The fest announced today that War/Dance won this year's Audience Award. They also announced that the 2007 festival had a whopping 33% increase in attendance over 2006, with more than 68,000 sitting down to watch docs for 10 days. Impressive!
The top 10 films, as selected via audience votes, are as follows:
WAR/DANCE (D: Sean Fine, Andrea Nix Fine; USA ; 105 min)
WE ARE TOGETHER (D: Paul Taylor; UK ; 86 min)
GARBAGE WARRIOR (D: Oliver Hodge; UK ; 87 min)
THE SUICIDE TOURIST (D: John Zaritsky; Canada ; 90 min)
FORBIDDEN LIE$ (D: Anna Broinowski; Australia ; 107 min)
NANKING (D: Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman; USA ; 89 min)
CITY IDOL (D: Arturo Perez Torres; Canada ; 90 min)
HEAR AND NOW (D: Irene Taylor Brodsky; USA ; 84 min)
CHICHESTER’S CHOICE (D: Simonee Chichester; Canada ; 64 min)
FOREVER (D: Heddy Honigmann; Netherlands ; 95 min)
Okay, now I can put the HDD to bed for the year.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 29, 2007
HotDocs #10: That's a Wrap!
I’m afraid that my final day at HotDocs had me seeing only one film. Life got in the way a bit today, so it’s all I had time for. Thankfully, I ended the fest with a good film and not a stinker.
Unspeakable (6/8) is all about stuttering – what it means to be a stutterer, what causes the disorder and what sort of treatments and therapies are available for individuals hoping to speak with more fluency. Its director, John Paskievich, is a stutterer himself...as is fest programmer, Andrew McIntosh, who introduced the film and moderated the post-film Q&A. It was an informative screening for those of us with limited knowledge of the condition...except for the clueless woman at the rear of the theater, who – as a stutterer in the audience stood up and began (with some difficulty) to ask his question – SHOUTED out rudely, “CAN’T HEAR THE QUESTION!” Dear madam, did you not just watch the movie, wherein it’s mentioned that public speaking is often extremely difficult for people with a stutter? Did you think that it would help this gentleman if you screamed out while he was attempting to make his point? Geez.
With that, HotDocs 2007 drew to a close for me. I have to say that, exhaustion aside, I loved it. It was my first time attending as a semi-hardcore audience member instead of a casual attendee, and I found it to be a wonderfully well-run, well-organized and relaxed fest. I can’t stress enough how great it is that they offer free daytime screenings for seniors and students, and I think that contributes a lot to the overall sense of goodwill that permeated the past 10 days.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to officially found the Myrocia Watamaniuk Appreciation Socity (MWAS). A programmer at HotDocs and the Worldwide Short Film Fest, she RAWKS. She is easily the best moderator the fest has going – her introductions are always flawless, breezy and informative without sounding sycophantic or rehearsed, and her Q&A sessions are always spirited, well-run and entertaining. When she says she loved a movie, I believe her and, as with TIFF’s Michelle Maheux, I’m starting to think she and I have the same taste in films. I wish she’d work TIFF, because I’d rather hear her stand onstage and recite the official fest rule book for three hours than listen to one second of Noah Cowan try to sound spontaneous as he rattles off 50-dollar words or, worse, witness some anonymous TIFF lackey shoved onstage to awkwardly intro a film. My hat is off to Myrocia – see you at the WWSFF in June!
And to HotDocs, thanks for a kick-ass 10 days! See you in 2008!
Unspeakable (6/8) is all about stuttering – what it means to be a stutterer, what causes the disorder and what sort of treatments and therapies are available for individuals hoping to speak with more fluency. Its director, John Paskievich, is a stutterer himself...as is fest programmer, Andrew McIntosh, who introduced the film and moderated the post-film Q&A. It was an informative screening for those of us with limited knowledge of the condition...except for the clueless woman at the rear of the theater, who – as a stutterer in the audience stood up and began (with some difficulty) to ask his question – SHOUTED out rudely, “CAN’T HEAR THE QUESTION!” Dear madam, did you not just watch the movie, wherein it’s mentioned that public speaking is often extremely difficult for people with a stutter? Did you think that it would help this gentleman if you screamed out while he was attempting to make his point? Geez.With that, HotDocs 2007 drew to a close for me. I have to say that, exhaustion aside, I loved it. It was my first time attending as a semi-hardcore audience member instead of a casual attendee, and I found it to be a wonderfully well-run, well-organized and relaxed fest. I can’t stress enough how great it is that they offer free daytime screenings for seniors and students, and I think that contributes a lot to the overall sense of goodwill that permeated the past 10 days.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to officially found the Myrocia Watamaniuk Appreciation Socity (MWAS). A programmer at HotDocs and the Worldwide Short Film Fest, she RAWKS. She is easily the best moderator the fest has going – her introductions are always flawless, breezy and informative without sounding sycophantic or rehearsed, and her Q&A sessions are always spirited, well-run and entertaining. When she says she loved a movie, I believe her and, as with TIFF’s Michelle Maheux, I’m starting to think she and I have the same taste in films. I wish she’d work TIFF, because I’d rather hear her stand onstage and recite the official fest rule book for three hours than listen to one second of Noah Cowan try to sound spontaneous as he rattles off 50-dollar words or, worse, witness some anonymous TIFF lackey shoved onstage to awkwardly intro a film. My hat is off to Myrocia – see you at the WWSFF in June!
And to HotDocs, thanks for a kick-ass 10 days! See you in 2008!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
HotDocs #9: Loving Lovable
As the fest winds down, I find myself feeling more and more emotionally exhausted. I hadn’t taken into account how psychologically draining it can be when you see one heavy film after another – so far, the only “light-hearted” docs I’ve seen are Girls, Rock!, Yoga Inc. and Forbidden Lie$. The rest have hardly been laughing matters. Not surprisingly, as much as I love film festivalling, my mind and body are ready for it to be over.
First up today was the Doc It! Showcase, a collection of short documentaries made by youths between 14 and 18. There were nine films shown, and they ranged from the benign (school uniforms: good or bad?), to the poignant (Sent to the Right, about the after effects of the Holocaust), to the self-indulgent (City of Names, which felt very staged and tracked teenage graffiti artists in Germany). The quality of the films also varied widely, with some standing out for their skilled execution while others felt a little sloppy, especially since all but one of the films were done as assignments for school (spelling errors? really?).
My next film of the day had been hotly buzzed about (as great) earlier in the week, and the screening I attended was sold out...with a rush line so eager to get in that people were actually standing by the Bader doors asking for extra tickets.
The film was Lovable (8/8), director Alan Zweig’s look at what it means to be single – more specifically, what it means to be a single woman – once you hit your 30s, 40s and beyond, and examines why it can be so hard to find love. Based solely on its description, I (correctly) suspected I’d enjoy the film before I even saw the first frame, but I didn’t expect to be so moved by it. Alternately funny and poignant, the film exposes the stigma often associated with being alone at a certain age, and how singledom is viewed as some sort of deficiency in so many circles. As one single woman in the film puts it (I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember her exact words), “If you’re still single in your 30s, that immediately becomes your most unattractive quality.” I thought the documentary was exceptionally, but very subtly, powerful. And, on a rather telling note, I also noticed more people checking each other out as they exited the theater than I have at any other screening.
Folks in Ontario can catch Lovable when it airs on The View From Here on TVO on Wednesday, May 2nd at 10pm.
If you’re single, you should watch. If you’re coupled, you should watch. And if you’ve ever said “I can’t believe you’re STILL single!” to anyone you’ve ever met, you should watch it AND tape it and then watch it again.
First up today was the Doc It! Showcase, a collection of short documentaries made by youths between 14 and 18. There were nine films shown, and they ranged from the benign (school uniforms: good or bad?), to the poignant (Sent to the Right, about the after effects of the Holocaust), to the self-indulgent (City of Names, which felt very staged and tracked teenage graffiti artists in Germany). The quality of the films also varied widely, with some standing out for their skilled execution while others felt a little sloppy, especially since all but one of the films were done as assignments for school (spelling errors? really?).
My next film of the day had been hotly buzzed about (as great) earlier in the week, and the screening I attended was sold out...with a rush line so eager to get in that people were actually standing by the Bader doors asking for extra tickets.
The film was Lovable (8/8), director Alan Zweig’s look at what it means to be single – more specifically, what it means to be a single woman – once you hit your 30s, 40s and beyond, and examines why it can be so hard to find love. Based solely on its description, I (correctly) suspected I’d enjoy the film before I even saw the first frame, but I didn’t expect to be so moved by it. Alternately funny and poignant, the film exposes the stigma often associated with being alone at a certain age, and how singledom is viewed as some sort of deficiency in so many circles. As one single woman in the film puts it (I’m paraphrasing because I can’t remember her exact words), “If you’re still single in your 30s, that immediately becomes your most unattractive quality.” I thought the documentary was exceptionally, but very subtly, powerful. And, on a rather telling note, I also noticed more people checking each other out as they exited the theater than I have at any other screening.Folks in Ontario can catch Lovable when it airs on The View From Here on TVO on Wednesday, May 2nd at 10pm.
