“I gave God a chance to kill me” Hailed by the TIFF moderator as Michael Haneke’s masterpiece, I found myself expecting something very specific from Das weiße Band [The White Ribbon]. Thinking about the uncomfortable feeling he leaves the audience with during both Funny Games and Caché, I readied myself for a dark and disturbing look into an Austrian town before the First World War. The film is just under two and half hours long, somber in its execution and quietly powerful in its subject matter. At every second I…
Read MoreMonth: September 2009
TIFF09 REVIEW: Agora [2009]
“I was forgiven, but now I can’t forgive” I will not deny the fact that Alejandro Amenábar is one of my favorite directors at the moment. With the eerily creepy The Others and the emotionally wrought Mar adentro, how could he not be? And why have I not seen Abre los ojos yet? Disgraceful I know. Well, you can imagine my immense excitement when finding out his new 4th century Egyptian epic Agora would be playing as a gala presentation in Toronto for TIFF. The trailer made it seem very…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: The Informant! [2009]
“Wow! What a ride; lot’s of memories” Leave it to a director like Steven Soderbergh to film an epic six-hour look into the life of Ché Guevara at war, follow that up with a low-budget indie about a prostitute, and then throw everyone for a loop with the dark, off-beat comedy The Informant! When I first started hearing about the project, I anticipated a serious investigative film about a company’s price fixing scandal. Based on a novel by Kurt Eichenwald, called by many a thriller, the tale shows us how…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: Daybreakers [2009]
“Humans were offered a chance to assimilate; they refused” There really is nothing more invigorating than a TIFF Midnight Madness screening. The atmosphere is alive with genre fans anxiously waiting to see some blood, gore, and dismemberment. I fortunately was able to get tickets for the world premiere of the new vampire flick Daybreakers in just that setting. Introduced by twin brother directors, Michael and Peter Spierig, the audience was treated to a great time, starting from one brother speaking aloud that he was drunk, “It’s the best way to…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: Bright Star [2009]
“There is a holiness to the heart’s affections” Director Jane Campion has always been one of those names who’s work I just never had the pleasure of viewing. Finally, a few years back, I had the opportunity to see The Piano almost fifteen years after its release. It definitely lived up to expectations and with a couple of her works getting the Criterion DVD treatment recently, the chance to watch her new tale of John Keats and love Fanny Brawne at the Toronto International Film Festival couldn’t be passed up.…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: Cracks [2009]
“The most important thing in life is desire” It is time to welcome a new member into the Scott family of filmmakers. Ridley’s daughter Jordan Scott has arrived with Cracks, a story about a British boarding school and the activities that occur within, based on a novel by Sheila Kohler. Scott spoke of how growing up in a similar type setting is what led her to want to bring the tale to the big screen; the traditional atmosphere where the establishment itself becomes every student’s world. The girls in the…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: Visage [Face] [2009]
“You, you, you, you are so pretty!” Sometimes an image can get you excited to see a film. When looking to fill a hole in a five film day at TIFF, my friend and I saw an image that looked both fantastical and intriguing, so much so that we blindly said yes, we are going to watch Visage [Face]. I’m the first person to say that a movie can be loved for visual style alone as I always hold the image as more powerful than the word. Oftentimes I can…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: 잘 알지도 못하면서 [Like You Know It All] [2009]
“Everything’s important” I had begun to start thinking that either my friend and I haven’t picked films outside our comfort zone at the Toronto International Film Festival or that the fest just didn’t let in bad movies. Truthfully, after two straight years, and a day, we had never experienced a film that we just both could not stand … even the boring and mean Margot at the Wedding had redeeming qualities of technical skill. Well all hypotheses on why were thrown out the window after screening the Korean film 잘…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: Antichrist [2009]
“Can’t I just be afraid, without a definite object?” How can Lars von Trier have a film at the Toronto International Film Festival without me making sure my butt is in a seat? The Danish maestro may not fly, so an in-person Q&A is impossible, (he did hold one via Skype the day after our screening), but talent seems to not care, flocking to work with the man. Willem Dafoe, getting to know the director during Manderlay, just happened to ask his agent what von Trier was up to, and…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: An Education [2009]
“They’re making themselves a friend” When I think Nick Hornby, films such as High Fidelity and About a Boy come to mind. It’s obvious of course, being that he wrote the novels for which both were based, but I mention it because I really didn’t know what to expect from An Education, scripted by he and directed by Lone Scherfig. The subject matter seemed so much darker and serious than his previous work; until finding out it was based on a memoir during the opening credits, I really was perplexed.…
Read MoreTIFF09 REVIEW: Jennifer’s Body [2009]
“I’m a kicker; it says so in my chart” I’ll admit to not being very excited to see Jennifer’s Body on first look. Coming as a fast-tracked script, hot on the heels of Diablo Cody’s successful debut Juno, it just looked rushed, abused, and left for dead. After the production house Fox Atomic folded and dissolved back into its parent, the future did not look bright. However, being a teen horror flick starring Megan Fox had to all but assure it a theatrical release of some sort. And here it…
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