Toronto International Film Festival online film list (1 Viewer)

[StevenA]

Bill, I am presuming you are not a Kiarostami fan. If you are and still disliked these films, I'd be concerned, but if you hate Kiarostami's films in general, then this recation would be no surprsie at all.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

My movie list so far:

5 x 2
Antares
Being Julia
Beyond the Sea
Creep
Dead Birds
Dead Man's Shoes
Downfall
Haven
The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things
House of Flying Daggers
I Heart Huckabees
Kinsey
Kontroll
The Merchant of Venice
Millions
Noel
Phil the Alien
P.S.
Ray
Return to Sender
Silver City
Undertow
Yes

I opted to skip Sideways because I had to see Franka Potente in a nastay horror movie, and (just my luck) it's the Alexander Payne movie that seems to be the unanimous favorite across the board.

Tomorrow looks like Stage Beauty, Old Boy, Rahtree: Flower of the Night, Kung Fu Hustle, and Calvaire.

And I go back to Philly early Thursday afternoon, but if I pack Wednesday night I could choose between Ladies in Lavender or Jimmywork as my final flick.

Pretty solid festival overall, though SXSW is still my favorite.

Plus it costs 9 bucks Canadian to get a pack of smokes up here!!

Seriously nice town/citizens/festival people, though, and that goes a long way in my book.

 

[Nick Sievers]

Scott, did it improve for you on a second viewing?

 

[Bill McA]

I wouldn't say that I was a fan, but I did enjoy A Taste of Cherry, Close-Up, Where is the Friend's Home, And Life Goes On.
I found these two alleged documentaries to be insulting, pretentious crap.
10 on Ten was a lecture by Kiarostami on his filmmaking techniques filmed entirely from inside his car.
From this lecture, it becomes clear that Kiarostami thinks that his viewers have no idea how a movie is made and he is imparting great cinematic knowledge.
As exciting and informative as a dull high school educational film.
Five was a series of 5 single long take of waves splashing on a beach...the last segment filmed in complete darkness except for the occasional reflection of the moon.
This film emptied the theatre faster than you can say FIRE!!!
Many of the escapees probably went to the Toronto beach to see some real waves without the need of Kiarostami's hmmm 'vision' (but he was probably asleep in his car when this was being filmed anyway)
It seems that one of the filmmaking aspects not discussed in 10 on Ten was Chapter 11: Pulling the Audiences Chain.

 

[Nick Sievers]

Thats good news, even though I haven't seen Storytelling (haven't seen it at my local DVD store) but after hearing some of the negative comments I was hoping this project could bring him the kind of acclaim his other films recieved. Happiness is still one of my favorite films of the 90's.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Unfortunately....no. It's just way too indulgent for me. And arcane. And allovertheplace. Good performances wasted.

Bill, I'm glad to see that somebody out there liked Palindromes. I haven't seen it, but I've had about a half-dozen conversations with other critics/writers - none of whom could STAND the movie.

And speaking of disappointments...I was SO looking forward to Dead Birds - and that turned out to be a rather large dud. Not awful, but certainly nothing special either.

 

[LorenzoL]

Scott, will you be posting a review of Kung Fu Hustle?

Unfortunately, I was not able to get tickets for this movie and so far the reviews at AICN have been overwhelmingly positive.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dave Gilbert]

Did anyone else have tickets for the Thursday morning screening of Kung Fu Hustle?

I got a call from someone at the festival tonight about 11:15pm saying the print had been damaged beyond repair and the screening was cancelled. Anyone else have a similar experience?

 

[Bill McA]

Not only is the encore screening of Kung Fu Hustle cancelled, but Stephen Chow arrived in Toronto only to be denied a VISA to enter the country.
There haven't been any reported details yet as to why he was turned away.

 

[Dave Gilbert]

Ugh, that sucks.

Thanks for the reply, Bill.

 

[JonZ]

http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/mo...lver_city.html

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Stephen Chow is not allowed in Canada because of alleged ties to Triads in Hong Kong, possibly in relation to Charles Heung, a high-ranking producer of many of his films who's family has (or had, to hear their side of things) ties to organized crime. In fact, I believe the book Hong Kong Babylon mentions that Heung's father founded the Sun Yee On triad. Shit, I'm gonna have to dig to remember all the details, but this crossed my mind when i first heard Stephen Chow was supposed to be in attendance. I figured maybe they relaxed their policy regarding him and other "suspicious" Hong Kong talent. More later, hopefully...

 

[Dave Gilbert]

Aaarrggh!

