From Natural Born Killer to duct-tape and bubblegum superhero in 15 years. The career of Woody Harrelson is indeed a strange one. And here we have a very amusing super-hero dementia film (see also Special), a film which is getting its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, titled after its hero, Defendor.
Trailer is tucked under the seat.
For those of you hitting TIFF this year, tiffreviews.com is a big bookmark for tracking the critical and bloggy buzz. And to start off things right, they have 160+ trailers of films showing at TIFF this year to help with selection process (also, their one-click ‘add to google calender’ feature is another indispensible tool).
Check all the trailers, organized by programme, here.
Oh, and FYI, a scan of the scheduling booklet is available here for those who like to ‘rough draft’ their selection pics out first.
Adding in some Lars Von Trier, I’m sure North American audiences are interested in the controversial Antichrist, as well as the Senegalese musical (not the hockey team!) Saint Louis Blues and a pair of interesting family films: One from New Zealander and director of Black Sheep, Johnathan King called Under the Mountain; the other from Denmark involving time travel, Timetrip.
Also the latest work from Margarethe von Trotta, György Pálfi, Ole Bornedal, François Ozon, Claire Denis and Michael Haneke’s Cannes award winner The White Ribbon.
And the proverbial, much, much more. Happy festivalling.
So I’m big time looking forward to Wernor Herzog’s remake of Bad Lieutenant when it debuts at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival in September. But up until a few days ago, I didn’t realize he had another film being released the same week: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done.
Inspired by true events, the story is of ancient myth and modern madness. Brad Macallam, an aspiring actor performing in a Greek tragedy, commits the crime he is to enact in the play by killing his mother. The mystery unfolds in a series of flashbacks displaying the psychological destruction of the killer set off by an ill-fated white-water kayaking trip in a distant land.
So we got a trailer today and boy oh boy does this look awesome. If the name Herzog doesn’t do it for you, maybe the name David Lynch as producer will? Or to be honest, better yet is another Michael Shannon role who absolutely kills in everything he’s done as of recent (Bug, Shotgun Stories, Revolutionary Road). It’s not out of bounds to say he’s likely the most underrated actor working today.
Looks like I’ll be using up two of my festival passes for Herzog films come September. No complaints.
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Not since the double hit of Richard Linklater, with Tape and Waking Life, at the 2001 TIFF festival, has the opportunity to see more than one work by a favorite filmmaker at the same festival been granted, but this year its Werner Herzog x2 and I am absolutely giddy. This last batch of announcements for what is coming to the Toronto International Film Festival does not disappoint, and finally, finally, finally, the Row Three Cormac McCarthy Fan Club gets an opportunity to behold John Hillcoat’s adaptation of The Road (and its not a Gala!).
Take a look at the full list, courtesy of the TIFF site
GALAS
Agora Alejandro Amenábar, Spain
North American Premiere
In the fourth century, while Egypt was under the Roman Empire, violent religious upheaval in the streets of Alexandria spills over into the city’s famous library. Trapped inside its walls, the brilliant astronomer Hypatia (Rachel Weisz) and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the ancient world. Among the group are the two men competing for Hypatia’s heart: the witty, privileged Orestes and Davus, Hypatia’s young slave, who is torn between his secret love for her and the freedom he knows can be his if he chooses to join the unstoppable surge of the Christians.
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky Jan Kounen, France
North American Premiere
Igor Stravinsky premieres The Rite of Spring at the Theatre Des Champs-Elysées, in Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is in attendance and is mesmerized. But the revolutionary work, too modern and too radical, leads to boos and jeers from the enraged audience. Seven years later, now rich, respected and successful, Coco Chanel once again encounters Stravinsky, now a penniless refugee living in exile in Paris after the Russian Revolution. The attraction between them is immediate and electric. Following an offer from Coco, Stravinsky moves into her villa in the Garches to work, with his consumptive wife and children in tow. And so begins a passionate and intense love affair between two creative giants. » Read the rest of the entry..
