The Toronto International Film Festival is non-competitive. There are no juries, and there are no conventional prizes, like best picture, or best actress. It is a festival for the people, by the people, so it is fitting that it is the people who vote.
Every feature film shown at TIFF is eligible, but only the people who saw that film can vote. The winner always generates some Oscar buzz, and many do go on to win best picture at the Academy Awards (Chariots of Fire in 1981, American Beauty in 1999, The King’s Speech in 2010). You can vote as many times as you want; if you see 20 films and love 18, you can vote for all 18. Of course, only the movies that are screening at TIFF are eligible, but since TIFF is now second only to Cannes in terms of influence, and the timing is good, well, it’s a powerful start to the race.
Past winners include The Imitation Game, 12 Years A Slave, Slumdog Millionaire, Amelie, The Princess Bride, and Roger & Me. Gavin Hood, director of Eye in the Sky, which is in competition this year, was thrilled to have his film Tsotsi win in 2005, which helped spark his career and really put him on the map.
A great big congratulations to this year’s People’s Choice winner: Lenny Abrahamson’s Room. You may have heard me whining and complaining about how I didn’t get to see this one, and it was the one I MOST WANTED TO SEE (#firstworldproblems) but then a TIFF miracle occurred and we ended up making a last-minute screening on Friday evening (it was supposed to have been Johnny Depp’s London Fields, but the director sued the producers and the movie got pulled, and Jay & Sean got to see an incredibly good movie that’s already humming with Oscar buzz).
Brie Larson plays a young woman abducted and kept captive by her abuser for many years. While living her miserable existence inside Room (a garden shed, as it turns out), she has a son, and their bond, as you can imagine, is uniquely strong and close and complicated. They eventually manage to escape, and it’s this reintroduction to the world (and in her son’s case, his first meeting of it) that is the biggest challenge of all, and the crux of the film. It’s nuanced, highly emotional, and superbly acted.
Congratulations also to:
Best Canadian Short Film goes to Patrice Laliberté for Overpass. Sol Friendman of Bacon & God’s Wrath got runner-up, and many of you noticed its appeal right here.
Best Canadian First Feature Film goes to for Andrew Cividino’s Sleeping Giant.
Best Canadian Feature Film goes to Stephen Dunn’s Closet Monster. The jury remarked, “For its confidence and invention in tackling the pain and yearning of the first love and coming of age of a young gay man in Newfoundland, the jury recognizes the remarkable artistry and vision of first-time feature director Stephen Dunn for Closet Monster.” This award carries a cash prize of $30,000 and a custom award, sponsored by Canada Goose. The Assholes were big supporters of this film and are so glad it got some well-earned attention.
The prize of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) for Special Presentations is awarded to Jonás Cuarón’s Desierto. The jury remarked, “For using pure cinema to create a strong physical sensation of being trapped in a vast space and hunted down by hatred in its most primal form, FIPRESCI presents the prize in the Special Presentations programme to Desierto by Jonás Cuarón.”
We had a super great time at TIFF this year and look forward to actually being in our home next weekend for the first time in 5 weeks. It’s the best kind of tiring to see all of these labours of love appear on the big screen for the first time. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time read along – you don’t realize how much that means to us, but it’s a real treasure to hear from you and we hope that to continue the conversation because movies are our passion and some of them really are worth all the words.
Matt got up early to see Christopher Plummer in Remember. Director Atom Egoyan appealed specifically for a spoiler-free review, and that’s exactly what you’ll get.
Desierto: Described to me as a deranged serial killer stalking Mexican immigrants trying to sneak across the border, I was hooked. And a little worried. Jonas Cuaron (yes, son of Alfonso) directs Jeffrey Dean Morgan (the killer), Gael Garcia Bernal (the immigrant), and the vast and unforgiving desert (a third and equally important character) toward a very tense and thrilling and relentless chase movie. I liked that Bernal’s character isn’t a traditional hero. He’s good, he’s bad, he’s human. Either way, he doesn’t deserve to be slaughtered in the desert. This movie is all about the chase – the philosophy is up to you. A really solid effort.
Our friend Courtney Small at Cinema Axis has all kids of dedicated TIFF reviews, but I’m directing you to one in particular: Room. Room is the film I’m most miffed about missing at TIFF. I read and enjoyed the book and have heard that Brie Larson’s performance is star-making (and it’s about time she’s recognized). She plays a woman who was abducted and kept captive in a windowless room by her abuser for years, where she conceived and gave birth. This child has never seen anything beyond the Room, but this doesn’t stop his mother from plotting their escape. But what will happen to them as they try to become reintroduced to the big bad world?