I just checked today's Best Bets and it appears as though they replaced the screening of Kung Fu Hustle with House of Flying Daggers! When they called last night, they made no mention of that, just that since I paid by Visa, they would automatically refund my money.

I would have jumped at the chance to see House of Flying Daggers as a replacement - both screenings sold out before I could get tickets. Now I feel like I missed out on not one film, but two. F**k.

 

[Eric Howell]

3-Iron ended up being my favorite of the Fest by far. It was terrific, and I’m madly searching for Kim Ki-duk’s other work since this is the first film of his I’ve seen(luckily Netflix has 2 of his films already). I’ll definitely be purchasing this film when it becomes available.

Rounding out my Top 5 of the fest:
Nobody Knows
Old Boy
House of Flying Daggers
Rahtree: Flower of the Night

Runner Ups:
Palindromes
Private
Millions

Special Consideration:
Eros – this wouldda been top 5 if not for the final segment(Antonioni’s).
Wong Kar-Wai and Steven Soderbergh’s segments were excellent.

Despite my best efforts, I missed out on Kung Fu Hustle thanks to them ruining the third reel of the print at an industry screening. As a consolation, I got pissed off enough to grab same day tickets for Eros(had to skip the Spike Lee Joint) which turned out to be very good.

Next year I’ll have to find you guys in the lines and say “hi”.

edit: fixed copy paste error, and added Millions to runner's up, and added full list with ratings

My ratings(in order of preference):
9/10:
3-Iron (Kim Ki-duk)

8/10:
Nobody Knows (Koreeda)
Rahtree: Flower of the Night(Sippapak)
House of Flying Daggers(Yimou)
Oldboy (Park Chan-wook)
Private (Costanzo)

7+/10:
Millions (Boyle)
Palindromes (Solondz)
Steamboy (Otomo)

7/10:
Undertow (Green)
Silver City (Sayles)
Eros (Kar-Wai/Soderbergh/Antonioni)
Saw (Wan)
Clean (Assayas)
Creep (Smith)
Zebraman (Miike)
Year of Yao (Deo/Stern)

6+/10:
Dias De Santiago (Mendez)
PS (Kidd)
Primer (Carruth)
Breaking News (To)
The Overature (Wichailak)
Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (Butler)
Dead Birds (Turner)

6/10:
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Oshii)
The Machinist (Anderson)
Phil the Alien (Stefaniuk)
Double Dare (Micheli)
Throw Down (To)
A Dirty Shame (Waters)
Vital (Tsukamoto)
Three of Hearts: A Post-Modern Family (Kaplan)
The Woodsman (Kassell)

5+/10:
Trauma (Evans)
Gunner Palace (Tucker/Epperlein)
Bad Education (Almodóvar)

5/10:
Low Life (Im)
Kontroll (Antal)
Les Revenants (Campillo)
Scared Sacred (Ripper)
Shake Hands with the Devil (Raymont)
Haven (Flowers)

4/10:
Tropical Malady (Weerasethukal)
Salvadore Allende (Guzman)
Calvaire (Welz)

3/10:
Notre Musique (Godard)

 

[Bill McA]

I managed to see 55 films at the Fest, but there were still a few others that I would have liked to have seen.
Can't wait for next year!

Favorites highlighted in red

10 on Ten
Five
Walk On Water
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
After the Day Before
Innocence
Human Touch
Les Revenants
Undertow
Creep
Cool
Clean
Anatomy of Hell
Nobody Knows
Silver City
House of Flying Daggers
3-Iron
A Hole in My Heart
I, Claudia
A Dirty Shame
The Raspberry Reich
Mirage
Unconscious
Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow
Palindromes
Mysterious Skin
Dead Birds
Lila Says
The Woodsman
Summer Storm
9 Songs
Bad Education
Calvaire
Throw Down
Omagh
The Ninth Day
Cafe Lumiere
Oldboy
Kontroll
L'Intrus
Steamboy
Breaking News
Eros
Zebraman
Low Life
Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat
Los Muertos
Vital
Rahtree: Flower of the Night
À Tout de Suite
The House Keys
Hidden Flaws
Primer
Trauma
Saw

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Saw my measly three films on the weekend. Thought RAHTREE: FLOWER OF THE NIGHT was a blast (as did most of the audience). Excellent mix of screams and laughs that plays far, FAR better in a crowded theatre than it likely will on home video. That first bit where the wrapped body sits up really set the tone, if the screams were any indication! I also enjoyed the director's earlier KILLER TATTOO, which has been on video for some time; it's just too bad the questions put to him in the Q&A were so idiotic (does anyone EVER ask non-superficial questions at these things?). I was gonna ask him if the apartment number (609, with the '0' missing) was a reference of any kind to the earlier Thai thriller 6IXTYNIN9, but was pipped by somebody else for the last question.