A bit behind the steady stream of press releases from the Toronto International Film Festival Group and rather than simply cut and paste them below (they’re all here), I’ll highlight the three films that really jump out:
Jean-Marc Vallée, whose C.R.A.Z.Y. won the award for Best Canadian Feature Film in 2005, will close the festival with a period piece of a different kind, The Young Victoria is set in the period from 1836, the year before Victoria ascended the throne, to 1840, the year she married Prince Albert, and revises the widely held picture of Queen Victoria as an elderly widow dressed in black. In addition to being a love story and family drama, the film explores the idea of instant celebrity – one minute Victoria is living under virtual house arrest, the next she is the most famous woman in the world. Vallée may have caught the ear of director Martin Scorsese with by weaving some iconic rock songs with real flair into C.R.A.Z.Y. because Scorsese is one of the producers here.
Harmony Korine returns to Gummo territory in this handheld video of a loser-gang cult-freak collective who do antisocial things in a nonnarrative way, except for the song-and-dance numbers. The film has no IMDb page at the moment, but is called, charmingly, Trash Humpers.
Terry Gilliam needs no introduction to the average movie-goer or cinephile, and his last project, which starred Heath Ledger, is getting the Gala treatment from TIFF. Delayed, re-worked and finally completed with other actors subbing in for Ledger, this one should be quite the curio, and likely a very tough ticket to get. The film is of course, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.
Also, noted is Atom Egoyan not only opens the festival with the Julianne Moore starring Chloe, but also has his 1991 film The Adjuster screening as the Canada Open Vault sidebar (which highlights classic Canadian cinema), which I might also add is showing the 1926 film Sparrows which stars film icon Mary Pickford.
My big vacation this year that I’m really looking forward to is a headfirst dive into the whirlwind of cinema knows as The Toronto International Film Festival. Several titles have already been announced and I’ve already started the “weeding out” process. Out of hundreds (thousands?) of films being shown, I’ll only be seeing thirty, so choosing carefully will be obviously important and difficult.
Right off the bat I usually discount documentaries as a style of film making that isn’t really my cup of tea (in general – Anvil! fucking rocked!). But one film I keep teetering back and forth on whether I want to see or not is called Under Great White Northern Lights, which documents “The White Stripes” tour across Canada. Unfortunately this trailer doesn’t help my decision at all. I like the look of the all black and white seascape, but it doesn’t give me much to go on in terms of “plot” – for lack of a better word.
Thanks to The Documentary Blog for the heads up on the trailer, but dammit, I need more information before I decide to spend 2 of my precious 60 hours of viewing time on Jack White.
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Courtesy of TIFF site
GALAS
Dorian Gray Oliver Parker, United Kingdom
World Premiere
In Victorian London, the handsome Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes) is swept into a social whirlwind by the charismatic and cunning Lord Wotton (Colin Firth). Immersed in the hedonistic pleasures of the city, Dorian vows he would give anything to keep his youth and beauty – even his soul. Based on the Oscar Wilde novel, Dorian Gray examines the destructive power of beauty, the blind pursuit of pleasure and the darkness that can result from both.
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Rebecca Miller, USA
North American Premiere
From all outward appearances, Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn) leads a charmed existence. An anchor of feminine serenity, she is the devoted wife of an accomplished publisher (Alan Arkin) 30 years her senior, the proud mother of two grown children, a trusted friend and confidant. But as Pippa dutifully follows her husband to a new life in a staid Connecticut retirement community, her idyllic world and the persona she has built over the course of her marriage will be put to the ultimate test. Adapted from writer-director Rebecca Miller’s novel of the same name, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee presents the complex portrait of the many lives behind a single name.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Werner Herzog, USA
North American Premiere
Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage), a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department, is promoted to Lieutenant after he saves a prisoner from drowning in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, during his heroic act, he severely injures his back and is put on prescription pain medication. A year later, Terence – struggling with his addictions to sex, Vicodin and cocaine – finds himself in the battle to bring down drug dealer Big Fate, who is suspected of massacring an entire family of African immigrants.
» Read the rest of the entry..
One of the very special treats at the Toronto International Film Festival is the midnight programme. Here, with 1000+ energetic movie goers, the chance is offered to take in the latest of wild and crazy genre fare from around the world. Horror, Martial Arts, Rockumentaries, and usually a zany asian bit of full on weirdness. Programmed by Colin Geddes for the past decade or more, the diversity and quality of the line-up (somehow!) improves year over year, and this one looks fun.
