September 17, 2002

TORONTO WRAP-UP

I hardly know where to begin.  A festival like Toronto is a gigantic bite to chew on… the reason that the festival is so important is that all of us who attended in earnest will be chewing on it for months and months to come.

I think I’ll start with the 27 movies that I am upset that I didn’t see and the reasons why:

ALL OR NOTHING
Great word on the Mike Leigh movie. 

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM
Every indication is that this will be a joyous hit for Fox Searchlight

BETTER LUCK TOMORROW
Could it be The Big Chill for Asian-Americans?

BIG SHOT’S FUNERAL
Donald Sutherland and Paul Mazursky in a Chinese-made satire?  Yes.

CAMEL(S)
The buzz was good going in and coming out

THE CUCKOO
I started hearing buzz on this Russian-made film mid-festival… too late.  I hope it will show up again.

THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO
There are mixed reviews on this Gael Garcia Bernal drama… I’d like to decide for myself.

CUL DE SAC : A SUBURBAN WAR STORY
Garrett Scott is a smart, young guy and the idea of his doc appeals to me.

GERRY
Can it really be that bad?  I gots to know!

THE HEART OF ME
A great British cast scares me when no one has jumped to pick it up, but…

JULIE WALKING HOME
Agnieszka Holland is always interesting and I’m thrilled at the idea of William Fichtner having a complete role.

LAUREL CANYON
The buzz is great on this Sony Classics film.

LOVE LIZA
Philip Seymour Hoffman reading a phone book might be fun.

ONE NIGHT THE MOON
Good word from Australia and an interesting director.

OT: OUR TOWN
Someone told me that I had to see it… so I want to see it.

RAISING VICTOR VARGAS
The buzz grew on this film throughout the week.

SPIDER
Cronenberg… `nuff said.

SWEET SIXTEEN
Highly praised Ken Loach

WINGED MIGRATION
A movie that’s completely unexplainable, but well-loved by the folks at Sony Classics.

10
Kiarostami… maybe not the best Kiarostami, but Kiarostami.

RESPIRO
Valeria Golina is one of the most underrated actresses… here she gets center stage.

RUSSIAN ARK
A tour through a museum done in one long shot… and still, not boring, so they say.

SPELLBOUND
BeBe Lerner’s love film… she pushed and pushed and pushed… supposed to be great, great fun according to everyone I spoke to who saw it.

THE TRIALS OF HENRY KISSINGER
Political intrigue.

TRILOGY: THE AFTER LIFE/AN AMAZING COUPLE/ ON THE RUN
Michael Wilmington was one of the few mainstream critics who took the time to see all three… and recommends them highly.  

CHIHWASEON
Im Kwon-Taek is worth the trip.

WHALE RIDER
Became a hot buzz film… I saw 10 minutes and didn’t connect… but it was 10 minutes.

And now…
The 2002 THB TIFF AWARDS!!!!

BEST SELF HYPE/ MOST FISHY PURCHASE:  This guy Eli Roth is a genius.  His film, Cabin Fever, is a piece of crap.  I mean, there is just about nothing there.  You want to believe the fanboy buzz sites, please be my guest!  But what I saw was a guy who is a true savant when it came to self-promotion, but who couldn’t direct his way out of a wet paper bag.   I saw nothing original or clever or ingenious about this film.  There is no question that you could make a low-budget thriller about a flesh-eating virus, but you would have to be able to understand the concept of metaphor to make the movie worth watching.  Instead, we get lame bumpkin jokes, five C-level acting teens, one prominent pair of implants and a bunch of horror gags that really don’t work as well as they think they do.  The one real laugh I got out of the film was when an apparently retarded kid starts doing kung-fu moves… turns out that this was a complete fluke, as the odd-looking kid they hired happened to be a black belt. 

