TIFF Docs

I had a record year for doc picks at this year's TIFF. Usually I try to see one per year (a highlight being Mondovino from 2004), but this year I saw 5! I didn't realize how many I had chosen until I got my tickets. I have to say that I loved all 5 of them. They were a highlight of my festival this year. I saw Captain Mike Across America, Encounters at the End of the World, Body of War, Night (which I blogged about in another post), and Amazing Journey: the Story of the Who. The amazing thing about documentaries is that the subject matter is so varied. I saw movies about US politics from two angles - the paralyzed solider returning from a war of which he is now opposed to, and the agitator trying to get the populace (in this case, young Americans) out to vote. Documentaries allow us to see more of our world than we would ever get experience in our lifetimes. In the case of Encounters... it was Antarctica. Wow - what a place! If I ever had the opportunity to travel to the bottom of the world, I would take it. It attracts quite the cast of characters, from travellers, to scientists, to ex-bankers! The scenery is breathtaking, and all the while, the documentary is narrated by the distinctive voice of Werner Herzog. I was half expecting the residents to have to manually portage a ship over the ice-scape from one side of the Antarctic Ocean to the other! And finally, the rock doc (of which there were a handful at this year's festival - Joy Division, Lou Reed's Berlin). I have watched my fair share of bios about The Who, much like everyone else, and thought I knew everything there was to know. Little did I know, that there is so much unreleased footage available, that we could probably continue to make Who documentaries until the cows come home! This particular film was co-directed by Paul Crowder who was the editor of the excellent docs Riding Giants and Dogtown and Z-Boys (both of which I have seen and loved, while not expecting to being neither a fan of surfing and skateboarding), so I knew to expect something great. Well, it delivered. Not only do I want to listen to some early Who music, but I also want to buy the DVD of this film when it is released (just for all the extra footage that they couldn't put into a 2 hour film).

I think I will always love docs just because there is such a wealth of topics left to exhaust!

James Blunt

I love this review of his new CD from the Scotsman. Why does one man inspire such strong feelings? Place me firmly in the hate camp, yet, like Nickelback, I seem to know all the words to every single song he has released. Why is that? Smart songwriting? Radio overplay? I think the latter.

POP
JAMES BLUNT: ALL THE LOST SOULS **


ATLANTIC, £12.99
IF SO many people profess to hate James Blunt - in a disproportionately strong reaction for a performer so insipid - how on earth did he manage to net the biggest-selling album of the millennium so far? He just doesn't seem like the type to inspire extreme reactions, positive or negative. Apart from a certain irritating quaver in his feeble voice, he is as easy to zone out as a dull song playing on the radio. Often, he is the dull song playing on the radio.
Unsurprisingly, 11 million album sales down the line, he hasn't changed his tune. All The Lost Souls is another banal parade of absent-minded melodies, hand-crafted blandness and the kind of vaguely portentous lyrics which are either plain terrible or just knowingly open enough to allow for the listener's own misty-eyed interpretation.
Lead single 1973 dribbles on about nostalgia so much that Blunt has actually turned into wet 1970s piano man Gilbert O'Sullivan by the next track. The pseudo-spiritual I'll Take Everything is marginally more overwrought, and he has actually started howling by the time he reaches Same Mistake, which is presumably what must pass for an anthem on this album. I Really Want You is just as bad an example of his cod philosophising, while the more intelligible Carry You Home sounds custom-written to replace Wind Beneath Your Wings as a funeral favourite.
This album boasts nothing as purposeful as that one about Kosovo from Back To Bedlam, but nor does it bother to have any fun. Give Me Some Love at least attempts to get jaunty with those all-pervasive 70s influences, but Scissor Sisters will always do a catchier impersonation of Elton John. With typical Blunt instrumentation, he can't even muster a big finish, just a fading piano chord.

Night

One of my favourite TIFF picks this year is the documentary, Night. From the first read in the TIFF book, I knew it was going to be great. I only wish that it wasn't at the end of the week when I was super exhausted! The filmmaker shot various scenes of Australia, both rural and urban, in the hours from dusk 'til dawn, all set to a fantastic score. It reminded me of the 'qatsi' (Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi) series, but on a smaller scale. The film featured talking heads from all walks of life expounding on their thoughts about night, darkness, fear, etc. I do hope this movie gets released because it is such a beautiful film.