EDIT: An extra screening was added last minute, and I got my butt into a seat! My own review is coming soon.
You might also drop in on Dan from A Tale of Two Dans. He got to see another one I was sad to miss, Youth. Starring Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, you know you’re in for a treat.
The Family Fang: Jason Bateman is a little hit or miss with his movies, but I ended up liking this quite a bit. It’s got a strong premise: performance artist parents (Christopher Walken is the dad!) rope their kids (Jason Bateman, Nicole Kidman) into a childhood of pranks and skits. As soon as they’re old enough to get out of there, they do, and the relationship is strained because the art suffers. Then suddenly, the parents go missing. The cops presume them dead but the kids are convinced it’s just another prank. Or is it? Unravelling the mystery is not really the point. The point is a very real and interesting dynamic between neglected siblings (“They fuck you up, your mom and dad”) . If you keep that in mind, you’ll probably quite enjoy this slow-burner. It’s a drama with some funny parts, warns Jason Bateman: not Bad Words. Not his usual stuff. There are a lot of layers here, more than meets the eye. I read the book a while back and now I think I’ll have to re-read it just to hear it in Walken’s voice. During the Q&A, Jason Bateman made a fangirl out of himself, fawning over his hero, Christopher Walken, and likened editing anything with him in it to “killing babies”, as everything of Walken’s is “painfully usable.” Both men were charming, and Bateman clearly proud of his work. As he should be.
On the one hand, rain makes you feel a little less guilty about spending the last few days of summer sequestered in movie theatres. On the other hand, there’s the standing in long lineups outside the movie theatres getting icy cold rain down your back, and the dampness in your shirt never dries in the movie theatre air conditioning. So you spend the whole day with a case of the shivers. But you also get to meet really cool people – a gentleman outside the Scotiabank theatre who sheltered me with his umbrella (while occasionally sending a big dump of sub-zero rain down my cleavage, but the intentions were good), an older woman I dubbed the blue angel for her raincoat who insisted I take her umbrella while waiting outside Bloor Hot Docs in the very early morning.Toronto festival goers are nothing if not courteous.
Miss You Already: This was the earliest I’ve ever been up for a movie, so if it was anything less than I was hoping, I would have been pissed. And the thing is, my expectations were tempered. It was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who did Thirteen, but also Twilight. It stars Drew Barrymore, one of my favourite celebrities, and Toni Collette, one of my favourite actresses. Note the difference. Drew Barrymore does best when just allowed to do her bubbly self, and in this case she’s well-cast and well-used. She and Collette play lifelong BFFs who have their friendship tested when Barrymore finally gets her innermost wishes granted with a long-awaited pregnancy and Collette has her innermost fears realized with a cancer diagnosis that means she is possibly dying, her children soon to be motherless. Collette is an amazing actor, capable of anything, and she handles this material with exactly the aplomb you’d expect. But this isn’t a movie likely to make the Oscar circuit. It’s meant to be crowd-pleasing, in a ten-pack of tissues sort of way. And it is. It’s a solid commentary on women and friendship, and what it means to be there for someone through thick and thin.
Maggie’s Plan: Greta Gerwig is the Diane Keaton of her generation. She’s kind of amazing in this neurotic, bohemian way. In this, she plays a young woman who is ready to have a baby, no matter what her best friend (and former lover) Bill Hader thinks. Of course, the minute she makes her move, she meets a man and falls in love. He’s married? So what! You can’t let a stale marriage come between you and your true love – so the marriage between Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore must crumble. Julianne Moore, by the way, is pretty much my favourite in everything lately. I will see her in two movies on this day at TIFF and can’t imagine two more different roles if I tried. Here she’s playing this European shrew with a wildly entertaining accent and immeasurable emotional peaks and valleys. I obviously hoped that this would be a good movie but was still pleased at how funny it was. And clever-funny too, which is always a relief. Kudos to another capable female director, Rebecca Miller. So thrilled to have seen so many talented women at this festival!
Closet Monster: Matt saw a talented young Canadian actor at TIFF several years ago in a movie called Blackbird. He knew that Connor Jessup was someone to watch out for, and he has. When he was announced to be starring in Stephen Dunn’s feature debut, Closet Monster, he was sold, and he sold us on it too. Thank you, Matt, for that. Stephen Dunn directs a highly personal film about a young man “coming of age” (good lord I hate that expression) in small and small-minded Maritime town. As a kid, Oscar witnesses a brutal hate crime that leads to internatlized homophobia. His teenaged coming out, and coming to terms, are therefore traumatic. Dunn creates a stylized world of escape for his protagonist, with just a hint of “magical surrealism” to help the bitter medicine go down. It’s a beautiful debut and we were all glad to have been part of it.
