the characters behave is not foreseeable, but seems natural and obvious when it happens. The last line of dialogue is especially poignant, and manages to provide a resolution with three words.

Note that only one item in the movie is red, and it represents the true spirit of socialism, otherwise absent from the German Democratic Republic.

2006-09-07T23:18:00.000-07:00

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY - **1/2

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is an earnest illustration of the idealistic IRA's early struggles against British oppression, but it's hindered by director Ken Loach's decision to paint lightly, in broad strokes. The movie spends so little time with its characters that we never get a full feel for their lives and the relationships among them. The key historical events in the film are shown briefly, and since Loach omits any scenes of planning, little suspense is generated. We can't wonder whether our heroes will succeed if we don't know what they're trying to achieve at the moment.

The movie's best scenes, highly relevant today, are extended debates about the relative merits of compromise and vengeance, and what justifies guerrilla warfare. But they come across as debates between ideas, not between people, and so they satisfy on an intellectual level but not on an emotional one. Ultimately, The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a pretty lecture.

2006-09-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. My vacation time off work has begun, my tickets are in hand, my movie-snacks-as-meals diet has been reconsidered, and all that's left to do is wait until six o'clock tomorrow evening, when my first film begins.

It's a shame that the movie that kicks it all off for me is one that I'm not very excited about. I selected The Wind That Shakes the Barley because it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, so I figured I'll have to see it eventually. The subject matter (the origins or the IRA) and the director (British bleeding-heart veteran Ken Loach) just don't interest me that much. I'm sure it'll be pretty good, but it would be nice if the fest started off with something I'm just dying to see.

Something like... Borat! I feel very privileged to have a ticket for this one, and although I'm a little skeptical about the possibility of sculpting a coherent story out of humiliating fake interviews, the advance word is positive enough for me to be totally jazzed.

Now I just have to sleep in as late as possible tomorrow to put some shut-eye in the bank.

2006-09-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I picked up my tickets and had a gander at the ticket availability board. For all of my concerns about getting what I wanted in the draw, I was surprised by how few screenings actually sold out. At least three quarters of the screenings still had tickets available.

Of what was sold out, there were few surprises. The controversial D.O.A.P. is sure to be the hardest movie to get into, and I'm kicking myself for not choosing it. I guess I've been living in downtown Toronto for too long when I don't realize that a movie about George Bush getting assassinated will cause a scandal. Shortbus and Borat are predictably sold out, and I have tickets for both. I was more surprised that Hana sold out all of its screenings, even though it's getting three of them. It just seems like a staid samurai drama, but I guess director Hirokazu Kore-Eda is a superstar in the film fest world. He's a superstar to me, at least, and I'm seeing it.

The one movie I'm looking forward to most is The Fall, by Tarsem. His only previous movie, The Cell, blew my mind with its visual imagination when it came out six years ago, and I've been wondering what he's been up to ever since. It turns out, he has spent the last four years filming this epic in twenty countries with a cast of thousands, all in secret. If he can turn a serial-killer picture from a big Hollywood studio into a visionary dreamscape, I can't imagine what he can accomplish with backers who let him take his time like this. Apparently I'm not the only one excited about this, since The Fall was one of few movies able to sell out the cavernous Elgin Theatre in the draw.

2006-09-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

TIFF ECSTASY!!!

Doesn't that heading sound like a spammer's name? Anyway, I just checked my e-mail and received confirmation that I got tickets to all 50 of my first-choice movies. I could not be happier about this. I cautiously assumed that getting into such highly anticipated movies as Shortbus, Rescue Dawn, and Borat would be too much to ask, but I got lucky enough in the draw that nothing sold out before they got to me.

Here's the complete list of screenings I will attend. Stalkers, take note.

