In Contention

Tag: festivals

  • TORONTO: Wrap up

    TorontoAnd so it ends. The last of the press screenings have winded down, the final Gala is tonight, and the awards are on the way, ending this year;s Toronto International Film Festival.

    This year’s fest was terrific, one of the better festivals, though still not as strong as 2007, which for me was the greatest ever. Once again you can feel the Oscar buzz happening around several of the films and performances that have been screened here, just as you can hear and see the buzz around films without distribution. At the end of it all, it was a great time.

    I sit here today exhausted, with aching legs, tired of coffee, and not really wanting to see a film for a few hours. There is nothing worse than attending a festival and struggling to find good films, but that has never happened to me in Toronto.  Montreal is a different story…

    The best film I saw at this year’s festival was the searing “Precious,” a stunning piece of cinema that is a work of art. Demanding, difficult, full of hate and rage, yet ultimately hope, “Precious” is extraordinary. Over the course of the festival I encountered many folks in the lines and on the streets asking me which film I thought stood out most, and each time I answered this one. Those who had seen it agreed wholeheartedly, and I met only one person who did not care for it.

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  • TORONTO: ‘Whip It,’ ‘Valhalla Rising’

    Drew Barrymore in Whip ItMore from the fest…

    “Whip It” (***)

    Skinny Milly Miller.  I remember that name from the roller derby shows on Saturday afternoons in the 1970s. My grandfather loved sports of any kind and when there was nothing else, it was roller derby he would watch, and invite me to do so with him. I loved him so much I never had the heart to tell him how stupid a sport I though it was, so I sat down and watched it with him. His favorite skater was a tall, black woman named Skinny Milly Miller.

    Anyway, I have always liked Drew Barrymore, that familiar manner in which she makes you feel like an old friend, even when meeting you for the first time. Though I never thought much of her as an actress until this year (in HBO’s “Grey Gardens”), I have always respected her as a fine movie star.

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  • TORONTO: Douglas tops in the tedious ‘Solitary Man’

    Michael Douglas in Solitary ManPeople tend to forget that Michael Douglas won his first Academy Award not as an actor but as a producer, bringing the classic film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” to the screen in 1975.

    His father Kirk had given him the project after years of trying to get the things going and Michael went outside the industry to find the money to make the picture, approaching music giant Saul Zaentz. The rest, as they say, is history, and Douglas became a major player in the business who has no doubt gone toe-to-toe with many a studio executive to get what he wants for his films.

    I wonder, however, even with an acting Oscar eventually to his credit (for Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street”), has Douglas ever been given his proper due as an actor?

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  • TORONTO: Michael Caine, ‘Harry Brown’ and Oscar

    Michael Caine in Harry BrownMichael Caine has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, the first time for his performance in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,”and the second for Lasse Hallström’s “The Cider House Rules.”  Among others, he ousted Tom Cruises’s brilliant performance in “Magnolia” with the latter.

    Beloved within the business, Caine is considered an old war horse who has made as many bad movies as he has good ones (I think I’m being very fair), and it is my belief the Academy would like nothing more than to finally recognize his work as a leading man. He has been nominated in the past for “Alfie,” “Slueth,” “Educating Rita” and “The Quiet American,” but he’s never won in the category.

    Let me be clear: SO WHAT?

    The man has two Academy Awards on his mantle — two — while many other actors are still waiting for their first (and in some cases, many still await their first nod).  Why is it that every time Caine makes a film that is reasonably good and he offers a typically fine performance, people start talking Oscar? Personally, if I were Caine, I would find it a tad demeaning.

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  • INTERVIEW: Robert Duvall

    Robert DuvallToronto Film Festival

    Sitting down with Robert Duvall is more than a little intimidating. The man does not suffer fools, nor does he have a lot of time for small talk or stupid questions. He likes to talk, but he also likes an informed conversation.  As he nears 80, he is still a force of nature, with a powerful presence and voice that goes up and down depending on his excitement.

    Duvall and I first met in 1997 when “The Apostle” exploded out of Toronto, landing the veteran actor a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actor.  The performance was a volcanic, furious portrait of a man trying to atone for his sins by building a church in the backwoods of Louisiana after killing a man in a fit of rage. For 13 years Duvall shopped the project around Hollywood, being turned down by the major and minor studios until his accountant suggested he finance the film himself.  In a position to do so, he did just that, eventually selling the film at TIFF after a famed bidding war.