If you’re single, you should watch. If you’re coupled, you should watch. And if you’ve ever said “I can’t believe you’re STILL single!” to anyone you’ve ever met, you should watch it AND tape it and then watch it again.
Friday, April 27, 2007
HotDocs #8: The Curious Case of Khouri
I started the day with the film that, inexplicably (to me, anyway), was later announced as the winner of the fest’s best international documentary award. I say “inexplicably” because I found the film to be mind-numbingly dull. It was called Losers and Winners (3/8), and it documents German and Chinese workers dismantling a coking plant in Germany for reassembly in China. Admittedly, I know nothing about coking plants, or what’s involved in taking one apart, or what history there exists of this process with the countries involved in the film...but I know I was bored throughout. For me, and I stress for me, it was like watching an industrial training video. Plus, I watched the whole film and still don’t really know what a coking plant does beyond the fact that it converts coal into...something.I was bored enough that I started to wonder if I should even bother seeing any other films today. Maybe I should cut my losses and just head home to relax. But something told me that I should, at the very least, give my second film a shot...and I’m SO glad I did. I should also preface this next bit with the fact that I get really skeptical whenever a fest programmer raves and raves about a film during its introduction. Experience at TIFF has taught me that, sometimes, that’s a signal that I may hate the film I’m about to watch. So, when programmer Angie Driscoll stepped onstage at the Bader and enthusiastically said, “This is my absolute favorite film at this year’s festival!” (I’m paraphrasing), I immediately thought, “Oh no.”
But I was wrong. The film was riveting!
Forbidden Lie$ (7/8) tells the story of Norma Khouri, a writer whose memoir, Forbidden Love, purportedly tells the story of her former best friend, who was murdered by her family in an honor killing in Jordan. The book became an international bestseller, and Khouri was featured on countless television programs condemning the Jordanian government and championing the rights of that country’s oppressed women. Thing is, the book – and Norma – quickly came under scrutiny by numerous people who claimed it was a fake. Director Anna Broinowski trains her lens on Khouri and paints a wickedly fascinating picture of a woman who may be a con artist, may be a pathological liar or maybe a teller of half-truths. She’s run scams, that’s for sure. The FBI have had her (and may still have her) under investigation for numerous frauds. The film itself is very cleverly put together; it builds Khouri up for its first half, and then, one by one, exposes her doublespeak, blatant lies and repeated deceptions (to the publishing world and Broinkowski) for its second act. The audience loved it, and Broinkowski revealed that she and her producer would be screening the film for Khouri tomorrow (Saturday) – she said she was very nervous about what Norma’s reaction would be, but nonetheless has a very clear affection for her controversial subject.Tonight, as mentioned earlier, the fest also handed out a bunch of awards (the audience award will be announced at the close of the fest), and the winners are as follows:
Best Canadian Feature: The Bodybuilder and I
Special Jury Prize (Canadian Feature): Driven by Dreams
Best International Feature: Losers and Winners
Special Jury Prize (International Feature): Without the King
Best Mid-Length Doc: Forgiveness: Stories for Our Time
Best Short Doc: Man Up
Thursday, April 26, 2007
HotDocs #6 *and* #7: It's a Two-Fer Tonight...
That’s right folks, it’s two entries in one. Partly because I’m seriously exhausted. Partly because I got home late last night and wanted to watch Lost, and came home even later tonight. Partly because I’m hitting the fest wall and losing steam quickly. Only three days left.
So, I shall once again invoke the Margaret Cho Blog Brevity Law™ in order to offer the day-to-day coverage I promised. Just, you know, shorter.
Wednesday’s Movies
Only two today. The first was an Israeli film called 9 Star Hotel (5/8), which follows a group of young Palestinian men as they work construction jobs (illegally) by day and hide from the authorities in their makeshift camps at night. It was an interesting doc, but it started to become repetitive – run, work, run, hide, run, work, run, hide – and, after a while, it just felt like the filmmakers didn’t know how or when to end it.
My second film was the fascinating Without the King (7/8), which profiles King Mswati III of Swaziland – the last remaining absolute monarch in the world. Unfortunately for the King, the portrait that director Michael Skolnik (who was wonderful before and after the film’s screening!) paints is one of a ruler who’s waaaay out of touch with his subjects. While he’s living the high life, they’re starving and dying of AIDS (46% of the country’s population is HIV+). King Mswati’s story is told in parallel to that of his 18-year-old daughter, who travels to California to go to college and gradually comes to realize that the idyllic homeland of which she often speaks is more nightmarish than she’d known.
Then I had to leave the warm bosom of HotDocs to see Next, the new Nicolas Cage howler. My review will be up at the ‘Pie by Monday. En route to the theater, I was stopped by a tourist on the University of Toronto campus. She wanted me to take her picture in front of a gorgeous old building, but what should have been a 15-second task became a 7-minute ordeal of dying batteries, photo perfection and a story about a stolen bag. Anyway...
Today’s Movies
Maybe it’s because I’m slowly wearing myself out, or maybe – as with TIFF – the number of films I’m seeing is seriously diminishing my cinematic patience, but I found all of today’s selections to be decidedly meh. Not bad, just meh. They didn’t grab me, and I started getting really drowsy with each passing screening. It didn’t help that it POURED RAIN between movies #2 and 3, which meant I sat in my third film with wet shoes and pants that were soaked from the knees down.
My first film today was The Underground Orchestra (5/8), which was running as part of the Heddy Honigmann retrospective. Despite being a 1997 production, the print of the film was so beaten up that my friend Matt and I both initially assumed it was something they’d unearthed from several decades ago. The film profiles assorted musicians who play in the Paris Metro – all of whom are immigrants from other countries, some with tragic stories about why they’re in exile. While it started out well, the film began to drag with each passing performer...and there were a whole lot of them. If it had been 20 minutes shorter, it would have been a much tighter experience. (Note: Matt also correctly predicted that I'd toss an extra slice this film's way solely because of a segment involving a trapeze act with a cat. SO cute!)
I ate an apple in between that movie and the next one. And then spent the rest of the day – until getting home tonight – DESPERATE for a piece of dental floss with which to remove the tiny fragment of apple peel that had wedged its way between two of my teeth.
Next was the double-shot of Holy Warriors (6/8), and In Memoriam: Alexander Litvinenko (6/8). The first film deals with former Russian soldiers and spies who have rediscovered religion (in various forms) after leaving the military, and the second is about the titular Russian secret service agent, who was allegedly poisoned by the Russian government after exposing their nefarious dealings. Both docs were very well done, with In Memoriam having the emotional-impact edge, since the interviews with Litvinenko were shot in 2004...two years before he was poisoned but when he was astute enough to realize his life was in danger.
My last double-bill of the day (and the one I tried to enjoy despite my drenching) consisted of the short I Just Wanted to Be Somebody (6/8), and the feature A Walk into the Sea (6/8).
Made up solely of archival footage, ...Somebody looks at Anita Bryant’s 1970s campaign to repeal a Florida by-law protecting gays & lesbians from discrimination. It’s part camp and part social study, with a little schadenfreude thrown in for good measure. Similarly, Walk... uses a lot of archival footage intercut with present-day interviews to tell the previously untold story of Danny Williams (uncle of the film’s director), a one-time boyfriend of Andy Warhol and member of the Factory, who disappeared without a trace when he was 27. Did he commit suicide? Did he drown in the ocean? Did he just abandon his life to start fresh somewhere else? The film looks at the possibilities through the eyes of the people who knew the missing man in question.
I had to bolt before that film’s Q&A so I could make it to a screening of Spider-Man 3. The best part of the night? Free popcorn and drinks at the theater! The worst part? Kirsten Dunst. More from me once the film is released.
So, I shall once again invoke the Margaret Cho Blog Brevity Law™ in order to offer the day-to-day coverage I promised. Just, you know, shorter.
Wednesday’s Movies
Only two today. The first was an Israeli film called 9 Star Hotel (5/8), which follows a group of young Palestinian men as they work construction jobs (illegally) by day and hide from the authorities in their makeshift camps at night. It was an interesting doc, but it started to become repetitive – run, work, run, hide, run, work, run, hide – and, after a while, it just felt like the filmmakers didn’t know how or when to end it.