Freeheld: An embarrassingly short time ago, as in earlier this century, two women met and fell in love, and when one got sick, the other was going to be left holding an empty bag because domestic partnerships still weren’t really respected in their backwards-thinking country, and her partner’s benefits couldn’t legally be inherited by her. This true story, belonging to Laurel Hester and her widow Stacie Andree, is brought to the big screen with heaping sensitivity. You couldn’t ask for more from Julianne Moore or Ellen Page, who play the two lovers. Michael Shannon, as Hester’s partner, does a bang up job as the guy with a lot to learn. He’s a placeholder for the audience: we experience their story through his eyes. Sean and I saw Michael Shannon on Broadway a few years back (in an intense play along with Paul Rudd and Ed Asner, believe it or not) and we’ve watched him with greater interest ever since. Steve Carrell pops up in the movie too – you may have noticed him in the trailers for this movie, as he’s the clown through which we achieve some catharsis. He plays a “big gay Jew” who basically manipulates a sick woman into stumping for his cause – gay marriage. And causes like that do need a face to make them real to people, but I couldn’t help but sympathize with Andree, who must have just wanted to spend that time with her dying spouse. It’s of course an emotional movie (Kleenex sponsored the premiere, and handed out tissues as we went in). It’s a good but not great movie – but it IS a great story, and I’m so glad it’s been respectfully told. And seeing it with real-life counterparts, including Stacie Andree herself in attendance was something that I will never forget.
Wow, Julianne Moore and cancer both featured heavily in this day’s viewings!
Finally, Matt took on Missing Girl, which you may be intrigued to know, or mystified to learn, that Matt describes as a “charming comedy about a missing persons case.” It’s not every day you hear that one.
The Toronto International Film Festival converted Roy Thomson Hall, normally an orchestral theatre, into a massive 3D screening room in order to bring The Martian to the masses. Sean and I were lucky enough to get tickets. When I read the wonderful book by Andy Weir, I immediately passed it along to Sean. He doesn’t read much, but he always reads what I recommend, and I knew he’d love this. It was smart, funny, and action-packed. When they announced that Ridley Scott was making it into a film, I admit, I was wary. So many of my favourite books have been badly adapted to the screen. But a part of me had hope. It did have a cinematic feel to it. It could work. But would it?
The answer: yes. Without reservations or qualifications, yes. I can’t imagine a single person not enjoying the hell out of this film. Sean was initially in mourning for the bits of the book left on the editing floor, but not me. I felt it totally captured the spirit of the book while giving a little more screen time to all the famous faces on Earth. The Martian is accessible. It’s not science-fictiony; it’s not about aliens or time travel. It’s about an astronaut who goes on a mission to Mars and is accidentally left behind. The world is watching, and rooting for him. NASA is panicking and trying to redeem their reputations. His crew is guilt-ridden for having left him. But he’s just trying to survive until someone can rescue him. It takes a lot to stay alive alone on Mars, but this guy is an astronaut MacGyver and a very watchable problem-solver. Matt Damon does a great job in the role – absolutely no complaints. from me, or from real NASA astronauts who loved the book so much they gave him a call – from outer space! Now they’re hoping to beam the movie up to their space station on October 2nd when it hits theatres – and possibly the outer reaches of our galaxy. How cool is that?
We followed that up with the world premiere of About Ray. I knew this would be important to see at the festival, but I was worried that it was too trendy a topic. The movie really laid my fears to rest. Yes, it’s about a transgendered teenager, but it’s also about a family, conventionally unconventional, who love each other and support each other but struggle with change and acceptance just like everyone else. Ray (Elle Fanning) is a young man and has known this for some time. He was born in a female body but is ready to start living full-time as the gender he knows in his head he is meant for, and that means getting his parents to sign a consent form to start hormone treatments, and to change schools as his body transitions. He’s focused on this goal because he can’t truly live authentically until it happens. His mother (Naomi Watts) is amazingly supportive, and I say that because she’s supportive because she knows and believes it’s the right thing, not because it’s easy for her. Privately, she mourns the loss of her daughter and worries about what kind of life she’s consigning to her son. And when they must involve an absentee father who voices all kinds of concern along with generous doses of ignorance, things go sideways. A meddling mother\grandmother (Susan Sarandon) doesn’t help. But it does make for a very warm family feeling. There’s more here than an “issues movie.” It’s real. The three actresses are all great, and believable, and honest in their approach. Nobody gets off easily. This movie isn’t afraid to veer away from the PCness of it all, and we shouldn’t be afraid of that.