As far as the purchase, the trades are reporting that Lions Gate bought the film for $2.5 million and a guaranteed $12 million in P&A for a release… which would make it among Lions Gate’s biggest expenditures for first-run P&A ever.  I don’t really believe either number.  But if these figures are true, expect L.G. to take a warm bath… the kind where you open up a vein.  My guess is that Lions Gate is thinking of Cabin Fever as their Super Troopers, the Fox Searchlight purchase from Sundance 2001 that managed just under $20 million before heading to video.   Under those assumption, I think it is fair to credit Ain’t It Cool with this sale.  You might remember that AICN was a big supporter of Super Troopers and ended up with pull quotes.  I can see where companies might see the same trajectory as possible here.  But the big difference is that you need something to sell and Searchlight had it.  Lions Gate does not.

In his post-sale hubris, Roth mocked the companies that decided not to fund his film because there were no saleable hooks.  And were this a good movie, I might be amused.  But the truth is, it’s a bad movie and there are no hooks, so watch for the fight when Roth tries to hold Lions Gate to a summer release, 2000 screens or an eight-figure P&A budget.  (Nevermind that Lions Gate has zero chance of finding 2000 screens for this film during the May – August period.) Roth could ride his personal charm to as much as $8 million total domestic gross, if he lets Lions Gate move the movie to Halloween.  They can play Midnight dates.  And then, they’ll have to try to make their money back on video… if they spend anywhere near $12 million on P&A.

MOST OVERBLOWN STORY:  All those copy inches dedicated to Roger Ebert not getting into Far From Heaven has become the biggest non-story of the festival.  It is true that there were more “oversold” industry/press screenings this year than ever before.  No one I spoke to could remember more than one in any other year.  However, Toronto still offers seven or eight screening rooms worth of screenings during the first nine days of the festival.  In fact, on Thursday the 5^th, there were significantly more press/industry screenings than even regular festival screenings. 

There is zero chance that press of any kind will be boycotting Toronto in the future.  It is the most important festival in the world.  And even if you got shut out of one press screening a day every day you were there, you are doing damned well.  Even if you were to see only press screenings in Sundance, for instance, you would spend hours of your day traveling between their two press screening rooms, which are smaller than any Toronto screening rooms.   

We in the press are petty and thin-skinned.  We are spoiled beyond belief by Toronto press goddess Gabrielle Free and her team, not to mention the studios that pay for us to drink and eat virtually every night of the festival.  Roger is an easy and popular target.  They’ll figure out an improvement on the scheme and life will go on.  (The last word on all of this is in today’s ROTD.)

WORST PIECE OF REPORTING:  A local Toronto station offered a grim “exclusive” after Nick Nolte had returned to Malibu and was arrested for driving under the influence.  He had told his interviewer that he had done “a little” heroin every day while shooting The Good Thief in order to get into character.  HA!  Apparently, these silly folks didn’t realize that Nolte is infamous for mocking entertainment journalist by lying to them outright.  Not too many will forget the junket during which he removed his dentures.  Well, he removed somebody’s dentures.  He has his own teeth.  His timing on this one was pretty bad… but the story was a bittersweet one, of a man who was about to get in trouble for being under the influence making fun of being under the influence.  No one does “a little” heroin.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:  Frida, Auto Focus, The Four Feathers & Punch-Drunk Love lead the way.  I expected epic greatness from two of the films and something kinky from the other two… and got very little.  Frida is the best of the bunch and The Four Feathers is the worst, but forget wins at the box office or at the awards for this group of disappointing films… which just goes to prove the painful adage that early fall releases are being written off by their studios as awards contenders.

THE ONLY SERIOUS BEST PICTURE CONTENDER AT TIFF 2002: There were some great movies at Toronto this year.  But “great” is not the primary ingredient for an Oscar run, as has been proven over and over and over.  Films like Moonlight Mile and 8 Women and Far From Heaven and Bowling For Columbine and even Antwone Fisher are going to have intense constituencies.  But when I look at the Oscar race (which I will do in depth tomorrow), I look for movies that are going to find a home with Academy voters.  Too early, too clever, too gay, too Moore and too black would be my unfortunate guess for the five quality films that I have mentioned.

