Day: September 10, 2010

TIFF10 REVIEW: I’m Still Here [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“I don’t want to be the Joaquin character anymore” I think director Casey Affleck’s letter to the audience attending the Toronto International Film Festival screening of his (faux?) documentary I’m Still Here stated the type of polarizing effect it has on the entertainment obsessed public best. “Because of the premiere in LA, I couldn’t make it before the screening and I didn’t want to be there after it,” going on to say that he will address the media’s burning questions about the validity of what he filmed in due time.…

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TIFF10 REVIEW: Wasted on the Young [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“Popular opinion is what you’re best at” Australian cinema has really surged lately with the likes of The Square and Animal Kingdom being released stateside this year. Newcomer Ben C. Lucas now throws his hat into the ring with the suspense drama Wasted on the Young. Described in the Toronto International Film Festival program book as a cross between Gus Van Sant’s Elephant and TV’s “Gossip Girl”, I find it hard to disagree. A high school setting in an elite private school populated by attractive, rich, spoiled children recalls all…

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TIFF10 REVIEW: The Way [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“You don’t choose a life, Dad. You live one.” When you decide to fit in an almost two and a half hour film about a man hiking an 800 kilometer trail through Spain at the Toronto International Film Festival, you do begin to fear whether the time might be better served elsewhere. Arriving at the gorgeous Winter Garden Theatre to ushers handing out booklets—this film has a guidebook?—only makes you question the decision further. But then director Emilio Estevez came to the stage to help introduce his new work, a…

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TIFF10 REVIEW: Conviction [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“She’s the other old lady in my class” After steady television work and three forgettable romantic features, actor-turned-director Tony Goldwyn has taken a giant leap forward in his progression as the man behind the scenes. Delving into the true-life story of Betty Anne Waters, via a script by Pamela Gray—who also wrote his debut—Conviction premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival with some Oscar buzz behind it. With a plotline concerning a woman’s drive to free her brother—in jail on a life sentence for murder—by going to college and eventually…

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TIFF10 REVIEW: Never Let Me Go [2010]

Jared Mobarak

“I didn’t want to be the one left alone” It has been eight years since Mark Romanek last gave us a feature film—the decade since One Hour Photo being filled with a spate of music videos and an ill-fated affair with what would become last winter’s Wolfman. He possesses a certain aesthetic, noticeable throughout his work as a style leaning towards darker subject matter, so when I first watched the trailer for Never Let Me Go, I thought it seemed an odd choice. Screening at the Toronto International Film Festival,…

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TIFF10: Day One Recap

Jared Mobarak

Day One at TIFF has been completed. It started with a bang … as in a rogue Customs agent yelling for us to stop at a cone wall before the actual stop followed by a seemingly exciting wrestling to the ground of two criminals at Dundas Square. We couldn’t stop to see the action completely because we had movies to see. Our first screening was cinema maestro Jean-Luc Godard‘s newest work Film socialisme [Film Socialism]. A complete head-scratcher consisting of unsubtitled French for 100 minutes, overlapping a random sequence of…

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