MCN Originals Archive for September, 2012
The Torontonian Reviews: Comrade Kim Goes Flying
According to Comrade Kim Goes Flying, North Korea is a happy place; a utopia where everything is possible, everything is colorful, and everything is great. Of course, as our uncensored Google searches reveal, this is an expectedly false representation of the totalitarian state: the regime has a horrifically poor record on human rights, and the hardships endured are very real and very awful. In other words, to see this dystopia depicted so positively makes for some extremely bizarre cinema.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »TIFF12 Review: Pieta
Much of the first half of the film is so disturbing as to be almost unwatchable, at least by Western audiences – even those who love arthouse cinema and therefore have a higher tolerance than your average film-goer for brutality taken to its most absurd extremes. But if you can tough it out past the pinnacle of debasement and suffering at the midpoint or so of the film, where it’s at its absolute worst, the film gradually heads from that point to a payoff that does make it worthwhile to stick around for.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on Movies: Arbitrage
Arbitrage is a movie about big money and big crime in America, so naturally it’s set on Wall Street, a district and subculture awash in both. It’s also a picture that demonstrates how we tend to accept people who do bad things s long as they look good. The case in point here is the movie’s main character, financier-in-hot-water Robert Miller—as played by the very good-looking Richard Gere.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »TIFF12 Review: To The Wonder
In its own way, this is a silent film, but with sound design and never-ending musical undercurrent, with only a few dozen words spoken on camera. To The Wonder is also a very damp movie, filled with free association of wet, glinting imagery, akin to the sleek streets of Michael Mann’s movies, but omitting the streets and going straight to the source of life. To The Wonder can be read as about pity and the hope of forgiveness, but its heaviest impression is of rain, rains, raining, streams and rainingness.
Read the full article »TIFF12 Review: To the Wonder
To the Wonder is like cinematic church, like receiving the communion wafer Bardem’s priest delivers to his faithful parishioners and to the tongues of men trapped in the steel cages of prison. We are the ones encased in the prisons of our own expectations and understanding of what cinema as a medium can be, and Malick is pushing and challenging those expectations, offering up through his films a different way to see and think about the life and beauty that surrounds us.
Read the full article » 6 Comments »The Torontonian Reviews: To The Wonder
To the Wonder was filmed in Oklahoma, but the suburban neighbourhood seen here is astonishingly close to what an updated 1950’s Waco, Texas might be. The subject matter is not exactly a drastic change, either: themes of love and family inform both of the films inherently. It’s generous to call this type of cinema “innovative” now, but at least in The Tree of Life audiences were treated to a veritable smorgasbord of beautiful music.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »TIFF12 Review: At Any Price
Bahrani’s films are studies in character and heavy on symbolism: the former Pakistani rock star who’s selling coffee from a Manhattan push cart, moving his cart around the city in an endless sisyphean cycle in Man Push Cart; the Latino street orphan laboring in the rough-and-tumble grind of a questionable auto-repair/chop shop in the Iron Triangle area of New York City, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium in Chop Shop; the old man who’s decided to commit suicide, who tries to persuade a friendly cab driver to drive him to the mountain from which he intends to leap to his death in Goodbye Solo. Here, Bahrani’s clearly worked to open his storytelling up to paint on a broader canvas, but he’s still using the meticulous brushstrokes that have always defined his films.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The Torontonian Reviews: End of Watch
It’s a good thing the chemistry between Peña and Gyllenhaal is excellent, as the two are side-by-side on screen for the film’s entire duration. When the stakes are low, Taylor and Z crack jokes (mostly racial) and recount chestnuts (mostly graphic) with each other. But when lives are on the line, the pair command attention with their laissez-faire police tactics and level-headed cool. On the road, between these ups and downs, the two also wax poetic about life: working with the LAPD, their relationships at home, and the prospects of the future. These police cruiser conversations are engaging and thoughtful; at times bordering on profundity.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Wilmington on DVDs: Snow White and the Huntsman; What to Expect When You’re Expecting; The Last of England; More
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Rupert Sanders, 2012 (Universal) Snow White and the Huntsman has one of the clunkiest movie titles around, and a lot of the movie is worthy of it. A wildly expensive and lushly produced new look at the Grimm Brothers fairy tale “Snow-White and…
Read the full article »The Torontonian Reviews: Storm Surfers 3D
Storm Surfers was shot natively in 3D, and for once a film is better for it. The added dimension instills a greater sense of scale, reminding us of the inherent danger to this thrilling sport. Thankfully, none of this ever feels shoehorned: water spits at the screen like it would while boating; waves in the foreground seem touchable. This isn’t a gimmick, because the filmmakers have used the medium with legitimate intentions.