Elle Fanning does an incredible job tackling a touchy role. One wrong move and you can upset a whole community of vulnerable people. And I have heard criticism from some corners that Elle is too ‘feminine’ for the role, which is hogwash. What does that even mean? You do understand that transgendered mean born in a female body? Yes, Ray was born a girl, a girl who could have looked exactly like Elle Fanning. Transgendered bodies aren’t conveniently born butch. I’m sure that Ray is doing everything in his power to present himself the way feels he should look, but without any medical intervention, there’s only so much he can do. But no one in the transgender community should be judged on how well (or not) they ‘pass’ and neither is it fair to hold Fanning to that same standard. With Hollywood at her disposal, director Gaby Dellal could have opted to have her look fall anywhere on the spectrum, yet she’s exactly where she out to be.
In the end, this was not the sweeping triumph we hoped it would be, but with stellar performances across the board, it is a very good movie about a very interesting family.
Note: Finally hitting theatres in 2017, the movie is now called 3 Generations.
Matt, meanwhile, was taking in Ninth Floor, a moving documentary about a student protest against racism at the very University where Matt was once a student.
Next, Sean and I attended the premiere of Into the Forest, another booked turned into movie. Whereas being familiar with the story in The Martian only made me salivate for what I knew was coming, in this movie, it made me dread it. The knowledge was like a burden that I felt heavy around my neck. It’s not an easy movie to begin with: suddenly, and for no known reason, the apocalypse is nigh. The power goes out. Food and gas are scarce. People act like animals. It doesn’t happen all at once, but every day the power stays out it gets a little worse, a little more frantic. Two sisters, played by Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood, live in a remote location out in the forest. Their isolation helps keep the safe but also leaves them vulnerable. The movie is tense, and I felt like it was almost worse not knowing what was out there. Most apocalypse movies are action-driven, bloody, violent, and scary, but this one is the quietest movie about the end of the world as we know as you’ll ever see. But the quiet is ominous. Director Patricia Rozema is masterful in the creation of mood – the forest creeps around them, reclaiming what belongs to it. The movie avoids the awful tropes that usually come along with an apocalypse scenario, but doesn’t quite achieve the character study it seems to want to be either. This is really about the relationship between the sisters, and both Wood and Page give great performances with the thin material they’re given.
Matt attended Midnight Madness, a TIFF tradition programmed by Colin Geddes that features all kinds of horror, fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, and action, with one catch: it has to be BANANAS. This year Matt bravely attempted Hardcore, a POV movie that was a gamble that didn’t quite pay off. But we salute Matt for the attempt – after all, this is what TIFF is all about!
I was disappointed not to be able to fit in a Short Program while at the Toronto International Film Festival. The festival allows us to see many movies at once – movies that will go on to big box office success, movies that I’ve dreamt about since reading the book, movies from other countries and cultures that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to – but it also allows us an introduction to new and emerging film makers, many of these through short films. So while I didn’t get to see this at TIFF itself, TIFF introduced a new concept this year where you could buy a ticket to stream the program online, and then watch a Q&A session afterward with some of the directors (they call it round-table but we all know that table’s a rectangle, bitch).
The moderator suggested that 500 of their new best friends would be watching this short cuts program via vimeo, which is true. To all of the film makers: hello! We are so happy to watch and support. To masturbation and carbs: salut! I am watching, not because I wasn’t at TIFF (I was and am and will be) but because this is an experiment in offering programming via streaming that I was excited to be part of. It’s giving people the chance to bring TIFF into their living rooms, should they so choose, and for those of us at TIFF to bring it into our hotel rooms (god, how I’ve spent many long lineups dreaming of just that) t round out our schedules.
The short film selection included:
Boxing – directed by Grayson Moore and Aidan Shipley (of Canada)
A woman returns to her beginner’s boxing class after a tragic accident leaves her a widow. An overeager sympathizer becomes the vessel of her misplaced grief. Extremely well acted and implying a larger story than the one we’re told, this film is immediately bracing and interesting.
“You have to whisper metaphor” – Grayson Moore, on keeping their vague title, Boxing
The Ballad of Immortal Joe – directed by Hector Herrera (of Canada)
This animated short tells the cowboy poetry of Robert W. Service with really beautiful, folksy, unique animation and a catchy score by The Sadies. Sean couldn’t help but declare this one his favourite. Only six minutes long, it still tells the rich story of a gun-slinger, his ill-fated love, and the curse of his immortality.
“Everything you do is a self-portrait” – Hector Herrera, on how much his film represents his body of work.
Deszcz (Rain) – directed by Malina Maria Mackiewicz (of Australia)
A prisoner receives a visit from his mistress, who has told their son that he is already dead. If this isn’t actually true, it will be some day, any day, possibly tomorrow. A film school project with the parameters: 1 location, 2 actors, 3 minutes, Mackiewicz tells a fascinating story.
