September 8, 2004

The 2004 Toronto Film Festival starts tomorrow night, but I have had the good fortune to get an eyeful of seventeen of the titles ahead of time. So let's take a brief look…

Being Julia - Oscar murmurs, but the only real hope is Annette Bening…. and only if the pool is shallow. One of two theater-based period movies that mean to charm us at this festival. Both failed to get to me. In this case, it is a campy, bitchy manipulative actress, played by Bening, who is having a mid-life crisis that can be fixed by a special tool. Shaun Evans plays the tool, though he seems more a fish hook than a monkey wrench.

I adore Annette Bening's work and for me, this was a walk in the park for her… not all that special. This is the second collaboration between the great director Istvan Szabo and Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist). The first one, Taking Sides, really suffered commercially from its obvious theatrical roots. But I liked it better than Being Julia. It had some problems, but it had a point. As far as I can tell, there is none in this movie. Think Diane Weist in Bullets Over Broadway… but without the funny parts. Don't speak… no… don't speak…

Double Dare - This is not the greatest piece of documentary filmmaking ever, but it is one hell of a fun doc ride. Amanda Micheli brings us the tales of Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell, two of the top professional stuntwomen in the world. Wonder Woman to Xena, these two know how to fall, fly and take more than a few punches. One is aging out, but can't seem to retire, while the other is just getting rolling. Well worth a look.

Enduring Love - This is one of my very favorite movies of the year and I suspect it will be very high on my Top Ten list come the end of the year. Roger Michell has emerged here as a filmmaker of great insight, subtlety and power. His exploration of the power that one uncontrollable event has in the life of a man who believes that there is clear order to the world was powerful the first time I saw it and even more so the second time I saw it. I can't wait to see it again. Expect a review in much greater depth as the festival continues on.

Gunner Palace - This film is a passion of mine and the final edit and effects will be projected for the first time at Toronto. I'll be there. In the meantime, if you are interested, take a look at what I wrote about the film in July.

Kinsey - I went on about this one yesterday. Here's a link.

The Machinist - Back at Sundance, I wrote, "The Machinist is a must-buy for someone who wants a sure fire winner for the fall of 2005." Why? Because Christian Bale is so physically transformed that next summer's Batman Begins audience will line up to be shocked. But the filmmakers didn't want to ride that horse, so The Machinist is coming this fall.

That said, The Machinist is a pretty damned good little movie. Director Brad Anderson has been up and down, but here he delivers with assurance. There was practically a sidebar at Sundance this year of movies about people who were or were not living in a dream and reality or both or neither. And The Machinist was the best of the lot. It's dark and creepy and a headache is a real possibility. But this should be, with Ghost in The Shell 2, the class of Midnight Madness this year.

The Motorcycle Diaries - A great movie from Walter Salles and starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Rodrigo de la Serna. This may be the indie-most-likely come Oscar time. I can't seem to find any earlier writing I did on the film, but it's real simple, barring along review… the best coming of age movie - in any language - since Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Old Boy - Park Chan-Wook's film is already in the process of being remade in English. Quentin Tarantino fell in love with the film at Cannes and understandably so. It is one of the most original ideas for a film you'll see. A man is taken into custody and kept in isolated captivity for 15 years before he escapes and seeks revenge on his jailers. But has he escaped at all? It is very violent and dark, dark, dark. But a very strong movie with a message as intense as its imagery.

P.S. - Dylan Kidd dove into the deep end with Rodger Dodger two years ago. His skills as a writer of multi-page character monologues that crackle with wit, but also establish the deepest kind of subtext, are unquestionable. But here, with some great actors in tow, the story just isn't sharp enough to support the intellectual style of the writing. Laura Linney gives it up for Kidd, looking so good in this film that I spent time trying to figure out whether she had gotten cosmetic surgery. (I am told that the answer is "no.") Marcia Gay Harden also looks great and has a scene-stealing role. Topher Grace makes his film transition to being a man look effortless.

The movie has strong acting and good dialogue and Kidd has made strides as a director. But it just doesn't get there. And if you wait around for Birth, which mysteriously is not at Toronto, we can compare and contrast two films in this very odd Dead Lover Is Back genre.

The Sea Inside - Javier Bardem would have to campaign for George Bush to miss getting an Oscar nomination for his amazing work as a quadriplegic man fighting for his death. We've seen this story before, but never with the beautiful nuance and subtlety of Alejandro Amenabar. It is a remarkable movie. Bring your Kleenex.

Sideways - It's a masterpiece. For more, click here.

Silver City - John Sayles does Robert Altman in this comic political drama about an election in Colorado. The film features a terrific performance by Chris Cooper as a George W. Bush-esque character. But like many Altman efforts, the film's focus comes and goes and while it is always entertaining, it doesn't quite get where it means to go.

Stage Beauty - Billy Crudup makes for an ugly woman. And I never quite got past that fact in this wanna-be variation on Shakespeare in Love. The third act finally gets to the punchline that we all were waiting for and the movie recovers a bit. Claire Danes is terrific in the film and so is Crudup… even if it is impossible to buy him as "the most beautiful woman in England" when he is in drag.

There were two ways to go with this idea. Make a terrific story about the period when men performed female roles and the difficult transition to women playing women. Or make a romp-y comedy that is a lot of fun. The filmmakers here split the difference… and so did my interest.

Tarnation - A truly extraordinary artifact of a life, rendered by the modern age. More on the film is here.

Undertow - David Gordon Green broke out at Toronto a few years back with George Washington. With his third feature, Green once again takes a close look at the intimacies of small-town America. But here, with a virtual remake of Night of the Hunter, he can't quite make the transition to more conventional storytelling. It's not that the movie is painfully bad or anything close. But it never quite clicks in either. This may turn out to be Green's The Underneath, the Soderbergh remake of Criss Cross, that didn't quite work, but is clearly one of the experimental templates that led Soderbergh to his greatest successes as a filmmaker, including The Limey and Erin Brockovich, and Traffic.

When Will I Be Loved - I want to go out eating, drinking and fucking with James Toback. You can feel the powerful hand of a smart, charming man in his work. So why do so many of his movies suck so bad? I wish I could tell you. But this thing is a rambling mess from start to finish, including Neve Campbell's nude scenes which are shot in perhaps the only possible ways to assure that no man will manage an erection within 30 minutes of seeing this film. Blech!

The Woodsman - The film was hot at Sundance. But the bottom line is, strong performances in a pretty decent Movie of the Week. Perhaps it is bravery enough for some to simply make a film in which the lead is a pedophile for whom you are supposed to feel sympathy and hope. But instead of really getting rough, the film ends up being like a backdoor pilot for a recovered pedophile who now protects young folks from his type. And like The Incredible Hulk, every week he has to move on because even though he avoids temptation, he is still… sigh… a pedophile. VO: And they call him… The Woodsman!

That's it. Got that out of my system.

Daily coverage of TIFF will, like the Olympics, be spread across multiple platforms. We're splitting it up between at least one full-length review a day at THB, shorter reviews at MCN, and what's-up-at-the-fest at The Hot Blog. Also, Len Klady will be contributing throughout the fest at MCN. And Ray Pride will be reviewing a bunch of the Toronto titles at MCN as well. 10 Days… no sleep… too many people you have to be polite to… lots of kind Canadians…and so it begins.

E ME: Are you ready for Toronto?