But there was one film, not even scheduled right now for 2002, that has the emotion and spirit that I believe Academy voters go for.  Critics might have been mixed on The Thin Red Line, The Green Mile, Chocolat and Moulin Rouge -  just a few of the recent titles that were talked down  but were then embraced by Academy voters when push came to shove.

This year’s dark horse candidate coming out of Toronto has to be Jim Sheridan’s film, In America.  I’ve written about it before, so I won’t beat it to death.  But I don’t see another picture scheduled before December that is a legitimate Best Picture candidate. 

Fox Searchlight – Please don’t let what happened to The Dish happen to In America.

MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE: The quality work by previously successful directors who have been kind of quiet lately.  Alan Rudolph’s The Secret Lives of Dentists, Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief, Sheridan’s In America, Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, Phillip Noyce’s The Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence are all terrific movies from directors that some people have written off prematurely.  Were it only that DePalma could be in this group…

BIGGEST STUDIO WINNER: I would say that Disney’s Moonlight Mile got the best push from the Toronto festival.  Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon were discussed and photographed everywhere. 

BIGGEST MINI-MAJOR WINNER:  Focus’ Far From Heaven was THE critical buzz film of this festival.  There were films that others loved more, but pretty much anyone you asked included this film high on his/her list.  The question now is whether Focus has the budget to try to sell this very special oddity in any city with fewer than 3 million people.

BIGGEST WINNER WITH NO DISTRIBUTION:  This was a very odd festival in that so much of what was good was already attached to a distributor.  Whale Rider was one of the films that had a growing wave of buzz and ended up winning the festival’s People’s Choice Award… yet it still has no distributor as it moves onto its next stop on the festival circuit.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A DISTRIBUTOR:  Fox Searchlight had a stunning run at Toronto… four films at the festival and four major successes.  Antwone Fisher, Bend It Like Beckham, The Good Thief and In America are all home runs.  Only Beckham is more a commercial movie than a critical success.  The other three could all score Oscar nominations and wins for performances and have potential in other categories, although only Antwone Fisher is currently slated for release in 2002.  The only question about the performance comes in the absence of The Dancer Upstairs, which I believe is slated for The New York Film Festival and Garage Days, the troubled film from near-iconic director Alex Proyas.  But, wow… what a festival!

BEST FAMILY FILM: The South Korean film, The Way Home, tells the story of a boy of today and his grandmother who seems generations away and how they find, well, the title.  This is a beautiful little film that will have a hard time finding its way because South Korea is not the National Flavor of the Week.  But every family should watch it together… because watching together is just the kind of value that The Way Home knows that we can all find again.

MOST SURPRISINGLY INOFFENSIVE:  I expected Auto Focus and Femme Fatale to push a few buttons in me, but nada.  On the other hand, I didn’t get much out of The Other Side of the Bed except for something sexy… even if it was a pretty iffy flick.

MOST SURPRISINGLY OFFENSIVE:  I still can’t quite get over the sexual segregation of 8 Mile.  Having lived on the south side of Chicago and in other urban cities all of my life, a movie about modern teens who hang around in a colorblind way, but who don’t have sexual relationships with people from other races struck me as bizarre.  I can’t believe that a guy as smart and daring as Curtis Hanson did this intentionally.  But it’s there.  The only “romantic” connection between a black person and a white person in the entire film is when a white girl who has a boyfriend (no specifics/no spoiler) has sex with a black guy… who is beaten by the white boyfriend before he even gets to have his orgasm.

MOST HAPPY TO HAVE MISSED: I put them on my schedule, but the last things I wanted to see on September 11 were The Guys and 11'09'01.  I will probably manage never to see The Boys, however well performed and well intended.  And I’m sure I will see 11'09'01 one of these days, if only to appreciate the work of some interesting directors and to develop my own opinion about the political subtexts of those films.

BEST NEWS COMING AFTER THE FEST:  Miramax has decided to release The Quiet American this year, in time for Oscar consideration.  Hallelujah.  The Variety story is here.

PAGE TWO: 61 Films From The Toronto Film Festival