    I got to know him when he invited me to spend some time with him on the set of “John Q” while it was shooting here in Toronto, the invitation coming during the 2000 Film Festival when I interviewed him a few times for his soccer picture, “A Shot at Glory,” in which he co-starred with soccer star Ally McCoist.  In the years since, Duvall has kept himself busy with great roles and performances in films such as “Broken Trail,” for which he won the Emmy Award for Best Actor, and “Kicking and Screaming,” a soccer comedy with Will Farrell that seemed like an odd choice for the actor.

    Recognized as one of America’s greatest thespians, Duvall has given an array of brilliant performances over the years, from his breakthrough, shy Boo, in “To Kill a Mockingbird” through to his mafia lawyer Tom Hagen in “The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” and perhaps most memorable of all, Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now.” He came into his own in the 1970s, at a time when other major talents such as Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Gene Hackman were also turning in brilliant performances, changing the face of American acting.

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  • TORONTO: ‘The Road,’ ‘Bad Lieutenant,’ ‘Chloe’

    Chloe(Please note, as opposed to Kris and Guy, I tend to grade films on a 5-star scale.)

    Loads to catch up on today and some interviews still to write up. First off, I have to confess that I disagree with Kris’s review of “The Road,” respectfully of course, and I think I have a reason why I might have viewed and appreciated the film in a very different light than he.  I also saw Werner Herzog’s “The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” which features a hugely entertaining performance from Nicolas Cage, and the latest from Atom Egoyan, “Chloe,” which features a splendid performance from Amanda Seyfreid.

    Let’s dig in…

    “The Road” (****)

    This was a dark and unsettling film based on the brilliant book by Cormac McCarthy about a father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) journeying to the south after the world has essentially seen its end of days. We are never really given a clear explanation as to what happened, but the vague description we do get sounds like nuclear war finally came, and the planet is dying a slow death.  Trees are dead, there is nothing alive or growing anymore, the world is a gray and dreary place, as though hell had suddenly burst forth from the bowels of the earth.  The south brings warmer weather, which is what the man and his son need, he believes, to survive, and survivial is what the film is about.

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  • Justice for ‘Lourdes’

    Sylvie Testud in LourdesAs I wrote in my reflection on the Venice festival awards yesterday, the biggest surprise (and by no means a pleasant one) of the jury’s winners list was the complete lack of recognition for Jessica Hausner’s excellent, quietly subversive religious drama “Lourdes,” a favorite of critics and pundits alike.

    Happily, FIPRESCI is there to set things right. The international critics’ organization, which hands out its own awards at every major festival (and many minor ones, too), has honored “Lourdes” as the best film at Venice this year.

    It’s a prestigious citation, often given to films with broader arthouse appeal than those the jury might select: recent Venice FIPRESCI honorees include “The Queen,” “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “The Secret of the Grain” (or “Couscous,” to my fellow Brits). They’re not always contrarian, either: they matched the Cannes jury this year by picking “The White Ribbon.”

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  • TORONTO: Duvall the talk of the fest — shades of 1997

    Robert Duvall in Get LowYou know a film is hot when it is the subject of conversation in the screening, in the press room, and in the hallways of the hotels where the press junkets and meetings are being held.  In 1997, “The Apostle,” the exquisite film directed, written by and starring Robert Duvall, was the talk of the Toronto film fest after its world premiere the night before, but in fact, the buzz started partway through the film when October Films and Miramax began a bidding battle that has become the stuff of legend.

    Duvall left the festival with his career reborn, the film, which he financed, was sold (to October), and the multi-hyphenate began winning critics awards for the film at year’s end. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association named him Best Actor that year and a few weeks later the National Society of Film Critics did the same. Though snubbed for a Golden Globe nomination, he was nominated by both the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy, but he eventually lost to Jack Nicholson in “As Good as It Get.”

    The film eventually nailed down a solid $24 million at the box office and Duvall’s performance is considered by and large one of his best.  He came back to a couple of years later with his new film “Assassination Tango,” a failure, and he is here again with two films — John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” which I will write about later today, and “Get Low,” a film recalling shades of the 1997 fest as it has captured the conversation here.

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  • Thoughts on the Venice winners

    Colin FirthOkay, so I was mainly off the mark. When it comes to guessing festival awards, I usually am. But at the same time, few of the selections revealed tonight by Ang Lee’s jury at the closing ceremony of the Venice Film Festival really surprise me.

    It was clear that Samuel Maoz’s “Lebanon” would walk away with something (I had it pencilled in for Best Director), given its combination of political currency and personal investment on the part of the director. (The film is an autobiographical reflection on his own experience in the First Lebanon War.) Personally, I think giving it the Golden Lion is a tad generous for a debut that, while very accomplished, never quite hits home emotionally, but it’s a reasonable winner.