THURSDAY, SEP. 7
The Wind that Shakes the Barley: 6:00pm
The Lives of Others: 9:00pm
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: Midnight

FRIDAY, SEP. 8
12:08 East of Bucharest: 9:00am
Taxidermia: 11:15am
Yokohama Mary: 3:30pm
Brand upon the Brain!: 6:00pm
Jade Warrior: 9:30pm
The Host: Midnight

SATURDAY, SEP. 9
HANA: 9:00am
The Bothersome Man: 11:45am
The Fall: 3:00pm
Cages: 6:00pm
Rescue Dawn: 9:00pm
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane: Midnight

SUNDAY, SEP. 10
A Good Year: 9:30am
Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 12:15pm
Pan's Labyrinth: 3:00pm
Takva - A Man's Fear of God: 6:00pm
Last King of Scotland: 9:00pm

MONDAY, SEP. 11
Lake of Fire: 9:00am
Stranger than Fiction: 12:30pm
The Art of Crying: 3:15pm
EMPz 4 Life: 5:45pm
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone: 9:00pm
The Abandoned: Midnight

TUESDAY. SEP. 12
Waiter: 9:45am
The Killer Within: 12:00pm
Shortbus: 2:15pm
Renaissance: 7:00pm

WEDNESDAY, SEP. 13
The Bubble: 9:00am
Mon Meilleur Ami: 12:00pm
Little Children: 2:30pm
Starter for Ten: 6:00pm
Bugmaster: 9:30pm

THURSDAY, SEP. 14
Breaking and Entering: 12:00pm
The Fountain: 3:00pm
King and the Clown: 6:00pm
Exiled: 9:00pm
Severance: Midnight

FRIDAY, SEP. 15
This Filthy World: 9:30am
Time : 2:30pm
The Book of Revelation: 5:00pm
L' Homme de sa Vie: 9:45pm

SATURDAY, SEP. 16
Red Road: 9:00am
Flandres: 11:45am
Invisible Waves: 2:45pm
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A: 6:15pm
Bunny Chow: 8:15pm
Sheitan: Midnight

As the reality of this screening schedule sinks in, I'm becoming concerned that I've bitten off more than I can chew. Was man really meant to see six movies in a day? Maybe the 50-film festival pass is like the 20-scoop sundae at the ice cream parlour that nobody's actually supposed to order. Maybe it only exists on the menu so all other options will seem moderate by comparison.

With a little luck, though, the movies will keep me awake. I've been careful not to overload any one day with too many austere dramas. In fact, I think I've scheduled some laughs every day, which isn't easy with any film festival's selection.

Judging from other enthusiasts' blogs, it's uncommon for any 50-film-er to "waste" a time slot on a Hollywood production that we'll definitely have another chance to see. I can understand that sentiment, but I did a little research with some old TIFF program books and decided that the film fest movies that never play in Toronto again are rarely the ones that look good to me, anyway. I know movies like Borat and A Good Year will be playing in all the multiplexes soon, but I'm impatient. The most important principle to keep in mind when devising your schedule is this: movies are always 35% better when viewed at TIFF. With this in mind, you should choose the ones you think will be best, to maximize that 35% bump in quality.

It'll be a few days before I can actually review any of these, so I'll weigh in soon with which movies have raised my expectations the most.

Finally, my sincere condolences to all the bloggers I've been following who didn't get as lucky as I did in the draw. May your rush lines be speedy and provident.

2006-08-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

THE ILLUSIONIST - ***

The Illusionist stars Edward Norton as a turn-of-the-century Viennese magician whose incredible performances and professional secrecy offend the Crown Prince's vanity, with hazardous results. The film has a formal air and sepia tone throughout, which lend it the pleasing air of a bedtime fable, but at the expense of any intimate attachment to the characters.

Norton remains an enigma throughout, but Paul Giamatti, looking perfectly dated as a police inspector tasked with the Prince's bidding, carries the film with flustered dignity. Rufus Sewell, as the Prince, subtly projects a restrained pomposity, and his muted arrogance steals all of his scenes.

The film's main problem lies in its story: Norton seems effortlessly capable of any magic trick the plot deems necessary, leading to uncertainty whether he actually has some supernatural powers. If so, then there is no suspense, since he's never really at risk of failure. If not, then just how did he pull it all off, anyway? This plot hole doesn't ruin the movie, it just blemishes a highly polished piece of light entertainment.

2006-08-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

CLERKS II - **1/2

Clerks II is a typical Kevin Smith dirty-mouthed comedy, which tells you all you really need to know about it. Smith's scripts consist mainly of a few dirty jokes and a lot of joke-free dirtiness, recited by his amateur friends and directed in his trademarked "just press record" style.