My second film was the fascinating Without the King (7/8), which profiles King Mswati III of Swaziland – the last remaining absolute monarch in the world. Unfortunately for the King, the portrait that director Michael Skolnik (who was wonderful before and after the film’s screening!) paints is one of a ruler who’s waaaay out of touch with his subjects. While he’s living the high life, they’re starving and dying of AIDS (46% of the country’s population is HIV+). King Mswati’s story is told in parallel to that of his 18-year-old daughter, who travels to California to go to college and gradually comes to realize that the idyllic homeland of which she often speaks is more nightmarish than she’d known.Then I had to leave the warm bosom of HotDocs to see Next, the new Nicolas Cage howler. My review will be up at the ‘Pie by Monday. En route to the theater, I was stopped by a tourist on the University of Toronto campus. She wanted me to take her picture in front of a gorgeous old building, but what should have been a 15-second task became a 7-minute ordeal of dying batteries, photo perfection and a story about a stolen bag. Anyway...
Today’s Movies
Maybe it’s because I’m slowly wearing myself out, or maybe – as with TIFF – the number of films I’m seeing is seriously diminishing my cinematic patience, but I found all of today’s selections to be decidedly meh. Not bad, just meh. They didn’t grab me, and I started getting really drowsy with each passing screening. It didn’t help that it POURED RAIN between movies #2 and 3, which meant I sat in my third film with wet shoes and pants that were soaked from the knees down.
My first film today was The Underground Orchestra (5/8), which was running as part of the Heddy Honigmann retrospective. Despite being a 1997 production, the print of the film was so beaten up that my friend Matt and I both initially assumed it was something they’d unearthed from several decades ago. The film profiles assorted musicians who play in the Paris Metro – all of whom are immigrants from other countries, some with tragic stories about why they’re in exile. While it started out well, the film began to drag with each passing performer...and there were a whole lot of them. If it had been 20 minutes shorter, it would have been a much tighter experience. (Note: Matt also correctly predicted that I'd toss an extra slice this film's way solely because of a segment involving a trapeze act with a cat. SO cute!)I ate an apple in between that movie and the next one. And then spent the rest of the day – until getting home tonight – DESPERATE for a piece of dental floss with which to remove the tiny fragment of apple peel that had wedged its way between two of my teeth.
Next was the double-shot of Holy Warriors (6/8), and In Memoriam: Alexander Litvinenko (6/8). The first film deals with former Russian soldiers and spies who have rediscovered religion (in various forms) after leaving the military, and the second is about the titular Russian secret service agent, who was allegedly poisoned by the Russian government after exposing their nefarious dealings. Both docs were very well done, with In Memoriam having the emotional-impact edge, since the interviews with Litvinenko were shot in 2004...two years before he was poisoned but when he was astute enough to realize his life was in danger.My last double-bill of the day (and the one I tried to enjoy despite my drenching) consisted of the short I Just Wanted to Be Somebody (6/8), and the feature A Walk into the Sea (6/8).
Made up solely of archival footage, ...Somebody looks at Anita Bryant’s 1970s campaign to repeal a Florida by-law protecting gays & lesbians from discrimination. It’s part camp and part social study, with a little schadenfreude thrown in for good measure. Similarly, Walk... uses a lot of archival footage intercut with present-day interviews to tell the previously untold story of Danny Williams (uncle of the film’s director), a one-time boyfriend of Andy Warhol and member of the Factory, who disappeared without a trace when he was 27. Did he commit suicide? Did he drown in the ocean? Did he just abandon his life to start fresh somewhere else? The film looks at the possibilities through the eyes of the people who knew the missing man in question.I had to bolt before that film’s Q&A so I could make it to a screening of Spider-Man 3. The best part of the night? Free popcorn and drinks at the theater! The worst part? Kirsten Dunst. More from me once the film is released.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
HotDocs #6: No docs
I regret to inform you that, due to professional demands (i.e., work at the office), I was unable to see any films today. At all. This makes me very sad. Unfortunately, I didn't get home from the office until 7:30pm today, which was just too late an hour for me to turn around and head back out for a screening. So, I did not see Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, the film about American soldiers and their practices at the notorious military prison, and I did not see Wings of Defeat, the doc about Japanese kamikaze pilots during WWII...which features rare interviews with some pilots who actually survived their missions. I was scheduled to see both, but didn't. I apologize.
And, from the looks of things, I'll only be able to see one film tomorrow and one on Thursday. There's more work to be done at the office than I'd figured, and what was to be two half-days of work is turning into 2 1/2 full days. Thankfully, there's still five days of docs left after today, so I'll be able to cram some more films in on Friday and the weekend. Hooray!
Monday, April 23, 2007
HotDocs #5: Tears & Yawns
As I stood in line for my first film today, the woman in front of me began telling all of us within earshot that the movie we were about to see was amazing. Wonderful. Heartbreaking. Brilliant. And all sorts of other superlatives. She said she’d already seen it, but loved it so much that she was seeing it again...”and I never see movies twice at the same festival!” She also warned us that we would need a LOT of Kleenex, and that we’d likely be sobbing through much of the film.
Not surprisingly, she was absolutely right. War/Dance (8/8), from husband-and-wife directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, is described in the fest’s official program book as “immensely moving.” That’s an understatement. The gorgeously shot film profiles three Ugandan children – Dominic, Nancy and Rose – living in a refugee camp as they (along with the rest of the students in their camp’s school) practice for, and compete in, a national music competition. I know it doesn’t sound like it will rip out your heart and drop-kick across the theater, but it does. Chronicling the kids’ horrifying pasts and inspirational present, the filmmakers deftly blend nightmares with dreams. One minute, you have a girl talking about the gruesome murders of her parents, and the next you have a sea of jubilant children engaged in song and dance. I think it goes without saying that I bawled through the entire movie.
A rep from its distribution company, ThinkFilm, was in attendance and said that they’re planning on putting the film “on the Oscar track.” I can totally see why. This movie has Academy Award written ALL over it. It’s also part of a cool initiative called Shine Global, which is an organization aiming to end the exploitation and abuse of children around the world by raising awareness through documentary filmmaking. So, you donate money and they make movies like this one. If you visit the website, you can also watch an extended trailer for the film, which actually includes a bunch of footage not in the movie. So, if you saw War/Dance at HotDocs (or elsewhere) and want to see more, check it out. (And, of course, keep Kleenex nearby, even for that!)
Unfortunately, I think my next film may have suffered from the aftermath of such an emotional experience, because Thin Ice (4/8) sounded excellent on paper but was kind of disappointing onscreen. It tells the story of a group of young women in a remote village in the Himalayas, who are determined to form a hockey team and compete in an annual tournament. But I found the doc lacking, specifically in terms of creating an emotional investment on the part of the audience (or, I suppose, on me, since lots of people seemed to love this movie). The filmmakers only interviewed one girl out of this entire team – which was made up of Buddhist and Muslim girls – and her interviews serve as the narrative. It also seemed a tiny bit odd that a female American hockey player just happens to run into the team during the shoot (at what seems like a dining hall?) and then offers to coach the team. The director was asked about this strange coincidence during the Q&A and said the woman was “just a backpacker. Very common in the area.” I dunno, I wasn’t sold.
The film was preceded by the short The Fighting Cholitas (5/8), which profiles a number of female Lucha Libre wrestlers in Bolivia, who perform in full cholita regalia.
Last up was Four Elements, which I’m not going to assign a slice rating. See, the film was more of a piece of art than a movie that I can critique – it’s basically a quartet of visual poems about mankind and the four elements (fire, water, earth and air). Each 20-minute section is a dialogue- and narration-free look at workers in various nature-based fields (smokejumpers, crab fishermen, miners and astronauts) as they go about their jobs. The film is visually stunning but, to be honest, kind of boring. A number of people got up and left during the screening, and I have to admit that I considered it as well. But, somewhere amid the crab fishermen in Alaska, I found my groove with the film and just kind of absorbed it instead of trying to analyze it.
Before I wrap for tonight, I have to reiterate how cool HotDocs is, and how fantastic it is to see filmmakers out attending other people’s movies. I recognized a number of directors of films I’d seen over the past few days out at movies I saw today, which was most excellent and further enhances the community feel of the fest. Well done!
Not surprisingly, she was absolutely right. War/Dance (8/8), from husband-and-wife directors Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, is described in the fest’s official program book as “immensely moving.” That’s an understatement. The gorgeously shot film profiles three Ugandan children – Dominic, Nancy and Rose – living in a refugee camp as they (along with the rest of the students in their camp’s school) practice for, and compete in, a national music competition. I know it doesn’t sound like it will rip out your heart and drop-kick across the theater, but it does. Chronicling the kids’ horrifying pasts and inspirational present, the filmmakers deftly blend nightmares with dreams. One minute, you have a girl talking about the gruesome murders of her parents, and the next you have a sea of jubilant children engaged in song and dance. I think it goes without saying that I bawled through the entire movie.A rep from its distribution company, ThinkFilm, was in attendance and said that they’re planning on putting the film “on the Oscar track.” I can totally see why. This movie has Academy Award written ALL over it. It’s also part of a cool initiative called Shine Global, which is an organization aiming to end the exploitation and abuse of children around the world by raising awareness through documentary filmmaking. So, you donate money and they make movies like this one. If you visit the website, you can also watch an extended trailer for the film, which actually includes a bunch of footage not in the movie. So, if you saw War/Dance at HotDocs (or elsewhere) and want to see more, check it out. (And, of course, keep Kleenex nearby, even for that!)