    I have more of a problem with the runner-up Grand Jury Prize going to Fatih Akin’s “Soul Kitchen,” though I saw it coming. The film is a sweet but slipshod effort that hardly represents the director’s strongest work; with several more deserving films in competition going unawarded, its selection feels like a nod to the more mainstream contingent of the competition. (The absence of critics’ favorite “Lourdes” from the winners list, meanwhile, is the biggest shock here.)

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  • TORONTO: ‘Precious’ — a work of art

    PreciousThe problem with film festivals is that sometimes we critics speak too soon. Earlier today I stated that after seeing “Up in the Air,” it might be the best American film of the year, and until seeing “Precious” this morning, I meant it.

    Two hours later, walking out of the theater, exhausted, beaten up, stunned by the images I had just seen, yet with a kernel of hope, I realized I had just witnessed a work of art. The press, us hardened critics who can be so cynical and negative, applauded this film for several minutes as the credits rolled, but it was more than that.

    Most of us grew up in stable homes with loving parents, never knowing the meaning of hunger, never having to worry about being beaten or abused either physically or verbally.  Most of us, but not all of us.

    Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) does not know this world because she lives in hell. In her world, her father rapes her; she bears two children by this monster by the time she is 16 and refers to her her daughter, a Downs Syndrome baby, as Mongo, not out of cruellty, but out of ignorance. Precious is obese and illiterate, yet escapes from time to time into a fantasy world of her own where she is desirable and beloved by all who know her.

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  • TORONTO: ‘The Informant!,’ ‘Jennifer’s Body,’ ‘Up in the Air,’ ‘Hugh Hefner’

    Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body(Please note, as opposed to Kris and Guy, I tend to grade films on a 5-star scale.)

    Day two of the festival is always among the busiest because the major studios are here and they want you to see their films. Movies with buzz coming out of Toronto quite often end up in the Oscar race.

    “Slumdog Millionaire” exploded out of this festival last year and went all the way to eight Academy Awards.  Who would have thought coming in to Toronto that Danny Boyle’s film would rock the fest? So which film will it be this year?

    If Venice and Telluride can tell us anything it is that Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” is winning critics over and should land George Clooney in the Oscar race once again for Best Actor.  Kris certainly loved the film when he saw it, and frankly, so did I.

    But Clooney will not be alone here in the race for Best Actor.  One of his good friends will be right there with him: Matt Damon for his amazing work in “The Informant!.” Today was one of those good days when I bounced from good film to great film back to good film, to great documentary. I may have seen the best of the fest on Friday.

    Let’s get into some reactions…

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  • TORONTO: Penelope Cruz and ‘Broken Embraces’

    Penelope Cruz in Broken EmbracesWhen did Penelope Cruz become such a great actress? This was a woman  I could barely stand looking at on screen not more than five years ago, yet now she is an absolute delight, with depth, emotion, and the ability to find the truth in her characters, an innate ability that is downright uncanny. God, her work in “Vanilla Sky” was painful and her performance in “Blow” was so shrill and terrible it was the sort of acting I’d label obscene.

    Then saw “Volver” and was stunned by her work, blown away, knocked out and forever silenced about her talent. It is not the first time this has happened to me. I regularly attacked Julia Roberts until “Erin Brockovich” and “Closer” and was Joel Schumacher’s biggest detractor until “Tigerland.”  If my love of cinema has given me anything it’s the ability to admit when I am wrong, or when an artist has done something that surprised me enough to admit they possess an unexpected talent.

    Cruz was lovely in “Volver” and richly deserving of the Oscar nomination she received, just as she deserved to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress last year for her hell cat in “Vicky Christina Barcelona.”  There was something dark in her work last year for Woody Allen, something dangerous, something terribly sexy. And then to see her in “Elegy?”   It was an entirely different piece of work, equally good, but each of her 2008 performances displayed extraordinary range not seen before. Was the talent always there and the roles just weak? Or is it that Cruz simply grew as an actress?

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  • VENICE: Who will take the gold … and who should

    The Golden Lion at the Venice Film FestivalAnd so it comes to this. Ten days of blazing sunshine, free-flowing Prosecco, occasionally “Brazil”-style administration and – oh, right – a few films too, will come to a head tonight as Ang Lee and his merry band of jurors will name the supposed best of the fest.

    I’ve written before about the near-futility of predicting festival awards. Unlike the Oscars, the voting body is different every time, so you’re never quite sure what they’re looking for. We persist because it’s fun, thought it actually becomes more difficult when you’ve seen most of the films in question, as personal reservations (or fondnesses) keep getting in the way.

