TIFF ’11 Dispatch: So Long, and Thanks for All the Films

This was a pretty fantastic year to be at TIFF. I saw many solid films, a fair number of fair-to-middling films, only one film bad enough to warrant a rare walkout, and even a few that were great. The area around the Lightbox and Scotiabank felt like a real live festival center this year, complete…

Annnnd…. Scene!

It was the easiest, hardest, best, worst, perfectly imperfect TIFF ever… made more so by the fact that I am summing it up days before it even ends. Sony, first through Sony Classics and then through the only studio doing serious TIFF junketting this year, Columbia Pictures, dominated the festival in every way. Clooney and…

TIFF ’11 Review: Take This Waltz

Take This Waltz completely slayed me. With her 2006 feature film debut, Away from Her, Sarah Polley examined the intricacies of a long-term relationship through a couple married for many decades, who were faced with one of them dealing with early-onset Alzheimer’s. In that film, she explored marriage, infidelity, and commitment with a deeply innate…

Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: Day 4

Glitch! Saturday morning’s early morning screening of The Descendents – Alexander Payne’s new film starring George Clooney – at the Toronto International Film Festival got into rather severe technical problems. Those of us standing in line were told at about 20 minute intervals that there was a problem but exactly what problem was kept vague….

TIFF Dispatch #2: Catching Up

It’s been a very busy few days for me here at TIFF, as I’ve been aiming for four-five films a day this year and trying not to be hunched over a keyboard in the 15-20 minutes I have between screenings. So here’s a nice catch-up for you of some of the films I’ve been enjoying…

TIFF ’11 Review: God Bless America

Think of God Bless America, directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, as kind of a mix of Falling Down and Super — but funnier than Falling Down, considerably more accurately satirical than Super, and relentlessly violent in a blackly comedic way, without being meaninglessly so.

TIFF ’11 Review: A Dangerous Method

David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method stars Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud and Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung in a stagey drama about the professional relationship between two men whose ideas shaped the field of psychoanalysis, and their relationship with Sabine Spielrein (Keira Knightley), Jung’s patient-turned-protegee, who went on to become a psychoanalyst in her own…

Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: Toronto 2011 – Day II

Historically the festival has an almost unerring capacity for choosing the wrong opening night picture. This year was no exception with its selection of the U2 profile From the Sky Down. More rumination than concert film, it focuses on the group’s preparation for the 2011 Glastonbury festival, one of England’s most beloved musical events. They decide to revisit their seminal album Achtung Baby, recorded 20 years earlier in Berlin.

TIFF ’11 Review: Pina

One of my favorite films of this year’s TIFF so far is Wim Wenders terrific 3-D documentary, Pina, a visually evocative, stunningly lovely tribute to legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch. If you are inclined to enjoy the language of dance, and you like to see terrific, creative choreography that utilizes all the subtleties of movement…

TIFF ’11 Dispatch #1: Can You Say Party? I Knew You Could.

Another year, another Toronto International Film Festival. It doesn’t feel like a whole year since the last TIFF, but here we are, back in the land of ketchup chips and butter tarts, churning through four-five movies a day. The fest has a different feel to it this year, with most everything officially moved down to…

CONFESSIONS OF FILM FESTIVAL JUNKIE: Toronto 2011

There are some festivals that pivot abruptly from being a film geek favorite to an industry whistle stop. Historians cite the 1989 screening of sex, lies, and videotape as just such a turning point for Sundance. It wasn’t simply a rabid audience response (it was crowned their favorite but failed to nab the jury award)…

TIFF ’11 Preview: Real to Reel

There are 26 films in the Real to Reel section of TIFF this year, of which I’ll be able to catch maybe five or six. As always, it’s hard to tell by the catalog descriptions which films you’re going to love and which you aren’t; in 2009, I wouldn’t have necessarily had The Topp Twins…

Two Doc Reviews – Crazy Horse & Paul Williams Still Alive

One is classic documentary form… no voice over… no director in the movie… beautifully shot and edited reality about an interesting subject. The premise of the other is that the director thought a star he once loved was dead and found out otherwise.

TIFF ’11 Preview: Contemporary World Cinema

This is always one of the hardest categories for me at TIFF because there are so many titles from around the world, and there’s usually nothing to go on but a catalog description in helping to determine which of them might end up breaking out and being a “buzz” film at TIFF, and which will…

TIFF ’11 Preview: Special Presentations

There are a lot of films to choose from at TIFF, and with only 20-30 I’ll have time to see and write about, I have to be a little choosy. Here are some of the films from the Special Presentations section of the Festival that are on my “want to see these” list. SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS…

TIFF’11 Preview: Galas and Masters

Next week the Toronto International Film Festival will kick off, and cinephiles, film critics and industry folks will be running amok all over downtown Toronto, rushing to get to screenings and saying things like, “Hey, I’d love to chat, but I’m rushing to get to the new Cronenberg! Catch you for drinks later?” And sometimes…

6 Weeks To TIFF: a 20 weeks to oscar prequel (part 3 of 3)

There are movies that avoid Toronto, movies that disregard Toronto, and movies that happily use Toronto as an opportunity to launch themselves into the awards race. This, the 3rd TIFF Season preview of the week, looks at all of those groups.

6 Weeks To TIFF: a 20 weeks to oscar prequel (part 2 of 3)

There are 10 films heading to Toronto for the film festival without US distribution, but with a shot of being Oscar players if expectations hold and if they can find the right domestic distribution partners. Lots of big name directors, writers, and actors on the Wheel of Movie Fortune.

6 Weeks To TIFF: a 20 weeks to oscar prequel (part 1 of 3)

Before diving into a full Oscar column and 1st set of charts, a quick look at 15 titles that will be coming to TIFF without US distribution, but will be getting a LOT of attention nonetheless. First, the HIGH profile titles that are not likely to be on Oscar charts this year…

DP/30@Sundance: The Devil’s Double, actors Dominic Cooper & Ludivine Sagnier