BITCH SLAP (The riff on Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!)
A TOWN CALLED PANIC (animated French stop motion animation)
ONG BAK 2: THE BEGINNING (Title says it all, bone crunching mayhem from Thailand’s Tony Jaa)
SYMBOL (Where the director/star Hitoshi Matsumoto of DIANIPPONJIN tries to one-up himself for strangeness)
THE LOVED ONES (Aussie Horror from the guy who directed ‘self help mumbojumbo, The Secret)
SOLOMON KANE (A 17th century Puritan, Solomon Kane is a somber-looking man who wanders the world with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms.)
[REC]2 (Just like the first one, but with more guns and military types)
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD (New Romero film. Local filmmaker alert!)
DAYBREAKERS (Bigger budget, star laden (Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Ethan Hawke) followup by the Spierig Brothers to Undead)
and…
Opening Midnight Gala: JENNIFER’S BODY (Diablo Cody + Megan Fox + Karyn Kusama = buyer beware!)
(Oh and in the non-midnight programs, several media outlets have let titles ‘slip’ prior to press release, MidnightMoviesBlog has the goods on the ‘unofficial at this time’ titles, here)
While I was out of town, The Toronto International Film Festival dropped a lot of high profile festival titles into the wild. In the interest of general discussion and anticipation of the locals (and those travelling in), here are some of the films and where they lie in this years TIFF programme: Getting the red carpet Gala treatment is the Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek starring dramedy Get Low about a man who fakes his own death to organize his own funeral, it is directed by cinematographer Aaron Schneider. Also, Precious will be getting the spotlight after its success elsewhere on the festival circuit. Opening the festival is the maybe-controversial-in-a-Kinsey-sort-of-way biopic on Charles Darwin called Creation. This is directed by the director Jon Amiel who has not done much lately, but was the director of one of the best TV minis of all time, The Singing Detective. Creation has a great collection of actors involved including Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly and Jeremy Northam (and the other Capote, Toby Jones).
In the Special Presentations category, there is Steven Soderberg‘s The Informant!, Niki “Whale Rider” Caro‘s The Vintner’s Luck, Johnnie To‘s Vengeance, Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Viking epic, Valhalla Rising, Neil Jordan‘s dark fairy tale, Ondine, Bong “The Host” Joon-ho‘s (much anticipated by me, Mother, Ricky Gervais’ The Invention of Lying, the latest from provocateur director Bruno Dumont Hadewijch, Kiwi Jane Campion finally returns with romantic take on John Keats with Bright Star and of course, very many more.
The full press release, which includes plot descriptions of all the films, is tucked under the seat.
I should have suspected something was up when chatting with Andrew late last night about the Toronto International Film Festival this year, and noticing that the website was currently under maintenance. This morning, the TIFFG announced the ‘festival of festivals’ titles, their yearly aggregate of many films that have played around the world at other big continental festivals like Berlin and Cannes.
Toronto remains styling itself the largest and most important North American Film Festival, and they bring the variety and the quality only hinted at in this early international list. Personally, I’m most looking forward to Hiroakazu Kore-Eda‘s Air Doll. A film that promises to be a heck-uv-a-lot better than Lars and The Real Girl, when the sex doll actually comes to life. Other Asian titles include new films from Tsai-Ming Liang, Hong Sang-Soo, and Pen-ek Ratanaruang and the much acclaimed Karaoke out of Malaysia. I am quite glad to see TIFF heavily sampling The Orient from which titles seemed a bit sparse in last years edition. I must confess much ignorance to the European and Middle Eastern cinema in the below line-up, but fans of Red Road can rejoice, as Andrea Arnold returns with her follow-up, Fish Tank. I will be popping around the web to get a handle on these titles, note that Kazakhstan has a film in there, with no sign of SBC.
TIFF always begins with a big title list like the below just before passes/packages/tickets go on sale, in the 2009 edition of TIFF which runs between September 10-19th, Passes are going on sale on July 6th.
Full list of titles, directors and one sentence description are tucked under the seat.
