In Contention

Tag: Toronto Film Festival

  • ‘Tamara Drewe’ trailer

    This trailer has been hanging around for a few days, but since Stephen Frears’s countryside romp was recently tapped for the Toronto Film Festival, it seems appropriate to feature it now. I reviewed the film out of Cannes and found it singularly strained and irritating — the kind of thing described as “quintessentially English” by those who think “That’s Amore” quintessentially Italian. Nonetheless, it found a number of credible admirers on the Croisette, and will likely continue to do so in Toronto. See what you think. Click on the image below to check it out at Momentum Pictures, or watch the embed after the cut.

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  • ‘Never Let Me Go,’ ‘Rabbit Hole’ among Toronto premieres

    Toronto International Film Festival organisers unveiled a typically cluttered lineup of galas and premieres for this year’s edition — including, as usual, a number of films pencilled in as 2010 awards contenders.

    Of the 50 titles announced thus far, half will be world premieres: those include such highly anticipated works as Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go,” John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator,” Tony Goldwyn’s “Conviction” and Rowan Joffe’s “Brighton Rock.” The remaining half have either appeared at previous festivals — with a hefty contingent from Cannes, including Mike Leigh’s “Another Year,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful” and Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” — or look set to make their debut at Venice the week before.

    With Venice due to reveal its own lineup tomorrow, the fact that such still-unseen titles as Ben Affleck’s “The Town,” Francois Ozon’s “Potiche,” Julian Schnabel’s “Miral,” John Madden’s “The Debt” and Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” are all marked only as North American premieres would appear to confirm that they are all Lido-bound. (I’m surprised, however, that Guillaume Canet’s “Little White Lies” will be making its first appearance at Toronto rather than at a European festival.)

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Festival pick-ups, the season’s fetes and the PGA’s 10

    Robert Duvall in Get Low• We wrapped up Toronto as Lee Daniels’s “Precious” took the festival’s audience award, putting it on a solid track for Oscar.

    • We got a look at the first trailer for “Harry Brown,” which may or may not be an awards film for actor Michael Caine.  John, you’ll recall, isn’t feeling it.

    • We saw ‘Meatball’ dominance at the box office in this weekend’s Sunday Cents column.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column kicked off our weekly Oscar coverage with a call for perspective on the perceived Best Picture frontrunners, while a new weekly column from across the pond — The Long Shot — introduces a different perspective mid-week.

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  • ‘Precious’ takes Toronto’s People’s Choice

    I’m a bit out of pocket down south so a fleeting post is all I can offer the history-making moment that is ‘Precious’ winning Toronto’s audience prize. No other film has taken the audience award at both Sundance and Toronto, I believe, but this miraculous film’s Oscar trajectory has been written for months. Congrats to all involved, and onward…

  • 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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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 3 — ‘A Serious Man,’ business in Toronto and unacquired hopefuls

    Oscar TalkThe third installment of Oscar Talk lands as Toronto winds down and, seemingly, the season’s biggest questions are being answered. Or are they?

    I’m joined by Anne Thompson of indieWIRE as always and we discussed the following:

    • The Coen brothers’ “A Serious Man,” Anne’s thoughts, my thoughts, the Coens doing Woody, etc.

    • The first sell of Toronto, “A Single Man” (not to be confused with “A Serious Man”), and the Oscar prospects of Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.

    • Business at the fest and a shifting acquisition paradigm in the industry.

    • Anne gives her thoughts on Annette Bening and Samuel L. Jackson in Rodrigo Garcia’s “Mother and Child,” great performances, but will it be picked up?

    • Robert Duvall’s Oscar-worthy work in “Get Low,” a film that has yet to be picked up when it’s the sort of film that may have ignited a bidding war in years past.

    • Thoughts on other films that bowed at Toronto, including “Capitalism: A Love Story,” “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” and “Jennifer’s Body” (leading to a conversation about Megan Fox’s talents that will put each of us out on a limb).

    • Anne loved Edward Norton in Tim Blake Nelson’s “Leaves of Grass” but found the film on the whole to be a missed opportunity.

    But nothing seems to be decided even with a bulk of the season’s offerings having been screened in Venice, Telluride and Venice. Onward!

    As always you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.  (If you have some audio issues with the levels, my apologies — with Anne in Toronto and me in North Carolina, we had some technical difficulties.)

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  • INTERVIEW: Steven Soderbergh

    Steven SoderberghToronto Film Festival

    Steven Soderbergh freely admits how much luck has played into his career, beginning with winning the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1989, the victory that launched his career and his first major work, “sex, lies and videotape.”

    “First of all the film was not supposed to be part of the competition but when another film was removed they bumped mine into that category,” he explains, “and then Francis Ford Coppola, who was supposed to be head of jury, couldn’t do it, so Wim Wenders took over. Without those two sets of circumstances would anything good have come out of Cannes for me? You have to ask yourself those things. Luck was with me, and I am fine with that. It’s knowing what to do with that luck.”

    Soderbergh is a relaxed guy in this posh hotel suite. For some reason Warner Bros. chose the Royal York Hotel for their press days, away from festival village, and a cab (or subway) ride away from the action. I don’t mind the break, and frankly I admire Soderbergh very much, so I was looking forward to meeting him and speaking with him about his film “The Informant!” (opening today) and his career.