Unfortunately, I think my next film may have suffered from the aftermath of such an emotional experience, because Thin Ice (4/8) sounded excellent on paper but was kind of disappointing onscreen. It tells the story of a group of young women in a remote village in the Himalayas, who are determined to form a hockey team and compete in an annual tournament. But I found the doc lacking, specifically in terms of creating an emotional investment on the part of the audience (or, I suppose, on me, since lots of people seemed to love this movie). The filmmakers only interviewed one girl out of this entire team – which was made up of Buddhist and Muslim girls – and her interviews serve as the narrative. It also seemed a tiny bit odd that a female American hockey player just happens to run into the team during the shoot (at what seems like a dining hall?) and then offers to coach the team. The director was asked about this strange coincidence during the Q&A and said the woman was “just a backpacker. Very common in the area.” I dunno, I wasn’t sold.The film was preceded by the short The Fighting Cholitas (5/8), which profiles a number of female Lucha Libre wrestlers in Bolivia, who perform in full cholita regalia.
Last up was Four Elements, which I’m not going to assign a slice rating. See, the film was more of a piece of art than a movie that I can critique – it’s basically a quartet of visual poems about mankind and the four elements (fire, water, earth and air). Each 20-minute section is a dialogue- and narration-free look at workers in various nature-based fields (smokejumpers, crab fishermen, miners and astronauts) as they go about their jobs. The film is visually stunning but, to be honest, kind of boring. A number of people got up and left during the screening, and I have to admit that I considered it as well. But, somewhere amid the crab fishermen in Alaska, I found my groove with the film and just kind of absorbed it instead of trying to analyze it.Before I wrap for tonight, I have to reiterate how cool HotDocs is, and how fantastic it is to see filmmakers out attending other people’s movies. I recognized a number of directors of films I’d seen over the past few days out at movies I saw today, which was most excellent and further enhances the community feel of the fest. Well done!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
HotDocs #4: Audience Appreciation
I don’t know if it’s because my body simply isn’t accustomed to film festivalling in April, or because the weather’s been unseasonably warm lately, or because my last two films today were at the ROM...where the air conditioning wasn’t working and where those of us in the theater could actually feel ourselves melting into human puddles...but MAN, I’m wiped. And it’s only day four!
I managed to snag tickets to three screenings today, and downed the World’s Biggest Smoothie in between to keep myself fueled.
First up was Helvetica (5/8), a documentary about the font of the same name – its origins, its history and its ubiquity. It features interviews with type designers and graphic artists, alongside an endless stream of examples of Helvetica in everything from advertising to street signs. But, to me, it felt like it would have made a superb short film. As a feature, it ebbs and flows from one talking head to the next and started to lose my interest along with its momentum. It might have been the nature of the subject matter – how much can one really say about a font? – or it might have been that director Gary Hustwit set a curious, and somewhat off-putting, tone during his introduction.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m of the mind that one probably shouldn’t mock or insult the audience right before starting one’s own movie. I’m totally certain he was just trying to be playful or funny, but his delivery tanked: Hustwit walked out onstage, kind of shook his head in disbelief at the packed (every spot filled in the 500-seat house) audience and said that he knew “the geeks” would come out in force for a movie about a font. Then he asked us why we were there on such a nice day, and told us we were in need of some kind of treatment. Again, I *know* he was kidding, but it felt a little self-congratulatory in a phony self-deprecating way...especially since almost every other filmmaker (here and at other fests) begins by thanking the audience for coming. He didn’t know us well enough to mock us, I thought.
I should have turned to the guy sitting next to me – doc director Aaron Woolf – and asked him if he planned to mock his audience when his film screened. I didn’t know it was Aaron Woolf sitting next to me at the time, mind you, and didn’t realize that his film (King Corn) is one that I totally would have seen had it not been screening at 11:30pm at the Bloor. We only chatted long enough for me to find out that my in-theater neighbor was a filmmaker with a movie called King Corn, so I looked him up when I got home. I mention him because he’s my only “celeb” sighting today (and because I regret not asking for a screener). Well, him and FashionTV host Jeanne Beker, who was trying to go incognito as she wove through the food court at Toronto General Hospital, where I had my smoothie.
My second film today was Billy the Kid (5/8), which I really wanted to like more than I did. It had good buzz but, as it stands, I’m struggling with the 5/8 rating because part of me wants to drop it to a 4. The film is about the titular 15-year-old, who’s got some “issues” (they repeat this several times) that clearly have to do with his social skills and some sort of ADD. He’s like the male version of Molly Shannon’s Mary-Catherine Gallagher schoolgirl character, right down to the obsessive referencing of movies, only real and not played for comedy and kind of sad. The movie was fine, but I couldn’t help feeling that we were being given a skewed sense of its central figure and that some of the other people in his world were behaving differently towards him (i.e., being nicer than they would have otherwise) because he had a crew following him around. Turns out the film was also shot in only eight days (five in summer and three in winter), which only added to the sense that it barely scratches the surface of who this complex, friendless, awkward but endearing boy is. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just didn’t feel satisfied as a viewer.
Billy the Kid was preceded by the short, The Truth About Tooth (6/8), a clever little Scottish gem about children’s belief in the Tooth Fairy.
Last up was Strawberry Fields (6/8), which examines the impact of the Disengagement in the West Bank on a group of strawberry farmers in Gaza – specifically, the exporting of their produce through Israeli-controlled ports. Admittedly, my knowledge of the politics of the region is cursory, so I can’t really speak to any geo-political issues it may or may not raise (though one audience member, a Palestinian, did stand up to accuse the film’s Israeli director of not painting a full picture of the situation). I looked at it as a human story about the farmers and their struggles, and to that end it was interesting and occasionally jarring.
The film was preceded by Shit & Chicks (7/8), a brilliant short about a Ghanian farmer and his ingenious way of sustaining his small flock of chickens. It’s told without dialogue (save for a few explanatory paragraphs of text onscreen at the end) and, considering it came from a director who claims he has no knowledge of filmmaking, is a great visual story.
Earlier in the HDD I commented that HotDocs is much more accessible, price-wise, than TIFF, and I completely forgot to mention one of the greatest reasons this is so: ALL daytime screenings are FREE for students and seniors! TOTALLY FREE! You can’t get more affordable than that. And, on a final “Gee, ain’t HotDocs grand?” note: I must point out the joy that leapt in my moviegoing heart today as I saw the maaaaaassive rush line (easily 100 people) waiting for the chance to see Helvetica...a movie about a font, and the similarly lengthy queue of folks waiting to find out if they might be able to see a film about strawberries in the Middle East. I mean, people desperate to see movies about letters and fruit! How great is that?!
I managed to snag tickets to three screenings today, and downed the World’s Biggest Smoothie in between to keep myself fueled.
First up was Helvetica (5/8), a documentary about the font of the same name – its origins, its history and its ubiquity. It features interviews with type designers and graphic artists, alongside an endless stream of examples of Helvetica in everything from advertising to street signs. But, to me, it felt like it would have made a superb short film. As a feature, it ebbs and flows from one talking head to the next and started to lose my interest along with its momentum. It might have been the nature of the subject matter – how much can one really say about a font? – or it might have been that director Gary Hustwit set a curious, and somewhat off-putting, tone during his introduction.Maybe it’s just me, but I’m of the mind that one probably shouldn’t mock or insult the audience right before starting one’s own movie. I’m totally certain he was just trying to be playful or funny, but his delivery tanked: Hustwit walked out onstage, kind of shook his head in disbelief at the packed (every spot filled in the 500-seat house) audience and said that he knew “the geeks” would come out in force for a movie about a font. Then he asked us why we were there on such a nice day, and told us we were in need of some kind of treatment. Again, I *know* he was kidding, but it felt a little self-congratulatory in a phony self-deprecating way...especially since almost every other filmmaker (here and at other fests) begins by thanking the audience for coming. He didn’t know us well enough to mock us, I thought.
I should have turned to the guy sitting next to me – doc director Aaron Woolf – and asked him if he planned to mock his audience when his film screened. I didn’t know it was Aaron Woolf sitting next to me at the time, mind you, and didn’t realize that his film (King Corn) is one that I totally would have seen had it not been screening at 11:30pm at the Bloor. We only chatted long enough for me to find out that my in-theater neighbor was a filmmaker with a movie called King Corn, so I looked him up when I got home. I mention him because he’s my only “celeb” sighting today (and because I regret not asking for a screener). Well, him and FashionTV host Jeanne Beker, who was trying to go incognito as she wove through the food court at Toronto General Hospital, where I had my smoothie.