“You have to make your mistakes in a much more expensive and dangerous environment.” – Mackiewicz, on not going to film school
Kokom – directed by Kevin Papatie (of Canada)
A tribute to his grandmother, Papatie presents the story of the Anicinape people as a journey beginning and ending with resilience.
Dream The Other – directed by Abril Schmucler Iñiguez (of Mexico)
Diego dreams of another man’s life – his home, his family, every detail more interesting than his own humdrum life. The more he dreams, the more his own reality seems to transform and take on new meaning.
Bacon & God’s Wrath – directed by Sol Friedman (of Canada)
This is a mixed-media documentary that tells the story of 90 year old Razie Brownstone and how she’s about to eat bacon for the first time. Having kept kosher her whole life, often as a tribute to her parents and her beliefs, Razie discovered “The Google” 2 years ago, and its magic ability to guess the end of her sentences. Knowing that so many others had asked the very same questions that she’d struggled with, especially about faith, gave her a greater feeling of “connectedness” than she’d ever gotten at synagogue. The film is as experimental as Razie and you can tell by this long paragraph devoted to just 9 minutes of film that I found it entertaining and enlightening.
“Go out and meet other filmmakers…you learn a lot from engaging with othe pople.” – Sol Friedman’s advice to his younger self
El Adiós – directed by Clara Roquet (of Spain)
A servant is lying her elderly client to rest – gently dressing the body while also preparing food for the funeral and caring for the grieving mother and granddaughter. All of her duties complete, she finally dresses herself for the funeral – and what happens broke my heart.
The Call – directed by Zamo Mkhwanazi (of South Africa)
A taxi driver finds out that the prostitute he’s been seeing is pregnant with his child. What does that mean to him? Be with her? Change her ways? Abort? Courtney does it justice over at Cinema Axis.
That Dog – directed by Nick Thorburn (of USA)
I’m struggling to describe this one. Michael Cera and Tim Heidecker play these sleazy guys who house-sit for a buddy and wreak havoc in his apartment complex.
Thorburn on the joke of his title, That Dog: “A dog being either a literal canine or a kind of terrible person.”
I’m so glad I got to see these. A short film is a snap shot worth savoring. I hope you might discover these yourselves, and that you might recommend some of your own favourites.
I hardly know how to begin summing up our crazy time at the Toronto International Film Festival. We’re actually only about halfway through our experience, but if I don’t start putting down some thoughts now, I’m going to run out of usable memory space.
Day 1
Demolition: Our first film of the festival is still probably my favourite. Music-obsessed Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild) calls this the “most rock-n-roll movie I’ve ever made” and while that’s not the descriptor that immediately came to my mind, I do get where he’s coming from. I would call this movie vigorous. It’s very alive, ironically, since it’s about a man (Davis, played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who’s been numb for the past dozen years or so. It takes the sudden death of his wife for him to realize that he probably didn’t love her. And once that realization is made, his whole life starts to tilt to the left. He becomes obsessed with understanding and improving small, safe things: the leak in his fridge, the squeak in a door, the defective hospital vending machine. A surprisingly confessional letter about the latter connects him to a lonely customer service lady (Naomi Watts) and they stumble together toward truth, just two lost souls helping each other without even meaning to. Gyllenhaal is nothing short of amazing. We see him removed from grief, literally doing whatever he can just to feel – manual labour, loud music, the embracing of pain. Gylllenhaal does disconnection eerily well. But he also has some bracing bonding scenes with a young co-star, the two careening from frank discussions about homosexuality in Home Depot, to the point-blank testing of bullet proof vests. The mourning in this movie is off-kilter to say the least, and jumpcuts and flashbacks keep the loopy momentum going – sometimes quite elegantly, as the editing and cinematography are both superb. Davis busies himself with demolition – he likes taking things apart, methodically, to see how it looks inside, but he can’t quite put it all back together. The physical demolition of his house, of the things surrounding him, serves as an apt metaphor for his sorrow, for his life up until now. It is brutal and quirky and offbeat. Gyllenhaal has been turning in solid performance after solid performance, but this one might be The One. It’s an unconventional movie but also deeply spiritual in its way. Jean-Marc Vallée, when asked after the movie about this theme, responded: “Have you ever smashed the shit out of something? It feels great!”