    At this stage in his life, as he nears 50, Sodebrergh smiles and says he sees so much comedy in the world around him these days.  “You have to see the humor in things don’t you,” he asks.  “When I read ‘The Informant’ for the first time I saw it as a comedy, which many other people did not. But think about it, there have been films like this done as drama, Michael Mann’s ‘The Insider,’ which I like very much, so I chose not to go in that direction.

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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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  • Could ‘Mother and Child’ corner the female vote?

    Mother and ChildOne of the surprises of the TIFF coverage I’ve read so far has been the notably enthusiastic reception for Rodrigo Garcia’s “Mother and Child.” It’s a film I confess hadn’t been on my radar at all until now, despite my high regard for Garcia’s quiet, character-oriented work in film and especially television.

    “Mother and Child” seems to further carve his cinematic niche of tasteful, female-focused ensemble dramas, so I was expecting the same kind of warm, if slightly reserved, critical reaction that greeted “Nine Lives” and his underrated debut “Things You Can Tell Just By Looking at Her,” but so far, “Mother and Child” seems to be aiming higher than that.

    Jeff Wells was eager to be first on Monday, gushing that it was “a super-sensitive, perfectly acted and exquisitely written adult drama” and “a Best Picture contender — guaranteed, hands down, take it to the bank.” He then rather spoiled his own party by later admitting that he’d skipped the film’s last half-hour, which he later found wanting — but still generally stands by the film.

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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: Clive Owen

    Clive OwenToronto Film Festival

    “I have two lives, mate,” Clive Owen says with clear-eyed certainty. “My work, and when I am done, my home life. There is no question to me which is more important. My wife and children are everything to me.”

    Owen is as intense in person as he is in some of the roles he played on screen the last few years. Best known as a tough guy type in films such as “Sin City” and “Shoot ‘Em Up,” he is also brilliant without the edge, as evident in “Bent” and his Oscar-nominated turn in “Closer.” He sits close to me, his eyes never leave mine, and when I glance down to make a note he is still staring at me. But when he smiles his eyes smile as well. As Scott Hicks says, “Clive loves his life, he loves his family, his girls, his work, and his success…he loves his life.”

    I wondered how much that love for family and life allowed Owen to tap into the mind of the character he portrays so very well in “The Boys are Back,” the new film from Aussie director Hicks, who first made an impact here back in 1996 with “Shine.” Owen has emerged as one of the great British actors in recent years, his scalding performance in “Closer” an extraordinary poiece of acting that seemed to blow everyone else in the film off the screen, no mean feat considering the quality of the acting in the movie. Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman gave career best work in the film, many of their scenes coming opposite the actor in front of me.

    Owen’s road to this place began in television, with his first memorable film performance coming in the powerful drama “Bent,” based on the play by Martin Sherman about Hitler’s massacre of homosexuals during the Holocaust. It was “Gosford Park” that next earned him strong notices, followed by a role in “The Bourne Identity” with Matt Damon.

    After the box office failure of “King Arthur,” Owen was back in theaters with “Closer,” which changed the course of his career. Brilliant work in “Children of Men,” “Inside Man” and, more recently, the under-appreciated “Duplicity,” have made him one of the top stars working in film today, and among the busiest. At one time he was among the leading contenders for the role of James Bond, a role that eventually went to Daniel Craig. He possesses a Bogart tough guy persona, but with a soft side buried within. There is certainly an edge to his work, but there is a heart there as well.

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  • One blogger’s word over another

    Colin FirthI must say, when I saw and loved Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” at Venice last week, I obviously picked up on the awards possibilities for Colin Firth’s career-best work. Hard not to.

    What I didn’t quite anticipate is that it would be the talk of Toronto only a few days later. It’s encouraging to see such a niche film garnering so much attention. That’s what Harvey Weinstein will do for ya.

    So, is Colin Firth decisively in the Oscar pack? Well, it depends who you choose to listen to. Anne Thompson says a big “hell yeah”:

    Firth, who just turned 39 [sic], is a slam dunk for his first Oscar nomination. While the actor has delivered in many strong roles over the years, including BAFTA-nominated performances in Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones Diary, he’s never single-handedly carried a movie like this.

    David Poland, meanwhile, offers an equally emphatic “hell no”:

    Colin Firth is excellent … It’s the kind of performance in the kind of movie that could draw an Oscar nod in the thin list of actress contenders each year. But Best Actor is a 1000 to 1 shot. In fact, Julianne Moore has a better shot at Supporting, which might be why The Weinsteins bought the film.

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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: More on ‘The Road’

    The RoadThere were some complaints in yesterday’s Toronto thread that I wasn’t specific enough as to why I enjoyed John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” so let me make it clear.

    The film captures, miraculously, in its performances and its images, a profound sense of loss, both for what was and for what will never be. Trees fall around the actors, nothing left to replace them.  There are no flowers, no bushes, no sense of life.  The land — the earth — is slowly dying and with that humanity will die as well.

    Yet The Man is dedicated to surviving and sees his son as the future, as any parent would.  “To me he’s a god.”  One day we will die but our children will live on, and that is a motivating factor carried across precisely in the film.  The Man hopes he is teaching his boy how to survive because he knows he is dying.  The constant pain is etched onto Viggo Mortenson’s face throughout the film, all joy is gone, and memory has become his foe, taking him back to happier times that simply torture him.

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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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