My second film today was Billy the Kid (5/8), which I really wanted to like more than I did. It had good buzz but, as it stands, I’m struggling with the 5/8 rating because part of me wants to drop it to a 4. The film is about the titular 15-year-old, who’s got some “issues” (they repeat this several times) that clearly have to do with his social skills and some sort of ADD. He’s like the male version of Molly Shannon’s Mary-Catherine Gallagher schoolgirl character, right down to the obsessive referencing of movies, only real and not played for comedy and kind of sad. The movie was fine, but I couldn’t help feeling that we were being given a skewed sense of its central figure and that some of the other people in his world were behaving differently towards him (i.e., being nicer than they would have otherwise) because he had a crew following him around. Turns out the film was also shot in only eight days (five in summer and three in winter), which only added to the sense that it barely scratches the surface of who this complex, friendless, awkward but endearing boy is. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just didn’t feel satisfied as a viewer.Billy the Kid was preceded by the short, The Truth About Tooth (6/8), a clever little Scottish gem about children’s belief in the Tooth Fairy.
Last up was Strawberry Fields (6/8), which examines the impact of the Disengagement in the West Bank on a group of strawberry farmers in Gaza – specifically, the exporting of their produce through Israeli-controlled ports. Admittedly, my knowledge of the politics of the region is cursory, so I can’t really speak to any geo-political issues it may or may not raise (though one audience member, a Palestinian, did stand up to accuse the film’s Israeli director of not painting a full picture of the situation). I looked at it as a human story about the farmers and their struggles, and to that end it was interesting and occasionally jarring. 
The film was preceded by Shit & Chicks (7/8), a brilliant short about a Ghanian farmer and his ingenious way of sustaining his small flock of chickens. It’s told without dialogue (save for a few explanatory paragraphs of text onscreen at the end) and, considering it came from a director who claims he has no knowledge of filmmaking, is a great visual story.Earlier in the HDD I commented that HotDocs is much more accessible, price-wise, than TIFF, and I completely forgot to mention one of the greatest reasons this is so: ALL daytime screenings are FREE for students and seniors! TOTALLY FREE! You can’t get more affordable than that. And, on a final “Gee, ain’t HotDocs grand?” note: I must point out the joy that leapt in my moviegoing heart today as I saw the maaaaaassive rush line (easily 100 people) waiting for the chance to see Helvetica...a movie about a font, and the similarly lengthy queue of folks waiting to find out if they might be able to see a film about strawberries in the Middle East. I mean, people desperate to see movies about letters and fruit! How great is that?!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
HotDocs #3: Why the Bloor is My Least Favorite Venue...and: Girls, Rock! RAWKS!
I’d like to take a moment to talk about pee. More specifically, peeing. More specifically than that, peeing at the Bloor Cinema...which is a pain in the bum if you’re a woman. Pun fully intended.
Why?
Because the Bloor is a theater that seats more than 800, yet they only have THREE toilets for us girls. Three. So even if only half of a packed house is made up of women, that’s upwards of 400 people trying to tame full bladders long enough to stand in a massive line and wait for an open stall. For someone who drinks as much water as I do, this is a nightmare.
Now, the Bloor Cinema is a historic landmark and a gorgeous theater and it routinely screens great movies at low prices, but for an event like HotDocs – where theaters often fill to capacity – it suddenly becomes seriously unfriendly to users who need to pee. I mention this because I saw two films at the Bloor today, and both skewed to a decidedly female demographic. Guess how long the washroom lines were?
LOOOOOOOOONG.
By comparison, the Isabel Bader Theatre is magnificent. Pristine, new and, with a seating capacity of only 500, a whopping TEN women’s toilets! Even the tiny Innis Town Hall, which only has 200 seats, offers its female visitors five stalls from which to choose. Three toilets for 800 seats is just a sad, uncomfortable ratio and, trivial as it may seem, it’s something that will definitely factor into my future screening selections. There’s only so much I can hold in for so long!
Moving on...
My first film today was Yoga, Inc (5/8), an entertaining but not wholly satisfying look at the commercialization of yoga in the United States. Examining the relationship between commerce and what’s *supposed* to be a spiritual pursuit, the film spends a great deal of time demonstrating how the yoga phenomenon has exploded in the U.S., and how Bikram Choudhry, the Harvey Weinstein of the industry, is almost a cult-leader-like creep. But I think director John Philp missed a prime opportunity for comedy and insight by never asking any of his interview subjects – some of whom are fanatical -- why they do yoga. Why is it so important to them? What do they get out of it? I’d guess that more than a few would have given gems of answers.
Oh, and it was preceded by a very short short, Liquidman (5/8), which profiles a free diver and features some lovely underwater photography.
After the film was over, I spent two hours walking around the city. I had a veggie dog from a street vendor for dinner, and sat on the steps of the ROM to people watch while I ate it. It was beautiful out today, so it was a perfect, shady spot to unwind. I wanted an soft-serve ice cream cone (chocolate/vanilla twist, since you ask), but was unable to find an ice cream truck from which to procure one. So, back in line!
I’m thrilled to report that the one movie I was desperate to see at HotDocs was just as wonderful as I’d hoped. Girls, Rock! (7/8) RAWKED! Much in the same way that I loved Summercamp! back at TIFF, or Spellbound before that, I was totally into this doc about a Portland, OR, rock & roll camp for girls. (I know, shocking, right? It’s not like I’m a fan of girl bands or anything. Quit snickering.) Centering on four colorful campers – death-metal fan Laura, precocious 7-year-old Palace, bespectacled chatterbox Amelia and newbie bassist Misty – the film looks at ups and downs in the week-long experience and how, as one tearful mother puts it, the camp instructors (all musicians themselves) “teach the girls how to treat other girls.” Punctuated by hyper-saturated animated sequences with random grrrrl-power factoids, it’s a rockin’, rollin' and remarkably insightful good time. With a killer soundtrack. Someone needs to get a screener to Ellen or Oprah, pronto.
Since I’m bound by the review constraints laid out by the fest, I have to reserve my full review for later...much later, it turns out, since the film won’t start unspooling near you until late-2007 or 2008. In the meantime, you can find out everything you wanted to know (and much more!) about the film and the camp on your own.
You can even watch the trailer! Or a a second trailer!
What I want to know is: how can I get one of the skully camp T-shirts the girls wear in the film? If anyone’s driving past the camp, swing in and see if they’re for sale!
Why?
Because the Bloor is a theater that seats more than 800, yet they only have THREE toilets for us girls. Three. So even if only half of a packed house is made up of women, that’s upwards of 400 people trying to tame full bladders long enough to stand in a massive line and wait for an open stall. For someone who drinks as much water as I do, this is a nightmare.
Now, the Bloor Cinema is a historic landmark and a gorgeous theater and it routinely screens great movies at low prices, but for an event like HotDocs – where theaters often fill to capacity – it suddenly becomes seriously unfriendly to users who need to pee. I mention this because I saw two films at the Bloor today, and both skewed to a decidedly female demographic. Guess how long the washroom lines were?
LOOOOOOOOONG.
By comparison, the Isabel Bader Theatre is magnificent. Pristine, new and, with a seating capacity of only 500, a whopping TEN women’s toilets! Even the tiny Innis Town Hall, which only has 200 seats, offers its female visitors five stalls from which to choose. Three toilets for 800 seats is just a sad, uncomfortable ratio and, trivial as it may seem, it’s something that will definitely factor into my future screening selections. There’s only so much I can hold in for so long!
Moving on...
My first film today was Yoga, Inc (5/8), an entertaining but not wholly satisfying look at the commercialization of yoga in the United States. Examining the relationship between commerce and what’s *supposed* to be a spiritual pursuit, the film spends a great deal of time demonstrating how the yoga phenomenon has exploded in the U.S., and how Bikram Choudhry, the Harvey Weinstein of the industry, is almost a cult-leader-like creep. But I think director John Philp missed a prime opportunity for comedy and insight by never asking any of his interview subjects – some of whom are fanatical -- why they do yoga. Why is it so important to them? What do they get out of it? I’d guess that more than a few would have given gems of answers.Oh, and it was preceded by a very short short, Liquidman (5/8), which profiles a free diver and features some lovely underwater photography.
After the film was over, I spent two hours walking around the city. I had a veggie dog from a street vendor for dinner, and sat on the steps of the ROM to people watch while I ate it. It was beautiful out today, so it was a perfect, shady spot to unwind. I wanted an soft-serve ice cream cone (chocolate/vanilla twist, since you ask), but was unable to find an ice cream truck from which to procure one. So, back in line!