The Lobster: I realize now, having used words like quirky and offbeat to describe Demolition, that there aren’t words to describe this one. Director Yorgos Lanthimos is a sick man. He has imagined a world not so unlike ours, he thinks, where single people are so ostracized that it’s been made illegal to be without a spouse. When alone, they’re forced into this hotel where they either find a mate, or get turned into an animal. Many fail. Exotic animals abound.This is how we meet Colin Farrell and John C. Reilly as they desperately attempt to be lucky in love. It’s got the deadpan feel of a Wes Anderson movie, only instead of the warm and fuzzy nostalgia, there’s bleak and panicky hopelessness. This movie won’t appeal to most, or even many, but if you can stomach the brutality, this movie is not without some major laughs. And believe me, you earn them. Sean was having a little post-traumatic shock as he lef the theatre, but a few days a lots of reflection later, he found the movie to be undeniably growing on him. The movie is absurdist and bizarre and unique. It is occasionally shovel-to-the-face brutal. Lanthimos understatedly calls it a movie “about relationships”, and his leading lady, Rachel Weisz called it his most “romantic” yet.
Eye In the Sky: Helen Mirren and Barkhad Abdi joined director Gavin Hood in introducing this wonderful film to us – just icing on the cake as the film itself would have been more than enough. Helen Mirren, as you might expect, is completely compelling as a Colonel who’s been tracking radicalized British citizens for 6 years. Just as she’s found them she encounters bureaucratic hell trying to get permission to do her job – that is, to eliminate the threat. What I didn’t realize going in to this movie is that it would not solely be a vehicle for Mirren but a really strong ensemble cast who all pull their weight to give this film so many interesting layers. Drone warfare is obviously a pretty timely discussion, but this movie is also an entertaining nail-biter, successfully blending ethical dilemmas with on-the-street action thanks to Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) who ratchets up the tension. The crux: there’s a house full of terrorists. They’re literally arming themselves for an imminent suicide attack. Capturing them is not an option – they must be killed before they kill dozens, or hundreds. But just outside this house is a little girl, selling bread. So government officials debate her fate. Mirren the military tour de force is adamant that the terrorists must be stopped at any cost. Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), the guy with the finger on the trigger, is not so sure. You can see the weight of this decision in his eyes, knowing it’s not his to make, yet doing everything in his power to stall. If he’s the heart and Mirren is the head of this operation, there are dozens of politicians muddling up the chain of command in between. The movie is asking us what is acceptable – the sacrifice of one bright little girl to save potentially dozens? The politicians waffle. The girl herself is not the problem, rather it’s the way it would look to the electoral public. How can they spin this? Who will win the propaganda war? Hood does a great job of subtly reminding us that no matter what, not everyone in the kill zone deserves to die. But at the same time, he lets us feel the urgency, lets us count the potential dead bodies if the suicide attack is allowed to continue. And who would be responsible for that? This movie never stops being tense, even when it draws uncomfortable laughter: Alan Rickman, at the head of the table of the dithering politicians, rolls his eyes for all of us as everyone passes the buck. This movie never flinches and it doesn’t take sides. There is an emotional heft to it and I felt it on a visceral level when this sweet little girl is callously referred to as but “one collateral damage issue.” Oof.
Sicario: Matt was ultimately disappointed with the film but was still lucky enough to be at the premiere where Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro were both on hand to answer questions along with Canadian director Denis Villeneuve.
We Monsters: A German film by Sebastian Ko about a mother and father who follow their most primal instinct to protect their teenaged daughter even as she commits an unspeakable crime. It’s weirdly relatable and abhorrent at the same time, and keeps asking us what we would do even as it pushes the envelope to deeper and darker places. Many shots are obstructed, keeping shady characters exactly that, a little out of focus, a little blurred, a little on the sly. The cinematographer cultivates a sense of dread expertly, boxing those characters in, keeping the shots almost claustrophobic. There’s a real sense of panic, of increasing alarm and desperation, and it’s not easy to watch. But it is kind of fascinating. Afterward, Ko was on hand to answer questions, and when someone asked him about the recurrent shots of a butterfly eventually emerging from its cocoon, he confessed that at first it was just meant as a metaphor for adolescence, but in the end he was struck that what emerged was a “pretty ugly creature” and made for a pretty fitting parallel.
It’s really exciting to be at the Toronto International Film Festival and very cool to be in the audience for the world premiere of a movie like Freeheld. Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, and Michael Shannon all walk the red carpet before addressing the audience to introduce the film, and then sit down to watch it themselves. It’s a special thing to share a movie theatre with the very people who have made the movie but it is very moving, and a profound honour to share it with the person who inspired it. Last night, Laurel Hester’s widow, Stacie Andree, was in attendance.
Packets of tissues were given out to us as we gained entrance, and as I made liberal use of mine, I wondered what this experience was like for her.