European Black Comedy

One of the reasons that I keep returning to the Toronto Film Festival is to see the plethora of European black comedy. My country of choice is Denmark. It all began with Festen back in 1998. I remember Peter telling me to see it, and I thought it was brilliant. Anybody who could make comedy out of incest is okay in my books. Well, my love for Danish cinema was solidified, and I have tried to see as many movies over the years as is humanly possible, which is difficult because few are ever released on the North American art house circuit. Without TIFF, I would have never have discovered one of the best actors of Danish cinema, Mads Mikkelsen or one of the premiere scriptwriters, Anders Thomas Jensen. Sadly, Mikkelsen does not have a film at this year's festival. I wonder if it has to do with his star turn in Casino Royale, and multiple offers from Hollywood, or whether he just has decided to take some time off. I felt that Jensen's offering this year, With Your Permission, was weaker than his previous output. I felt that he didn't take the blackness far enough in this film about spousal abuse. The filmmaker seemed to want to make the movie easier to stomach. She didn't. If she would have taken the film to an absurd level, like Jensen did in one of best films, Green Butchers, a black comedy about cannibalism, it would have worked.

Other countries seem to have followed Denmark's lead, such as Norway, Belgium, et al. This year I saw a few black comedies from various European countries. Among them was Ex-Drummer from Belgium, Forever Never Anywhere from Austria, and Gone with the Woman from Norway, starring Trond Fausa Aurvaag who was also in my favourite film of last year's TIFF, another black comedy, The Bothersome Man.

European writers and directors, particularly from Scandinavia, seem to do this genre particularly well. I can't possibly explain why, but all I say is keep them coming!

Juno

I am going out on a limb here, what with 3 more days to go, but my pick for favourite TIFF 2007 film has to go to Juno. Jason Reitman's follow-up to 2005's Thank You for Smoking, is an amazing sophomore effort, and is even better than its predecessor. With a great cast and screenplay this movie was much better than I could hope for.

I initially chose the movie because my favourite television star, Jason Bateman, was set to attend the festival, and I knew that this was the movie that he was supporting. Luckily I obtained a ticket for the screening, which was already off-sale by the end of TIFF's random envelope selection period. All I was hoping for was the chance to see Bateman, and his TV son, Michael Cera. The Arrested Development fan in me is very strong!

I started hearing lots of talk about this film from the start of TIFF 2007, so I was eagerly anticipating the screening, expecting it to fall flat on its face from the hype. After the initial festival introductions, I sat down to what was the most unexpectedly frank and funny movie about teen pregnancy. From the suprisingly supportive parents, to the gushing adoptive parents to be, courtesy of Jennifer Garner and those dimples, to the sweet teen romance between Ellen Page and Cera, this movie delivered. But, the best part of the film has got to be the soundtrack! One of my favourite CD's of the 90's was a album of Carpenter's cover songs, and, lo and behold, this movie showcased the song "Superstar" by Sonic Youth in a great moment between Bateman and Page.

I love Jason Bateman in this movie! I think he has finally kicked his curse of only being in shows and movies that bomb (and all you JB fans out there who have stuck by him through thick and thin know what I am talking about). When is It's Your Move coming to DVD?????

Loving Joy Division

One of my favourite bands of all-time has to be Joy Division. Their music evokes a time and place in my life. Of course we had all heard Love Will Tear Us Apart when we were teenagers, and I found it to be such a melancholy love song, that I loved it. However, it wasn't until I was in my mid-20' s that I really discovered the music of Joy Division. I was in grad school in Montreal, doing a project with Jennifer and Joy Division's greatest hits album was our soundtrack. I went out the next day and bought this soundtrack, and now every time I hear it, I think of walking along Ave Des Pins returning from the Montreal General Hospital. It was a crisp March day, with spring in the air. Perfect walking music.

This year's TIFF seems to be the year of Joy Division. There is both a feature film, Control, and a documentary of the band. I saw the former, but want to see the latter (the showtime didn't fit my schedule for this year's festival). I have been a fan of Anton Corbijn for years (his photography and videos for Depeche Mode are so atmospheric), so I was very excited that he helmed this picture about Ian Curtis. It was brilliant. Atmospheric, black and white, and evocative of the time and place of late 1970's Northern England. I was transported back to my own memories of Joy Division with each and every performance (performed with assuredness by the actors in the film). Sam Riley was amazing as Ian Curtis. It helped that he looked and sounded eerily like Curtis. Brilliant.

My TIFF Day 1

I am looking forward to my first two movies of the festival. The first is a Turkish-German film entitled Edge of Heaven directed by Fatih Akin. I have seen his documentary, Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul, which I thought was excellent, so I am looking forward to a scripted film.

My second movie of the night is a Belgian film about a punk rock band called Ex-Drummer.

Full reviews tomorrow.

what a nice way to start the work week

Adrian and Milo! Countdown to the new season of Heroes. Less than 3 weeks now (except for the fact that I will be in Greece when the new season starts and will have to wait an additional two weeks to watch the show).