I’m thrilled to report that the one movie I was desperate to see at HotDocs was just as wonderful as I’d hoped. Girls, Rock! (7/8) RAWKED! Much in the same way that I loved Summercamp! back at TIFF, or Spellbound before that, I was totally into this doc about a Portland, OR, rock & roll camp for girls. (I know, shocking, right? It’s not like I’m a fan of girl bands or anything. Quit snickering.) Centering on four colorful campers – death-metal fan Laura, precocious 7-year-old Palace, bespectacled chatterbox Amelia and newbie bassist Misty – the film looks at ups and downs in the week-long experience and how, as one tearful mother puts it, the camp instructors (all musicians themselves) “teach the girls how to treat other girls.” Punctuated by hyper-saturated animated sequences with random grrrrl-power factoids, it’s a rockin’, rollin' and remarkably insightful good time. With a killer soundtrack. Someone needs to get a screener to Ellen or Oprah, pronto.Since I’m bound by the review constraints laid out by the fest, I have to reserve my full review for later...much later, it turns out, since the film won’t start unspooling near you until late-2007 or 2008. In the meantime, you can find out everything you wanted to know (and much more!) about the film and the camp on your own.
You can even watch the trailer! Or a a second trailer!
What I want to know is: how can I get one of the skully camp T-shirts the girls wear in the film? If anyone’s driving past the camp, swing in and see if they’re for sale!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Hot Docs #2: Strategy
This afternoon, I went to the HotDocs media room and picked up my press pass. Yay! But the process, however thrilling, was an exercise in non-security: I didn’t have to show any I.D. (?!), I just walked up to the desk, said my name and they handed it to me. Given the hoops one has to jump through to get accredited at other fests (*cough*TIFF*cough*), I was somewhat taken aback at how easy it was. After she handed me my pass, the volunteer manning the desk smiled, gave me an envelope and said, “And heeeeere’s the most important part – your party tickets!”
I wanted to tell her that party tickets were waaaay down on my festival priority list, but I simply thanked her and left (not before snagging a “Your Mommy Kills Animals” button). Most of the invites are for one person only, which is understandable but (for a wallflower like me) makes the thought of flying solo at an event where everybody knows everybody else kind of daunting. I don’t know that I’ll actually use any of those tickets.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t be able to use my shiny new press pass right away because I had to spend most of the day today waiting by my phone to do an interview with an athlete...who never called. Neither did her agent. It’s now 10:40pm and I still haven’t heard from them – no apology, no rescheduling, nada. It’s times like these that I long to interview celebs, whose handlers are at least very apologetic if their clients don’t behave. Anyway, I’d spent all morning waiting, and eventually dashed to the HD industry centre for my pass before dashing home...all for nothing. I could have seen more movies today if I’d known my interview subject was gonna flake out on me.
As I sat on my couch watching time crawl by, I began to restrategize my HD moviegoing. When I first flipped through the schedule last week, I picked films based on their marquee value – i.e., which ones look like they’ll be big crowd pleasers and which ones have the most amount of pre-fest buzz? But today I realized that I was making a mistake. If everyone and their cousin was clamoring to get tickets to high-buzz flicks like Manufacturing Dissent or Let’s All Hate Toronto (which I’d originally planned to see tonight), who’s going to cover all the other, smaller, perhaps lesser-known films screening this week? Who’s going to champion the little guy? What if there are some magnificent movies playing to half-empty houses because people were too busy trying to scam their way into Punk the Vote! (which looks fun but is screening at the very tiny Innis Town Hall later in the week)?
So, I redid my sked. I picked different films. I reorganized my week and decided to see movies that I might not otherwise see. I mean, if I can be blown away by In the Shadow of the Moon, which I had zero interest in seeing, what else might I discover if I expand my horizons a bit? I therefore decided to skip Let’s All Hate Toronto (which I’m sure is good but which will also likely wind up airing on the CBC) ce soir and see something else. And I’m delighted to report that the two films I saw instead confirmed that I was totally making the right call.
The first was a short called Magic Night (6/8), which profiles a blind Finnish bird “watcher,” who spends every night walking along a road through bird-filled brush in order to listen to the array of avian voices that fill the air. Simple and poetic, the film is a smart and melodic rumination on beauty – do you need to see the bird in order to enjoy its song? (Hint: nope.) This short was also a brilliant companion piece to the feature-length documentary that made up the rest of the screening.
As an accredited member of the press for this fest, I’m not allowed to post full reviews of the films I see (only capsule reviews until the films’ theatrical release dates). But oh, how I wish I could, because the second film of the night -- Hear and Now (8/8) -- was simply breathtakingly good. If I could, I would give it 9 out of 8 slices. Or 10. I absolutely loved it. Filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky trains her lens on her 65-year-old parents, Sally and Paul, who have both been deaf since birth and who both decide (at 65) to have cochlear-implant surgery, which would allow them to hear for the first time in their lives. Simultaneously joyous and heartbreaking, the film is a beautiful portrait of love more than anything else, and had most of the audience crying on and off throughout. It also shows the struggles and frustrations inherent in giving up the life you know for one that may or may not be better, depending on your point of view.
Both Paul and Sally were in attendance at tonight’s screening, and they received a standing ovation when they took the stage after the film. Funny, inspiring and true partners in every sense of the word, they made a huge impact on those of us at the Bader. (For anyone reading this in time: the film screens again tomorrow (Sat.) at noon at the ROM. I highly, highly recommend checking it out if you can. Bring Kleenex!) Again, I wish I could ramble on about the movie for ages, but I can’t...so see it for yourself and enjoy.
Tomorrow, OMG, it’s Girls, Rock!
I wanted to tell her that party tickets were waaaay down on my festival priority list, but I simply thanked her and left (not before snagging a “Your Mommy Kills Animals” button). Most of the invites are for one person only, which is understandable but (for a wallflower like me) makes the thought of flying solo at an event where everybody knows everybody else kind of daunting. I don’t know that I’ll actually use any of those tickets.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t be able to use my shiny new press pass right away because I had to spend most of the day today waiting by my phone to do an interview with an athlete...who never called. Neither did her agent. It’s now 10:40pm and I still haven’t heard from them – no apology, no rescheduling, nada. It’s times like these that I long to interview celebs, whose handlers are at least very apologetic if their clients don’t behave. Anyway, I’d spent all morning waiting, and eventually dashed to the HD industry centre for my pass before dashing home...all for nothing. I could have seen more movies today if I’d known my interview subject was gonna flake out on me.As I sat on my couch watching time crawl by, I began to restrategize my HD moviegoing. When I first flipped through the schedule last week, I picked films based on their marquee value – i.e., which ones look like they’ll be big crowd pleasers and which ones have the most amount of pre-fest buzz? But today I realized that I was making a mistake. If everyone and their cousin was clamoring to get tickets to high-buzz flicks like Manufacturing Dissent or Let’s All Hate Toronto (which I’d originally planned to see tonight), who’s going to cover all the other, smaller, perhaps lesser-known films screening this week? Who’s going to champion the little guy? What if there are some magnificent movies playing to half-empty houses because people were too busy trying to scam their way into Punk the Vote! (which looks fun but is screening at the very tiny Innis Town Hall later in the week)?
So, I redid my sked. I picked different films. I reorganized my week and decided to see movies that I might not otherwise see. I mean, if I can be blown away by In the Shadow of the Moon, which I had zero interest in seeing, what else might I discover if I expand my horizons a bit? I therefore decided to skip Let’s All Hate Toronto (which I’m sure is good but which will also likely wind up airing on the CBC) ce soir and see something else. And I’m delighted to report that the two films I saw instead confirmed that I was totally making the right call.
The first was a short called Magic Night (6/8), which profiles a blind Finnish bird “watcher,” who spends every night walking along a road through bird-filled brush in order to listen to the array of avian voices that fill the air. Simple and poetic, the film is a smart and melodic rumination on beauty – do you need to see the bird in order to enjoy its song? (Hint: nope.) This short was also a brilliant companion piece to the feature-length documentary that made up the rest of the screening.
As an accredited member of the press for this fest, I’m not allowed to post full reviews of the films I see (only capsule reviews until the films’ theatrical release dates). But oh, how I wish I could, because the second film of the night -- Hear and Now (8/8) -- was simply breathtakingly good. If I could, I would give it 9 out of 8 slices. Or 10. I absolutely loved it. Filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky trains her lens on her 65-year-old parents, Sally and Paul, who have both been deaf since birth and who both decide (at 65) to have cochlear-implant surgery, which would allow them to hear for the first time in their lives. Simultaneously joyous and heartbreaking, the film is a beautiful portrait of love more than anything else, and had most of the audience crying on and off throughout. It also shows the struggles and frustrations inherent in giving up the life you know for one that may or may not be better, depending on your point of view.Both Paul and Sally were in attendance at tonight’s screening, and they received a standing ovation when they took the stage after the film. Funny, inspiring and true partners in every sense of the word, they made a huge impact on those of us at the Bader. (For anyone reading this in time: the film screens again tomorrow (Sat.) at noon at the ROM. I highly, highly recommend checking it out if you can. Bring Kleenex!) Again, I wish I could ramble on about the movie for ages, but I can’t...so see it for yourself and enjoy.