I hope it was cathartic. I hope it was empowering. I hope it was a fitting tribute.
I’ll write an actual review on this later; for now I want to reflect on what it means to have been part of this.
Since I read for leisure less than I’d like, it is rare for me to be hoping that Hollywood does justice to a book I absolutely loved. Andy Weir’s The Martian is that book. Jay handed it to me a while back and the way she did, I knew it was something special. The Martian is both the most accessible and most science-heavy science fiction novel I have ever read. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favour at some point and check it out. You won’t regret it.
When I heard that Ridley Scott’s adaptation of The Martian was premiering at TIFF 2015, it went to the absolute top of my list. And it quickly became clear I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Despite having a good window for our premium selections, the red carpet premiere was gone before we even had a chance at it. But fortunately, Matt used his window to grab Jay and me a pair of tickets for the next (and only other) TIFF screening of The Martian. We got to see it yesterday and it did not disappoint!
The movie is everything it could possibly be. My only question as we were leaving the screening was whether there was a way they could have kept more in the movie, because some of the problems that arose in the book did not make it into the movie’s two-hour-plus run time. But that’s inevitable and it’s not something I can criticize because the movie was expertly paced and there was nowhere to expand without losing momentum. It’s a reason to re-read the book but not a fault of the movie.
The best part of the whole experience was seeing the spirit of the book preserved and celebrated. As Jay pointed out afterward, while we lost a little Mark Watney time, we gained some time with the other characters, and it was a pleasure to get to know them better. It might even be a better fit with the theme shared by the book and the movie, namely that when we all work together, we can accomplish remarkable things. All we need is a little motivation. There’s no villain here. There are only challenging problems to be solved by the people who are determined to save one unlucky botanist, most notably the botanist himself. It’s a joy to watch it all play out, especially against the backdrop of a Mars that is both desolate and vibrant. The visuals are incredible from start to finish. See The Martian in 3D if you can – it’s simply spectacular.
The Martian is perfect. I can’t wait to see it again.
Matt wrote last week about the choices he made for his viewing pleasure (and hopefully your reading one) at the Toronto International Film Festival, slated to open with a bang (or rather, a star-studded screening of Demolition) on September 10.
I held mine back because the truth is, the TIFF selection process was not a fun one for me. TIFF has weird rules where it takes your money and then weeks later gives you a “randomly” selected window of just 60 minutes for making your choices – I’m seeing maybe 20 movies out of over 430, by my count, so that’s an awful lot of frantic sifting, choosing, replacing, and scheduling to do in just 60 minutes. It goes without saying that I was “randomly” selected to choose more than 24 hours later than Matt, which meant that a lot of my first, second, and third choices were “off-sale”. Off-sale doesn’t mean sold out, it means that they’re holding some tickets back for when they go on sale to the general public. And nothing against the general public, but I paid my oodles of money, I’m travelling in from out of town, and I don’t think it’s very nice or very fair to force me (since I’ve prepaid for tickets) to see movies that aren’t selling as well, when someone who pays a nominal $25 on the day of will have better luck than me.
I’ll stop my belly-aching now. We’re still pretty lucky to be going at all and I know that. So, without further whining about first world problems, my TIFF picks:
Demolition: I’m actually going to see this one with both Matt and Sean, so it’s a rarity, and I’m not only looking forward to seeing what director Jean-Marc Vallée can squeeze out of Jake Gyllenhaal, I also can’t wait to discuss it with my favourite movie-going friends.
The Lobster: This one is quirky as hell and right up my alley, and I never thought I’d be saying that about a Colin Farrell movie. Newly heartbroken, he checks into a hotel where he’s under the gun to find a mate within a super tight time period – or risk being turned into an animal and put out to pasture? It sounds more like a child’s drawing than a movie, but there you have it.
Eye in the Sky: We ‘re doing the red-carpet treatment of this one on Friday night, and Dame Helen Mirren is confirmed to attend. She’s looking less glamorous in the still from this movie, playing a Colonel who’s spent a long time tracking down a radicalized citizen who must be stopped. But when drone operator Aaron Paul reports that a small child has wandered into the kill zone, the team has to decide whether the casualty of this little girl is acceptable collateral damage. Yowza!
The Martian: You may know that I have been frothing about this movie for months now. I luuuurved the book and passed it along to all of my literate friends but then waved a flag of skepticism when I heard that a) it’s directed by Ridley Scott b) it’s a reteaming of Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain, lately seen together in Interstellar. But I hope hope HOPE that they “science the hell” out of this thing and blow my fucking socks off.
