Given my limited internet time and the general suckiness of Toronto open wi-fi, this will be brief. I hope to later fill this stuff in with better thoughts, but here's my quick takes:
LEGEND OF THE FIST (Andrew Lau)
Action "sequel" to the classic Bruce Lee film, FIST OF FURY picks up whenever Donnie Yen starts kicking Japanese ass (or German, as in the instant classic opening sequence), but drags in the middle, where it becomes LUST, CAUTION with ass-kicking fights. Also, I know it's unavoidable given the subject matter, but does every new Chinese film have to be quite so wildly nationalistic? It's not as egregious (or frankly disturbing) as CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, but it's pretty thick.
C+
A MARRIED COUPLE (Allan King)
Terrific documentary about a middle-class couple in 1960's Toronto coming apart at the seams. Some amazing footage here.
A
THE LIGHT THIEF (Aktan Abdykalykov)
Sweet, earnest and seriously bland, this is a Sony Pictures Classics trailer blown up to feature length. Meh.
C
GUEST (Jose Luis Guerin)
Beautiful, poetic rumination on life beyond cinema, literally (Guerin filmed it at various film festivals). Some of the segments drag a bit, but it's worth a look, definitely.
A-
SUPER (James Gunn)
I'm personally pretty tired of superhero films and the notion of a superhero as psychotic maniac is no longer novel, but this was still pretty fun. Worth it for Ellen Page's crackling performance as the slightly more unhinged sidekick of Rainn Wilson. She nails the film's peculiar tone better than everyone else in the cast--shame she's not in it much.
B
Tomorrow...was yesterday, so I'll forgo the whole preview. More to come...
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
Day One: Inside Film Job Socialism
I'm writing this on day two of TIFF, due to the erratic, half-assed nature of Toronto wi-fi. Thank god there's a Second Cup every block in this city, otherwise, I'd never get anything written.
On to the movies:
FILM SOCIALISM (Jean-Luc Godard)
I toyed with ratings this year--scale of 1-10? Letter grades? 1-100? Thumbs-up, thumbs-down? Well, I haven't the slightest idea what I can possibly grade Godard's latest film. As a product of a broken American public-school system, I speak one language: English. And, like most Americans, I don't even speak that one terribly well most of the time. So when Godard's film unspooled (digitally), and it became increasingly obvious that it would have no subtitles (not even the fractured Navajo English that graced the Cannes screenings), I knew this was going to be a tough slog.
Strangely enough, I found myself enjoying the opening scenes, all of which are set aboard a particularly garish cruise ship. Perhaps it's because I find cruise ships to basically be floating circles of Hell, but I felt the experience of being unmoored from the dialogue while bombarded with the sounds and images of cruise ships to be a pretty accurate rendering of my own cruise experiences. It's clearly a metaphor for modern existence: history experienced in snippets; the intellectual and the anti-intellectual forced to roam the same hellish environments that make real human connection impossible. And also, cat videos.
So yeah, it's modern life and I really liked it. Then the action switches to a family working a rural gas station, who are apparently having financial woes and being harassed by a news reporter who mugs ferociously. At least I think that's what was happening. Without a better grasp on French, I was left to flounder in the images and they just weren't as memorable in this part of the film (apart from the llama, who I liked). Godard then wraps it all up with a re-take on the cities visited only tangentially in the first part of the film, but with added commentary on their political meaning.
It's all very heady and maybe if I spoke French, I'd have a stronger opinion on it (or an opinion, period), but I just can't say. Maybe Godard wants me to feel alienated, maybe he doesn't care if I understand his film, or maybe it's some sort of perverse experiment. Whatever his intentions, the end result is still the same for me: I have no idea what to make of it.
1st 3rd: B+ / Rest of the film: No Comment
INSIDE JOB (Charles Ferguson)
I'm not a fan of talking head, information-heavy documentaries. I usually prefer the fly-on-the-wall approach preferred by Allan King or Frederick Wiseman, or the personality-driven ones like those of Herzog or Errol Morris (funny, I'm seeing a doc by each one of them this year). But as far as talking head documentaries go, this one's pretty good. It's a little over-emphatic at times (the score, especially early on, is overbearing) and it moves perhaps a little too fast for its own good, but it's still a perfectly fine muckraking look at the horrible financial disaster we're all living in these days. There's nothing here that isn't in the various books and NPR podcasts that have come out recently, but it's still something that more people in the world should be outraged about, especially Americans.
B
That's about it for today. Tomorrow (which is actually today) I'll return with LEGEND OF THE FIST, A MARRIED COUPLE, THE LIGHT THIEF, GUEST, and SUPER. Bye for now.
Fake celeb of the day: Paul Giamati, if he was a 1970's roadie.
On to the movies:
FILM SOCIALISM (Jean-Luc Godard)
I toyed with ratings this year--scale of 1-10? Letter grades? 1-100? Thumbs-up, thumbs-down? Well, I haven't the slightest idea what I can possibly grade Godard's latest film. As a product of a broken American public-school system, I speak one language: English. And, like most Americans, I don't even speak that one terribly well most of the time. So when Godard's film unspooled (digitally), and it became increasingly obvious that it would have no subtitles (not even the fractured Navajo English that graced the Cannes screenings), I knew this was going to be a tough slog.