Tomorrow, OMG, it’s Girls, Rock!
HotDocs Diary #1: So, this is what it's like to be invited!
Today was my inaugural HotDocs 2007 event, and the first one I’m attending as an invited guest. My trek to the theatre was not an easy one, since the bus I’d planned to take to the venue was almost 20 minutes late (or 5 minutes early, depending on which scheduled bus it actually was). Once I arrived at the Bader, I exchanged my email invitation for a hard ticket and took my place in the ticket-holders line.
There, I observed.
The audience for the opening-night screening was made up almost solely of industry folks and corporate sponsors, so it was not unlike attending a TIFF Gala screening. There were numerous exuberant greetings between friends who presumably hadn’t seen each other since the last fest they attended, and more cell phones than you could shake a brain tumor at. Unlike TIFF, big bear hugs seemed to replace air kisses, which was nice.
(As an aside, the weather for today and the next few days is supposed to be exceptionally sunny and warm, so I wonder if the Bader bees will make an early appearance?)
Remember how I theorized that there might not be much to gripe about at HD? I was wrong...because I forgot about APL: Annoying People in Line! They’re the ones who cut in front of you, or smoke cigarettes right beside you, or yap on their phones about a foot from your head.
Or, they’re like the two young women who were in front of me, who actually stop the progress of the line. You know the ones I mean. They don’t keep pace with the people in front of them, so once the doors to the theater are opened and the line begins moving, you and the rest of the folks behind you wind up in the line equivalent of a drain clog...watching helplessly as the gap between you and the first chunk of the line widens with each passing second. People behind you start to get antsy and you can see random linemates starting to move around to flank you. They’re thinking of going around. Chaos is imminent.
These two women, who were so engrossed in themselves, their cell phones and their outfits, didn’t have tickets, either. Nevermind that the volunteer working the line earlier specifically asked everyone “ticket holders? you have your tickets?” and they nodded. They lied. They had their invitation – the one that said, in big letters across the front, “submit this invitation at the theater box office to receive your ticket” – but hadn’t actually followed its instructions.
So, anyway, the doors open and the line starts to move. I notice immediately that the two women in front of me are walking extremely s-l-o-w-l-y. Like, sloth slow. And they were slowing down further with each step until they achieved the least amount of movement possible without actually standing still. I wasn’t sure what the hold up might be, but when we finally reached the main doors, it was revealed: they were waiting for someone and trying to delay their entry in case that someone magically arrived. Then, an eagle-eyed volunteer spotted the fact that they didn’t have tickets and pointed it out to them. They seemed confused. “What? Oh, really? What do we do?” He pointed to the clearly printed exchange instructions.
By now, the line had come to a dead stop as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dolt debated whether to go in and sit down, or wait outside. Tick tock tick tock. I could sense the line behind me getting impatient. Finally, they took a half-step out of line and I moved briskly past them, with the rest of the line following me in. Sheesh!
The opening-night documentary was In the Shadow of the Moon (7/8), a beautiful film chronicling NASA’s Apollo space program. It features insightful, funny and occasionally moving interviews with eight of the surviving Apollo astronauts, archival footage of their training, news reports from the era and some breathtaking footage taken during their missions to the moon. It also manages to simultaneously be a meditation on planet Earth amid a discussion of outer space. Walking in, I thought I would be bored silly, but I was completely mistaken. I thought it was excellent, and surprisingly emotional.
The only celeb sighting (and, really, I didn’t think there would be any at all during HD) was Sarah Polley, who also attended.
Today, I pick up my press pass and, if it’s anything like the industry passes some folks were sporting last night, it’s HUGE. Sort of like wearing a laminated sheet of paper around your neck. Still, it means free tickets, so it’s fine by me!
There, I observed.
The audience for the opening-night screening was made up almost solely of industry folks and corporate sponsors, so it was not unlike attending a TIFF Gala screening. There were numerous exuberant greetings between friends who presumably hadn’t seen each other since the last fest they attended, and more cell phones than you could shake a brain tumor at. Unlike TIFF, big bear hugs seemed to replace air kisses, which was nice.
(As an aside, the weather for today and the next few days is supposed to be exceptionally sunny and warm, so I wonder if the Bader bees will make an early appearance?)
Remember how I theorized that there might not be much to gripe about at HD? I was wrong...because I forgot about APL: Annoying People in Line! They’re the ones who cut in front of you, or smoke cigarettes right beside you, or yap on their phones about a foot from your head.
Or, they’re like the two young women who were in front of me, who actually stop the progress of the line. You know the ones I mean. They don’t keep pace with the people in front of them, so once the doors to the theater are opened and the line begins moving, you and the rest of the folks behind you wind up in the line equivalent of a drain clog...watching helplessly as the gap between you and the first chunk of the line widens with each passing second. People behind you start to get antsy and you can see random linemates starting to move around to flank you. They’re thinking of going around. Chaos is imminent.
These two women, who were so engrossed in themselves, their cell phones and their outfits, didn’t have tickets, either. Nevermind that the volunteer working the line earlier specifically asked everyone “ticket holders? you have your tickets?” and they nodded. They lied. They had their invitation – the one that said, in big letters across the front, “submit this invitation at the theater box office to receive your ticket” – but hadn’t actually followed its instructions.
So, anyway, the doors open and the line starts to move. I notice immediately that the two women in front of me are walking extremely s-l-o-w-l-y. Like, sloth slow. And they were slowing down further with each step until they achieved the least amount of movement possible without actually standing still. I wasn’t sure what the hold up might be, but when we finally reached the main doors, it was revealed: they were waiting for someone and trying to delay their entry in case that someone magically arrived. Then, an eagle-eyed volunteer spotted the fact that they didn’t have tickets and pointed it out to them. They seemed confused. “What? Oh, really? What do we do?” He pointed to the clearly printed exchange instructions.
By now, the line had come to a dead stop as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dolt debated whether to go in and sit down, or wait outside. Tick tock tick tock. I could sense the line behind me getting impatient. Finally, they took a half-step out of line and I moved briskly past them, with the rest of the line following me in. Sheesh!
The opening-night documentary was In the Shadow of the Moon (7/8), a beautiful film chronicling NASA’s Apollo space program. It features insightful, funny and occasionally moving interviews with eight of the surviving Apollo astronauts, archival footage of their training, news reports from the era and some breathtaking footage taken during their missions to the moon. It also manages to simultaneously be a meditation on planet Earth amid a discussion of outer space. Walking in, I thought I would be bored silly, but I was completely mistaken. I thought it was excellent, and surprisingly emotional.The only celeb sighting (and, really, I didn’t think there would be any at all during HD) was Sarah Polley, who also attended.
Today, I pick up my press pass and, if it’s anything like the industry passes some folks were sporting last night, it’s HUGE. Sort of like wearing a laminated sheet of paper around your neck. Still, it means free tickets, so it’s fine by me!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Seattle Festival of the Gays 2006
So there were three big unavoidable, inescapable, highly anticipated lures to the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival this year:
1) Opening Night Film - SHORTBUS by John Cameron Mitchell, the long-in-the-making sophomore film from the maker of Hedwig and the Angry Inch
2) Midnight Madness with Peaches Christ, featuring Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill, AND special guest Tura Satana (OMG!!!!)
3) Finally, FINALLY getting to see the infamous Loving Annabelle, the Moviepie review of which has gotten Vickie on the shitlist of hundreds of not thousands of lesbians who love the film (many sight-unseen, it seems).
The fest is solidly half over now, so I'll report on what I've seen (while I clutch my Faster, Pussycat! lunchbox in anticipation for this Saturday night).
SHORTBUS (6/8) - Everyone wants to know about the sex. Yes, there are many bits and pieces in this film, in various combinations, or sometimes even solo. The surprise for many viewers is that SHORTBUS, it turns out, is not simply graphic for the sake of being graphic. The film actually had a lot of heart and emotion (which shouldn't really be too surprising if you've seen Mitchell's Hedwig, either as a stage show or in movie form). SHORTBUS was actually quite funny, and if you can get past the opening montage which throws lots of people getting busy right in your face, you will ready to move on to the rest of the film which gradually focuses on three main characters all dealing with their own sexual and intimacy issues. I liked it. I liked it a lot. And so did the audience.