Read the full article »TIFF12 Interview: Tamara Podemski
Five years ago, Tamara Podemski got heaps of notice and won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for her terrific performance in Sterlin Harjo’s Four Sheets to the Wind. A graduate of Toronto’s prestigious and highly competitive Claude Watson School for the Performing Arts (Sarah Polley was a classmate), Pademski’s strikingly lovely and multi-talented; with her Sundance breakthrough, she seemed on the verge of the sort of breakthrough that can happen for a young actress when she gets noticed at Sundance.
Read the full article »TIFF12: First Weekend In Telegraphese and Pictures
Monday afternoon: #TIFF12 Ah, autumn sun’s sweet mixed messages in sprint from venue to meet to venue #Toronto
Read the full article »The Torontonian Reviews: Imogene
Bridesmaids went far last year, going the distance with many awards and cementing itself on plenty of Top-10 lists—mine included. More importantly, Bridesmaids made Imogene an easy sell in terms of anticipation: the world wants more Wiig, and I can’t imagine anyone is particularly upset to see her gaining more feature roles. Though her cameo career has been rather priceless thus far, Wiig is too good to be relegated to the sidelines.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The Torontonian Reviews: The Place Beyond the Pines
Derek Cianfrance’s direction is confident, on par with contemporary filmmakers who have been working for decades. But the writing of Pines is really the star of the show. How I wish I could spin such natural webs of dialogue! Cianfrance makes it look effortless, with not a single line sounding forced or out of place.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The Weekend Report: Abandon Hope
A couple of new releases hardly made a ripple in weekend movie going that sunk to a level not seen in decades. The Words, a convoluted yarn of authorship, bowed to an estimated $4.8 million that ranked fourth on the leader board while the thriller The Cold Light of Day, a leftover from Summit, bowed with $1.8 million. The latter film has already opened overseas where it already grossed a disappointing $12.5 million.
Read the full article »TIFF12 Review: On the Road
I’m glad now that I didn’t go to Cannes this year and thus, did not see Walter Salles’ On the Road until its re-cut state here at Toronto. I’d heard some negative buzz about the film out of Cannes, and had almost taken if off my TIFF list as my dance card started getting full….
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Wilmington on Movies: Cosmopolis
Cronenberg’s movie suggests that if we were in the uppermost echelon, it might be a nightmare, and a deserved one. If we were young billionaire asset managers like Eric Packer, played by Pattinson, we could set out one morning, in a white stretch limousine with our driver, lounge lazily in a luxurious back seat area (all black and blue and silver-chrome trim), relaxing in a limo seat that resembles a small room, and set out, in the middle of a vast midtown Manhattan traffic jam (worsened by the presence of a presidential motorcade, the funeral of a beloved rap star and Occupy-style riots in the street), to get a haircut from our father’s favorite barber.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »The Torontonian Reviews: Argo
If Affleck’s third feature were a cartoon, it would be an feature-length, big-budget episode of “Scooby-Doo”: that is, if Scooby and crew were ever involved in a hostage crisis on the world stage. Affleck’s Tony Mendez plays the role of Shaggy, albeit a more responsible incarnation; the six stranded Americans adopting the various roles of The Mystery Gang. (Speaking strictly visually, the coincidence of this comparison is uncanny. They even drive a van with a striking resemblance to the Mystery Machine.)
Read the full article » 2 Comments »TIFF Dispatch #1: Hit the Ground Running
Thirteen or so hours of travel yesterday, and I’m back at the Toronto International Film Festival. The first couple years I came here, I didn’t enjoy it much, other than the films. Everything was spread out more, the part of town we stayed in (right on Yonge) smelled funky all the time, I couldn’t find a decent pad thai anywhere, and Yonge between the Marriott and Ryerson gets a little dicey late nights.
Read the full article »Hopefuls and Hoped-Fors: Is 20 Plenty Or Too Many?
Taken by the festival’s many sections, the 2012 selection is impressive: paying no mind to those distinctions, the level of promise is frustratingly, gratifyingly, even exhilaratingly high. And as we all know, there’s going to be a whole lot more lighting up downtown Hogtown.
Read the full article » 7 Comments »