Strangely enough, I found myself enjoying the opening scenes, all of which are set aboard a particularly garish cruise ship. Perhaps it's because I find cruise ships to basically be floating circles of Hell, but I felt the experience of being unmoored from the dialogue while bombarded with the sounds and images of cruise ships to be a pretty accurate rendering of my own cruise experiences. It's clearly a metaphor for modern existence: history experienced in snippets; the intellectual and the anti-intellectual forced to roam the same hellish environments that make real human connection impossible. And also, cat videos.
So yeah, it's modern life and I really liked it. Then the action switches to a family working a rural gas station, who are apparently having financial woes and being harassed by a news reporter who mugs ferociously. At least I think that's what was happening. Without a better grasp on French, I was left to flounder in the images and they just weren't as memorable in this part of the film (apart from the llama, who I liked). Godard then wraps it all up with a re-take on the cities visited only tangentially in the first part of the film, but with added commentary on their political meaning.
It's all very heady and maybe if I spoke French, I'd have a stronger opinion on it (or an opinion, period), but I just can't say. Maybe Godard wants me to feel alienated, maybe he doesn't care if I understand his film, or maybe it's some sort of perverse experiment. Whatever his intentions, the end result is still the same for me: I have no idea what to make of it.
1st 3rd: B+ / Rest of the film: No Comment
INSIDE JOB (Charles Ferguson)
I'm not a fan of talking head, information-heavy documentaries. I usually prefer the fly-on-the-wall approach preferred by Allan King or Frederick Wiseman, or the personality-driven ones like those of Herzog or Errol Morris (funny, I'm seeing a doc by each one of them this year). But as far as talking head documentaries go, this one's pretty good. It's a little over-emphatic at times (the score, especially early on, is overbearing) and it moves perhaps a little too fast for its own good, but it's still a perfectly fine muckraking look at the horrible financial disaster we're all living in these days. There's nothing here that isn't in the various books and NPR podcasts that have come out recently, but it's still something that more people in the world should be outraged about, especially Americans.
B
That's about it for today. Tomorrow (which is actually today) I'll return with LEGEND OF THE FIST, A MARRIED COUPLE, THE LIGHT THIEF, GUEST, and SUPER. Bye for now.
Fake celeb of the day: Paul Giamati, if he was a 1970's roadie.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Current TIFF Schedule, etc.
Thought I'd drop in with a small update. I sent in my order and got 29/30 of my first picks. The only casualty, weirdly enough, is the Swedish giallo BAD FAITH, which I only chose as a slot-filler in the first place. Oh well. I'll either try for it again, or replace it with something else. Anyhow, here's my schedule, which will almost certainly change once the festival kicks in:
September 9th
FILM SOCIALISM (intimidated by recent Godard, but feeling adventurous)
INSIDE JOB
September 10th
THE LEGEND OF THE FIST
THE LIGHT THIEF
GUEST
SUPER
September 11th
EROTIC MAN
THE FOUR TIMES
BOXING GYM
MY JOY
WAVELENGTHS 3: RUHR (dipping my toes in the Wavelengths; mesmerizing trailer)
BUNRAKU
September 12th
THE ILLUSIONIST
ANPO
SUBMARINE
VANISHING ON 7TH STREET
September 13th
THE TRIP
OUR DAY WILL COME
SUMMER OF GOLIATH
TABLOID
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
THE WARD
September 14th
BLACK SWAN
NORWEGIAN WOOD
13 ASSASSINS
ATTENBERG
September 15th
BALADA TRISTE
YOU ARE HERE
KABOOM
That's that. I'm toying with some changes here and there, depending on availability, but that's it for now. I may write some more stuff before the festival, but since I've got limited internet capabilities and a daughter who I won't see for a little over a week, my priorities may be slightly skewed. So this will probably be it until the festival itself. See you there! Unless you're not going, of course. In that case, disregard that statement...
September 9th
FILM SOCIALISM (intimidated by recent Godard, but feeling adventurous)
INSIDE JOB
September 10th
THE LEGEND OF THE FIST
THE LIGHT THIEF
GUEST
SUPER
September 11th
EROTIC MAN
THE FOUR TIMES
BOXING GYM
MY JOY
WAVELENGTHS 3: RUHR (dipping my toes in the Wavelengths; mesmerizing trailer)
BUNRAKU
September 12th
THE ILLUSIONIST
ANPO
SUBMARINE
VANISHING ON 7TH STREET
September 13th
THE TRIP
OUR DAY WILL COME
SUMMER OF GOLIATH
TABLOID
CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
THE WARD
September 14th
BLACK SWAN
NORWEGIAN WOOD
13 ASSASSINS
ATTENBERG
September 15th
BALADA TRISTE
YOU ARE HERE
KABOOM
That's that. I'm toying with some changes here and there, depending on availability, but that's it for now. I may write some more stuff before the festival, but since I've got limited internet capabilities and a daughter who I won't see for a little over a week, my priorities may be slightly skewed. So this will probably be it until the festival itself. See you there! Unless you're not going, of course. In that case, disregard that statement...
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