The movie begins limply with Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson demonstrating that they've learned nothing about acting since the original Clerks. There's some pop-culture banter and some implausible drama in O'Halloran's life, and then Smith makes a misjudgment and the smuttiness gets too repulsive to be funny, or remotely realistic as dialogue.

It's at this point in the proceedings that Rosario Dawson enters, and the movie instantly ceases to be terrible. While the rest of the cast can't convince us they're not reading cue cards, Dawson single-handedly lends her scenes an air of reality with her no-nonsense delivery. Once she has won back the audience's goodwill, Smith tones down the raunch and generates some surprising poignancy.

2006-08-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA - **1/2

The Devil Wears Prada is so full of formula plotting, cliched characters, tired musical montages and shameless advertising that I can't believe I sat through it. It also features a Meryl Streep performace so great that I can't believe that, expecting all of those negative traits, I nearly gave it a pass.

Streep plays the editor-in-chief of the world's most influential fashion magazine, a woman detested for her harsh opinions and brusque demeanor, and feared in the way that one might fear God. She's also deeply respected, and rightly so. We watch her make creative decisions with a shrewd eye under immense pressure, masterfully navigate the waters of publishing-industry politics, and carry herself with a refined dignity that tells her underlings she is aware of their disdain for her methods, and uninterested in it. One of the great pleasures of watching movies is spying on the lives of people smarter and more successful than ourselves, and great insights can be gleaned if the writing and cating is perceptive enough. Watching Streep at work in this movie is like a master class in how to rule the world.

Unfortunately, hers is a supporting role. The insuffrable main story arc follows Anne Hathaway, ostensibly a former editor of Northwestern University's student paper, who holds an ambition to be an important journalist although she seems to know nothing about anything. Her dialogue is unbelievably naive for a graduate of a good university, which is surprising given the authentic expertise of Streep's lines. Perhaps the great actress was allowed to rewrite her scenes.

The film tiresomely follows Hathaway as she struggles to meet her employer's demanding expectations, and as her increasing commitment to her role strains her relationship with her blank boyfriend and anonymous friends. It's all unnecessary. Why couldn't this movie's producers see that one day in Streep's company is infinitely more rewarding than following a season in Hathaway's life? The Devil Wears Prada goes from zero to sixty when Streep is on the screen, and only then. In other words, it was made for DVD chapter breaks.

2006-08-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST - ***1/2

I doubt anybody really expected this sequel to be as manically enjoyable as the original Pirates, but Dead Man's Chest has more than enough crowd-pleasing moments to make it worth the price of admission. Johnny Depp's performance as Captain Jack Sparrow delighted the first film's audiences with left-field genius where it was least expected - I mean, who would have expected him to do his most inventive acting in a Disney theme park ride tie-in? - and necessarily, he suffers in this movie from our raised comedic expectations. Nonetheless, the movie succeeds on the strength of director Gore Verbinski's brilliantly crafted set pieces, which combine a no-expenses-spared budget, feats of engineering, and the imagination of the old Warner Brothers' animation department.

Mercifully, the story starts with Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom's wedding having just been interrupted by their arrest for abetting Depp's jailbreak in the last movie. This romance is still less interesting than swabbing the Black Pearl's deck, so making us sit through the dull couple's wedding preparations would have been an inauspicious start. Instead, Bloom is given a mission to retrieve Depp's magical compass to spare Knightley's life, and more interesting characters and zany hijinks are on the horizon.

What surprised me most about this movie is how profoundly gross it is. This is a Disney-branded sequel to a blockbuster of wide appeal, and Verbinski somehow felt compelled to fill it with some of the stomach-churning imagery I've seen on screen recently. Perhaps today's children have more resilient minds, but the sight of a man's face disintegrating into slimy seafood would have given me nightmares into my teens. Putting it into a family-oriented surefire smash takes guts, guts also being gross.

2006-08-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE - ****

It isn't often that I go to the movies with my family, what with everyone's busy schedules and all, so I'm thankful that when my mother, sister and I all wound up in the same theatre watching Little Miss Sunshine, it turned out to be a rare movie that manages to celebrate familial love without inducing nausea.