    If I were back in London, for example, I’d be more open to the whispers that Fatih Akin’s cheery but slight crowdpleaser “Soul Kitchen” is a serious contender for the Golden Lion, effectively serving Marco Müller’s more populist programming direction; having actually seen the film, my gut reaction is more in the “you’ve got to be kidding me” vein.

    If no clear-cut frontrunner has emerged from this year’s lineup, it’s because no film has united critical opinion and mainstream media interest the way “Brokeback” or last year’s champ “The Wrestler” did. Some are plumping for Michael Moore, though that would seem a bit old-hat five years after Cannes laurelled “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

    (More thoughts, and my will win/should win picks, after the cut.)

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  • ‘A Single Man’ trailer

    The more I think about Tom Ford’s debut feature “A Single Man” (not to be confused with “A Serious Man” — keep up!), which unspooled yesterday to a very warm Venice reception, the more I like it. I wrote my review on the fly, so I’m not sure if my full admiration for the film’s extraordinary craft and marvelous Colin Firth performance came through, but this is a special piece of work.

    Thanks to diligent reader Tim for digging up the trailer, which captures the film’s woozy, moody beauty perfectly.

  • Joe Dante’s ‘The Hole’ wins Venice 3-D award

    The HoleI missed yesterday’s screening of Joe Dante’s kiddie horror film “The Hole” — and hardly regret it, having caught Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” instead — so I can offer little commentary to the news that the film has won the festival’s inaugural Persol 3-D Award.

    The prize, determined by judges Scott Foundas, Dave Kehr and Nadia Ranocchi, is given to the film that “best explores (the) new cinematic frontier” of 3-D.

    It’s a fairly obvious winner, given that it was the only official Venice selection on the nominee list, which included such formidable challengers as “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D.”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festivals, festivals and festivals

    George Clooney in Up in the Air• After weeks of hype, “Up in the Air” landed in Telluride, and delivered. (And finally got a trailer too.)

    • Meanwhile, as some compare director Jason Reitman to Billy Wilder, we interviewed him at the festival.

    • We also got chatty with possible awards contenders Paul Schneider and Venice prize-winner Mark Boal.

    • On the other side of the Atlantic, our Venice coverage continued, including a first look at Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story.”

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  • SHORT TAKE: “A Single Man” (***1/2)

    Colin Firth and Julianne Moore in A Single ManVenice Film Festival

    In a curious way, revered fashion designer Tom Ford had a defined auteur’s stamp before he ever so much as shot a frame of his debut film: from his louche advertising campaigns to his infamous curation of Vanity Fair’s 2007 Hollywood issue to the forms and textures of his designs themselves, Ford has constructed a highly idiosyncratic brand identity fusing burnished retro cool and chilly modern eroticism.

    No surprise then, that the handsome, eggshell-delicate character study “A Single Man” is very much an extension of that identity: trading in polished surfaces and swoonily aestheticized desire, the film looks on occasion like an animated GQ shoot. (And yes, Ford provides the leading man’s wardrobe.)

    But just as you’re tempted to dismiss the film as a gorgeous vanity exercise, it reveals a keen beating heart beneath the decor — and the match of Ford’s precise sensibility to Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 literary examination of the effect of grief on an overly compartmentalized life begins to make perfect sense.

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  • VENICE: ‘Mr. Nobody,’ ‘Lola’

    Jared Leto in Mr. NobodyThe Lido finish line beckons, as this morning saw the press screening of the final film in Competition, Tom Ford’s “A Single Man.”

    Ford’s debut (which I’ll deal with in a separate Short Take) surpassed my expectations, completing a slight upswing in the standard of films on display that began with yesterday’s second Surprise Film selection: Brillante Mendoza’s “Lola,” which proved surprising in more than just a programming sense.

    Jaco van Dormael’s elaborate fantasy “Mr. Nobody” never quite gelled for me — and still, none of these titles touch “White Material” — but it’s been a pleasant day’s viewing nonetheless.

    Now the process begins of sorting the wheat from the chaff — with not a whole lot of wheat to go around, in my eyes — and playing the futile guessing-game of who will take home the gold. I’ll have a post with my predictions and preferences tomorrow, but for now, the last bundle of Competition reviews:

    “Mr. Nobody” (**½)

    Jaco van Dormael’s first film in 13 years betrays the formal rustiness and structural indiscipline that such a hiatus can cause in an artist, but there’s enough unique visual artistry and demented storytelling bravery on display here to make one glad he’s back.

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