The Danish Girl: Eddie Redmayne is almost certainly in the running for a second Oscar for his portrayal of Lili Elbe, the 1920s Danish artist who was one of the first known recipients of sexual reassignment surgery. The trailer alone looks so lush that I’m drooping to see it – which is fortunate, because TIFF stuck me with TWO pairs of tickets to this. Woops! Anyone know someone who’s looking for a pair?
Freeheld: We’re seeing this one on flashy premiere night as well and will see both Julianne Moore and Ellen Page walk the red carpet. They star as a real-life couple from New Jersey who just want Moore’s pension to go to Page when Moore passes away. It was a huge case for LGBT rights and I’m betting that both of these ladies really bring it.
The Dressmaker: Funny story. I read this book recently, in anticipation of this movie. And I really, really liked it. Only: it’s about a young dressmaker who survives the sinking of the Titanic thanks to her wealthy employer. Knowing that Kate Winslet was set to star, I was shocked that she’d choose to go back to Titanic in this way. I mean, if anyone can put it off, it’s Winslet, but still. The more I read, the more I thought maybe she’s not playing the dressmaker, maybe she’s playing the plucky journalist. I still couldn’t believe the press wasn’t making a bigger deal out of this, but it wasn’t until I finished the book that I realized that I’d read the wrong Dressmaker. Same title, different author. Oopsie daisy again. But I’m confident this one’s good too, and it’s Kate Winslet, so we’re almost guaranteed to see boob.
Into the Forest: Here’s a movie that looks so familiar to me in the trailer that I believe I have read the book. I do not know for sure that it’s based on a book and I’m not looking it up. This way even I’ll be surprised (or, REALLY surprised!). Evan Rachel Wood and Ellen Page star as sisters who live in a remote cabin in the woods. The world is on the verge of the apocalypse and their location keeps them safe, but also leaves them vulnerable…
Anomalisa: This is the Charlie Kaufman-directed stop-motion animated ode to a motivational speaker and his bleak existence. I have no idea what to expect from it and that’s why I’m so crazy excited. It could go a lot of ways but no matter what, I do believe I’ll be seeing something special.
About Ray: Have you ever attended a red carpet event in the middle of the afternoon? Me neither! TIFF is so jam-packed with gliterry premieres that it starts packing them in at odd times just to get through them all. I’m tickled we got tickets to this (hard won, believe me) and I’m anxious to see if it’s as good as it looks, and if this and The Danish Girl will cancel each other out (though this one is also about a gender transition, it’s set in modern day, with Elle Fanning as the young woman who wants to be a young man, Naomi Watts as her mother, and Susan Sarandon as her mother.
Miss You Already: This might be a little too chick-flicky to be regular festival fare, but it’s Toni Collette so say what you want, but my ass will be in that seat at the ungodly hour of 8:45 in the goddamned morning. Toni and Drew Barrymore play lifelong friends whose friendship hits a bit of a roadbump when one discovers she’s pregnant just as the other gets a cancer diagnosis. Note to Sean: bring tissues, or an extra-absorbent shirt.
Maggie’s Plan: Starring the delightful Greta Gerwig, Maggie’s plan to have a baby on her own is derailed when she falls in love with a married man (Ethan Hawke) and destroys his relationship with his brilliant wife (Julianne Moore). I like Gerwig a whole lot but to be honest, I’m really wondering how this dynamic is going to work – and I’m super intrigued to find out how Bill Hader fits into the mix. Julianne Moore is going to be one busy lady at this festival!
The Family Fang: Directed by and starring Jason Bateman, he plays a brother to Nicole Kidman, both returning to the family home in search of their super-famous parents who seem to have disappeared. Jason Bateman is a little hit or miss for me but I committed on the off chance that the man playing his father – legendary Christopher MotherFucking Walken – might be in attendance. He’s not slated as far as I can tell, but I’d kick myself right in the sitter if he was and I wasn’t.
Legend: Tom Hardy plays real-life English gangsters. Yes, plural: the Kray twins. This dual role is getting a lot of buzz and since I seem to be mesmerized by Hardy in nearly everything he does, I’m super excited to check this one out.
Biggest TIFF regret: Missing Room. We’ll be back and forth between Ottawa and Toronto, but this particular movie only plays twice during the whole festival, and neither screening is on a day I’m there. I loved this book and am anxious to see the movie treatment. Good or bad, I want to pass judgement. I want to feast my little eyes. I am heartbroken to miss this one.
Two questions:
We still have some tickets to alocate. Any suggestions?
If you were in The Lobster hotel and failed to find a mate – what animal would you be turned into. Me? An otter. Definitely an otter.
We’ll be posting updates as we go, and be sure to check out our Twitter @assholemovies for photos of the red carpet premieres!
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 