The movie introduces the characters and sits them down to dinner at home in Albuquerque. There's father and aspiring motivational speaker Greg Kinnear, mother and breadwinner Toni Collette, sullen and silent teenaged son Paul Dano, adorably dorky moppet Abigail Breslin, and obscenely feisty grandfather Alan Arkin. The five are joined by gay academic uncle Steve Carell, who can't be left alone following a suicide attempt. The plot is set into motion when an answering machine message announces that Breslin has won a place in the titular children's beauty pageant in California, and a road trip begins.

This setup and these characters sound like they could have been pulled from any of a dozen Sundance-style independent films. Independent, debut films are often about dysfunctional families because sometimes the only people who can withstand the challenges of making a movie without studio backing are people driven by an intensely personal story they want to tell, and they're often road movies because a long car ride makes it easy for a novice screenwriter to give his characters something to do next. This means that any summary of Little Miss Sunshine makes it sound like a movie you've seen before. Maybe an earlier draft of the script included a disillusioned urban twentysomething returning to his Midwestern hometown to find himself.

Anyway, though the movie feels familiar at first, this is forgotten as we get to know the characters. This family feels real to me, but not in a way that I've seen in movies before. Everyone's a bit eccentric, and with a lesser cast the family might have come off as an arbitrary bundle of affectations, but these actors can confidently keep the zaniness grounded in reality. There are moments when the family's wacky adventures en route to Redondo Beach strain plausibility, but by then the movie has earned enough affection that we'll forgive it anything.

What really earns Little Miss Sunshine its fourth star is when the family arrives at the pageant and the comedy kicks into high gear. For over an hour the movie lulls you into a pleasant reverie full of satisfying warm-hearted chuckles. Then, once you're not expecting it, it delivers an over-the-top sequence of serious gut-busting laughs that still adds to the film's meaning.

2006-08-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

SNAKES ON A PLANE: ***

What can explain the devoted cult that sprang up around Snakes on a Plane as soon as the film was announced? It must have something to do with that title, since that was all its early fans knew about it. I guess there's a refreshing simplicity to a movie whose premise can be summed up in four syllables. (Only John Woo's Face/Off can beat that.) Then there's the outlandishness of that premise - I mean really, snakes on a plane?! And finally, there's a certain audacity to broadcasting a scenario that unlikely right in the title. We've all seen dozens of serious-minded thrillers with generically sexy titles that try to pretend their impossible adventures take place in the real world. Isn't it a nice change of pace to see a high-concept action flick that wears its silliness with pride?

Unfortunately, it becomes clear soon into Snakes on a Plane that the people behind the movie don't fully understand what the fans were hoping to find in it. The first third of the movie is one giant missed opportunity, from the plain opening credits to the rote expostion of getting the snakes onto the plane. We wait patiently for snakes while dull Hawaiian surfer Nathan Philips witnesses master villain Byron Lawson killing his prosecutor, and masterful FBI agent Samuel L. Jackson struggles to keep him safe and convince him to testify about what he saw at the ongoing trial in Los Angeles. I guess in the world of Snakes on a Plane, trials proceed without a pause when the lead prosecutor dies, and if the defendant commits another murder in another state on the weekend, that charge can just be tacked on to the current trial. I anticipated an amusing scene of Lawson explaining to his henchmen why putting snakes on a plane is, in fact, the best way to eliminate this witness, but no such scene came. Maybe it was self-evident.

No matter. Once the California-bound plane hits cruising altitude and the slithering stowaways are released from their cages, the movie finally starts to deliver on its title's promise and all is forgiven. As the cabin fills with an impressive variety of snakes, the film achieves a degree of anarchic, gleeful mania as the agitated creatures hurl themselves, fangs first, at anything warm-blooded, and the passengers and crew run - around the plane - for their lives. The writers thought of every amusing snake-related death you can think of, and they go through them too quickly for anyone to get bored. Eventually Jackson takes charge of the situation with a gravity that only he can pull off, and though the momentum grinds to a halt whenever he consults with the experts on the ground, it generally succeeds in keeping the good times coming.

I had the privilege of seeing the movie at a late screening on opening day at the Paramount, and the enthusiastic crowd played a huge part in the Snakes on a Plane experience. People around me had brought rattles, and rubber snakes for throwing, leading me to wonder if Snakes might have a future as a Rocky Horror-type fan-participation experience. That's something you can't get on DVD, which is why I wholeheartedly recommend shelling out to see this one on the big screen although it gets three stars at best.