September 21, 2004

TORONTO 2004, Pt 2

Part 1
Featuring The Best of the Fest &
The Films That I Find Myself Still Lingering On

GONE WRONG

BEING JULIA - Istvan Szabo is a quality director and there are a lot of elements of this film that are worthwhile. But in the end, it is stagey and not nearly as clever as it wants to be. Annette Bening is a wonderful actress, but this is not one of her great roles.

BEYOND THE SEA - The ultimate vanity project, some critics react to the film as though Kevin Spacey was their 3-year-old making a really good poop in the toilet for the first time. Yes, Kevin Spacey can sing. But forget about young Bobby Darin. Dead Bobby Darin was eight years younger than Spacey is. Spacey could surely have aged Sandra Dee a little to make the movie experience a little more palatable. After all, as he keeps reminding us, it's just a movie. Well, almost.

HUMAN TOUCH - Paul Cox is a smart, insightful filmmaker. He is also, it seems, prone to thinking that his personal peccadilloes should appeal to movie audiences. Old men who are true artists should bed much younger women because they understand and young men are pigs. Oy! But even more so, Cox delivers a soft core art film that never quite titillates or offers real insight.

I HEART HUCKABEES - Put some great performances, a really smart writer-director, an idea that is too cool for school and some really tight costumes in a blender and what do you get? Nothing I want to drink. This is one of those films that critics cling to, trying to delight in the delightful moments - which there are - forgetting that the odd smell that seems to be coming from the bottom of their shoe is the overdigested "rest of the movie."

SHARK TALE - I didn't really dislike this movie. But I was generally nonplussed. The biggest shocker is that Jack Black plays a variation on Jabberjaw, not Jack Black, which is generally why celebrities are hired for these films. DeNiro is DeNiro and Will Smith is Will Smith, but Jack Black has none of his rock-n-roll energy. My favorite characters were the sidekicks, not the leads. Ernie & Bernie are the rasta jellyfish who somehow manage to make the ocean their permanent bong. And Luca The Octopus seems to use his eight arms as ineptly as he uses his mouth. But Will Smith's Oscar somehow manages to get none of the charm of the real Will Smith. Perhaps it is that he always gives us exactly what we expect and not what Smith often gives, which is a fresh surprise.

THE UNSEXY SEX FLICKS

ANATOMY OF HELL - Catherine Breillat is a smart, sexy woman who makes boring sex films. Rocco Sifredi's entire acting ability is about 10 inches long. I'm not getting anything from long lingering close-ups of his eyes trying to tear up. Amira Casar is lovely, but her porcelain looks are just a little less chilly than her acting. (Though I do seem to remember liking her in Sylvia… but not so much I can recall her clearly in that film.) Maybe gyno-psychology is a new genre. Wake me when it's over.

A HOLE IN MY HEART - Lukas Moodyson must be a genius. How else could he get away with making a movie about almost nothing that offers such key moments as shared vomit, calls for numbing crème for someone's anus, and a talking parental corpse and still make some believe that it's art and not just masturbation.

NINE SONGS - What do you get when you mix bad concert footage with nine vignettes of a young couple having sex in nine different ways? You get a bad movie with nine vignettes of a young couple having sex in nine different ways. The one outstanding thing about this film is that the couple seemed to be enjoying their sex. At least someone was.

WHEN WILL I BE LOVED - Neve Campbell is naked!!! Put it on! Put it on!

Let me give you a simple way to express just how meaningless this film was to me. Neve Campbell apparently masturbates with her WaterPik shower head during the opening credits. I forgot about that. It had that much impact on me. Academy awards? I herein publicly commit to engaging in an act of Toback's choice from the palette of A Hole In My Heart if his film garners a single Oscar nomination. (Quickly, I check the "Original Song" possibilities… )

THE REST

CASUISTRY: THE ART OF KILLING A CAT - Great story… badly made movie.

DEAR FRANKIE - Emily Mortimer is for real… the movie is really being released in 2004… and if Miramax goes out on more than 100 screens with it after playing all the festivals, I will be shocked.

LE FANTÔME D'HENRI LANGLOIS - A long story about a man of great vision and love of film. Langois didn't just talk about it… he made the world a safer place for great movies.

OLD BOY - Park Chan-wook breaks the traditional expectations of Korean kick flicks, adding a psychological element that is more than just a slower pace than America is used to. This is a powerful, dark, patient film. I'm just not sure if it qualifies as a truly great film because of the limits of its content.

P.S - Dylan Kidd is going to be an important writer/director for a long time to come. Sophomore slump happens. This film walks like quality and talks like quality but, unfortunately for all the high-quality elements, it just never comes together as a movie. I'm sure the next one will.

RAY - This is a solid bio-pic. But it is at least 30 minutes too long… too much of a good thing. As I wrote in my review, Ray Charles himself would have gotten to the heart of the matter in three minutes.

SILVER CITY - Good Sayles, but the core story keeps it from greatness.

STAGE BEAUTY - The strong third act close almost makes up for the fact that Billy Crudup is not a pretty woman and Claire Danes is stuck playing possum for too long. The heart of the story is that it is difficult for the male actors who played women to deal with women taking their livelihood… but we really don't care.

THE HOLY GIRL - I'm still trying to figure out what the point of it was.

THE WOODSMAN - "If you try to molest a child in this town, you better be prepared to meet… The Woodsman!!!" Really strong performances are not an illusion. But the film does not have the courage to get really tough when the tough stuff comes up. Pulling punches in a drama about a recovering child molester… just doesn't make sense.

UNDERTOW - Some people despise the preciousness of David Gordon Green's latest. I don't. But I don't love it either. It's just not up to the level a truly sophisticated script like John Lee Hancock's also-southern drenched screenplay for A Perfect World… or to Night of the Hunter, which it shamelessly rips off.

SORRY I MISSED

3-IRON - A more traditional Korean thinker picked up by Sony Classics.

DOWNFALL - Apparently, more than your average Adolf Hitler movie. Fun!

GOING UPRIVER: THE LONG WAR OF JOHN KERRY - I think George Butler is incredibly talented and we've been missing a good affirmative argument about John Kerry in this election cycle.

HOTEL RWANDA - People were deeply moved by this story at Toronto and MGM/UA has picked up on the buzz and started taking the Oscar opportunity seriously.

IN MY FATHER'S DEN - A moody New Zealand drama that everyone seems to have liked and which offers up some great young actors, giving them the opportunity to give rich performances.

IT'S ALL GONE PETE TONG - People who saw this Ibiza based mockument kept blathering on about this or that silly, hysterical moment. Michael Dowse may turn out to be one of the big finds of this festival.

LIGHTENING IN A BOTTLE - Antoine Fuqua doesn't do big well, but when he gets intimate, he shows his strength. Everyone who saw this blues doc came away greatly impressed.

MY SUMMER OF LOVE - The big commercial buy of the festival, this Brit flick made by a Polish émigré was a popular favorite.

OYSTER FARMER - Yes, really, oyster farmers. This Aussie film got a good reaction and sounds utterly unique.

ST RALPH - The come-from-behind-kid flick of the fest… and the Canadian favorite.

TELL THEM WHO YOU ARE - The doc about Haskell Wexler by his son was one of the key movie lover's movies of the fest.

THE LIBERTINE - Johnny Depp in a period piece with lots of sex. The filmmakers and producers seemed to get a little gunshy as their slot got closer, but it did arrive and it is still awaiting a big bid.

Z CHANNEL: A MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION - I have managed to miss Xan Cassevette's doc on the great L.A. cable channel of the 80s too many times and it's ticking me off.

E ME: Your feedback is encouraged.