STEAMBOY was phenomenal. Early on I worried that Otomo's traditional anime background and stylings had the potential to feel dated in the CGI-pumped anime feature market of today (with films like APPLESEED), but within minutes, this thing really fired up. Interesting how it takes the theme of reigning in the progress of science (a familiar story idea in many futuristic anime shows) and retrofits it to late-Victorian england. As in AKIRA, the attention to detail - both in the backgrounds and the fantastic steam machines - is just staggering. Some guy from Sony introduced the screening and announced the film will play in both Japanese/Subtitled and English Dubbed prints to surprisingly few groans from the audience. I was, however, somewhat surprised to hear a little kid blubbering about three quarters of the way through the movie: I thought the rule for Fest screenings was no one under 18...

Finally, I've come to the conclusion that Takashi Miike's auteurism is somewhat of a mixed blessing, since it appears ZEBRAMAN, as with some of his other films, would have benefited a small amount of editing. We saw the second screening of this, so perhaps the audience was less tired and more critical than those at the Midnight show, but there was an awful lot of dry spots with lengthy and unecessarily repetitive character development scenes, mostly in the buildup to the battle with the giant jello aliens or whateve they were. Not bad, but probably a better rental, where one can skip over the dull spots.

 

[Eric Howell]

Brian, I loved Rahtree too. Goes from Drama to Horror/Comedy then back to Drama very well, IMO anyways. Looks like it wasn’t one of Bill’s favorites though. Anxiously awaiting Scott’s opinion on it(he posted above that he’d be going to it).

Funny you should mention the stupid questions during the Q & A’s as I think I heard the all-time worst question during the Three of Hearts Q&A. Three of Hearts being a Hoop Dreams style Documentary on a gay male couple who add a female to their relationship, they eventually get married and work together in a Chiropractic office. By Hoop Dreams style, I mean the filmmakers visit the subjects from time to time and make recordings to document their progress. The Q & A featured the director and the three stars/subjects of the film. The bone headed question was: “Are all three of you professional actors?”(Unfortunately, the questioner was being serious).

The Midnight Audience was up for Zebraman, probably due to it being Miike, but perhaps also because the previous four films in the Midnight Madness program(Raspberry Reich, Dead Birds, Calvaire, and Kontroll) were let downs(in various degrees), at least in my opinion. I liked Zebraman an awful lot, and I think the last three films redeemed the Midnight Madness Program(Zebraman, Rahtree, and Saw).

Note: I added my final film list to my post above with ratings on each film

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

I'm being totally biased when I say this, because my interest in Asian cinema knows no bounds and borders on psychotic , but I tend to think the Midnight Madness schedule has diversified too much for its own good, with the American and European films sometimes just seeming less, well, gonzo than the stuff they get from Asia. Last year's schedule produced a slightly higher number of so-so flicks (based on a tonne of reviews and articles I read about the shows, since I wasn't able to attend) and I believe it had the least amount of Asian films of the last several fests. Asian filmmakers still work with the least amount of money and pull off the most crazed ideas. - RAHTREE being the perfect example of this - and until the Europeans and Americans can truly match that level of ingenuity and lack of pretention, I'd love to see more Asian stuff at future festivals. Somehow, I suspect that my opinions of those other MM screenings you mention would be in line with the general consensus, which means I might have rated ZEBRAMAN even higher by comparison, even if ultimately it still isn't my favourite Miike movie.

 

[Bill McA]

I enjoyed Rahtree, but by the end it just got a little bit too silly & slapstick-y for me to include it as a favorite.

I enjoyed Calvaire quite a bit.
It managed to sustain a creepy and bizarre tone throughout in addition to some really effective photography...and who can forget that dance sequence

I much prefer the Midnight Madness series when it was programmed by Noah Cowan.
When Colin Geddes first took over, it was wall-to-wall HK action flicks (which Colin loves a little too much).
He has gradually eased up on those films (complaints?) and has diversified his selections somewhat, but I have no idea why he continues to include and hype such obvious dogs as Dead Birds and The Raspberry Reich?

Other than those two films, I thought this year's selections were pretty good.

 

[Eric Howell]

I wasn't around for the Cowan administration so I can't compare. I'm pretty sure Cowan was the one that programmed Raspberry Reich since he introduced it and since he was the one that did the write up in the programming book for it.