Sunday, September 12, 2010

Day Two: Legend of the Married Super Guest Thief

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...

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