FOR THE LOVE OF DOLLY (6/8) -- This and Camp Michael Jackson reminded me of those shows that you can sometimes catch on VH1, like "Bon Jovi's Craziest Fans Ever". The Dolly doc had an undercurrent of sweetness and charm, probably because with Dolly herself as the object of affection, it is hard to avoid. The fans are hardcore, from a gay couple from Texas who hand makes porcelain dolls in her likeness (and finally get to meet Dolly onscreen!), two women best pals who are a bit over the top, but seem to find a kindred spirit in the country star as though they know her, and a mentally and physically handicapped man who blossoms when talking about his love for her. And Dolly seems nothing but nice. It's hard not to be moved by this doc.
CAMP MICHAEL JACKSON (5/8) -- Then there are the Michael Jackson fans who held court (so to speak) outside the California courthouse where he was on trial for child molestation and conspiracy charges. In some cases, these people QUIT THEIR JOBS to stand outside every day, hoping to get their number picked in the daily lottery for the few seats available to the public. Many of them were there for MONTHS. These fans are just as rabid as the ones in Dolly, yet considering the background of the trail, there is an overall creepiness about the whole thing that takes away from the enjoyment of the whole surrounding freakshow. I'm just saying.
THE GYMNAST (5/8) -- I'll say this: The Gymnast is a gorgeous looking film. There are two beautiful woman doing Cirqe du Soliel-esque stunts hanging from ribbons of fabric from the ceiling. Their physical prowess is impressive and fluid. The love story between the two is a little less convincing. Jane (Dreya Weber) is a 40-something ex-Olympian unhappily married yet trying to get pregnant. Serena (Addie Yungmee) is a beautiful younger modern dancer, a Korean-American who is lesbian, yet has not come out to her adoptive parents. It seems like there are more stories going on, but the film is so subdued, as though entranced by its own visuals, that it never really sparks. Still, pretty good; definitely better than...
LOVING ANNABELLE (3/8) -- I give this infamous movie one more slice than Vickie, mainly because I was (unintentionally?) entertained for most of the duration. I was asked later by someone who did not attend the screening if it was a comedy, considering that I mentioned that people were guffawing through much of the movie. I said that if you took away the audience guffaws, Loving Annabelle would clearly be a drama. It is basically Catholic-schoolgirl-crush porn (with consequences, thank goodness), but a drama nonetheless. And there's a porcupine owned by a girl who pets him with oven mitts. You gotta like that. As the credits rolled, I asked a restless woman sitting near me, "Is it just me, or is there a little bit of an EWWW Factor to this whole movie?" She answered, "A little bit? More like a whole LOT of EWWW Factor!"
More to come...
1) Opening Night Film - SHORTBUS by John Cameron Mitchell, the long-in-the-making sophomore film from the maker of Hedwig and the Angry Inch
2) Midnight Madness with Peaches Christ, featuring Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill, AND special guest Tura Satana (OMG!!!!)
3) Finally, FINALLY getting to see the infamous Loving Annabelle, the Moviepie review of which has gotten Vickie on the shitlist of hundreds of not thousands of lesbians who love the film (many sight-unseen, it seems).
The fest is solidly half over now, so I'll report on what I've seen (while I clutch my Faster, Pussycat! lunchbox in anticipation for this Saturday night).
SHORTBUS (6/8) - Everyone wants to know about the sex. Yes, there are many bits and pieces in this film, in various combinations, or sometimes even solo. The surprise for many viewers is that SHORTBUS, it turns out, is not simply graphic for the sake of being graphic. The film actually had a lot of heart and emotion (which shouldn't really be too surprising if you've seen Mitchell's Hedwig, either as a stage show or in movie form). SHORTBUS was actually quite funny, and if you can get past the opening montage which throws lots of people getting busy right in your face, you will ready to move on to the rest of the film which gradually focuses on three main characters all dealing with their own sexual and intimacy issues. I liked it. I liked it a lot. And so did the audience.
FOR THE LOVE OF DOLLY (6/8) -- This and Camp Michael Jackson reminded me of those shows that you can sometimes catch on VH1, like "Bon Jovi's Craziest Fans Ever". The Dolly doc had an undercurrent of sweetness and charm, probably because with Dolly herself as the object of affection, it is hard to avoid. The fans are hardcore, from a gay couple from Texas who hand makes porcelain dolls in her likeness (and finally get to meet Dolly onscreen!), two women best pals who are a bit over the top, but seem to find a kindred spirit in the country star as though they know her, and a mentally and physically handicapped man who blossoms when talking about his love for her. And Dolly seems nothing but nice. It's hard not to be moved by this doc.
CAMP MICHAEL JACKSON (5/8) -- Then there are the Michael Jackson fans who held court (so to speak) outside the California courthouse where he was on trial for child molestation and conspiracy charges. In some cases, these people QUIT THEIR JOBS to stand outside every day, hoping to get their number picked in the daily lottery for the few seats available to the public. Many of them were there for MONTHS. These fans are just as rabid as the ones in Dolly, yet considering the background of the trail, there is an overall creepiness about the whole thing that takes away from the enjoyment of the whole surrounding freakshow. I'm just saying.
THE GYMNAST (5/8) -- I'll say this: The Gymnast is a gorgeous looking film. There are two beautiful woman doing Cirqe du Soliel-esque stunts hanging from ribbons of fabric from the ceiling. Their physical prowess is impressive and fluid. The love story between the two is a little less convincing. Jane (Dreya Weber) is a 40-something ex-Olympian unhappily married yet trying to get pregnant. Serena (Addie Yungmee) is a beautiful younger modern dancer, a Korean-American who is lesbian, yet has not come out to her adoptive parents. It seems like there are more stories going on, but the film is so subdued, as though entranced by its own visuals, that it never really sparks. Still, pretty good; definitely better than...
LOVING ANNABELLE (3/8) -- I give this infamous movie one more slice than Vickie, mainly because I was (unintentionally?) entertained for most of the duration. I was asked later by someone who did not attend the screening if it was a comedy, considering that I mentioned that people were guffawing through much of the movie. I said that if you took away the audience guffaws, Loving Annabelle would clearly be a drama. It is basically Catholic-schoolgirl-crush porn (with consequences, thank goodness), but a drama nonetheless. And there's a porcupine owned by a girl who pets him with oven mitts. You gotta like that. As the credits rolled, I asked a restless woman sitting near me, "Is it just me, or is there a little bit of an EWWW Factor to this whole movie?" She answered, "A little bit? More like a whole LOT of EWWW Factor!"
More to come...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
TIFF 2006 #14: Final Thoughts on the Festival
Yes, I realize this is coming a tad late, what with the fest having rolled up its red carpets a few days ago already. But my on-again/off-again PFS and general weariness got the best of me, so my wrap-up has been slower to arrive than normal…and I suspect it will wind up being underwhelming.
Anyway…
Since fewer and fewer folks are surfing over here, I figure everyone’s pretty much had their fill of TIFF coverage, so I’ll keep this relatively short:
Best Films I Saw: Summercamp!, This is England, 2:37 and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing
Best Film I Saw That I Didn’t Really Understand: Day on Fire
Films That Bored Me Silly: The Magic Flute and Quelques Jours en Septembre
Biggest Disappointments: Griffin & Phoenix (oh, how I wanted to love it), The Dog Problem (though, I can’t say I was surprised) and I Am the Other Woman (ah well)
Strangest Cinematic Theme Running Through My Picks This Year: eye surgery and random dismemberment (seriously)
The Only Thing Creepier Than Press-Conference Moderator Henri Béhar: the photo accompanying the synopsis for Pan’s Labyrinth in the program book *shudder*
There weren’t really any outstanding or memorable moments at this year’s TIFF. Aside from the Army of the Odiously Obnoxious, there were no extremes of good or bad, and nothing freakishly weird or scary, either.
So, with TIFF 2006 now a fading memory, I’d like to offer my wish list for TIFF 2007:
* I wish that someone somewhere would have a chat with TIFF co-director Noah Cowan about his eyeroll-inducing, thesaurian pre-screening intros. Honestly, Noah, just because you looked up a bunch of multi-syllabic synonyms for “good” or “interesting” doesn’t mean we’re going to be impressed – just sit down and let us watch the film, please. And the impact of your words is lost when you stand there reading them off of note cards but pretending like they’re just coming to you off the top of your head. We can SEE the cards!
* Speaking of pre-screening intros, I wish that every TIFF staffer assigned to intro a film would take the time to memorize the FOUR sponsors of the fest. I mean, how hard is it to remember Bell, Visa, the Government of Ontario and Telefilm Canada? I’m sure half the people who just read that sentence now have them committed to memory.
* I wish that ticket prices would actually drop next year. I know they won’t. I know they’ll go up again. But this is a wish list, so I’m wishing.
* I wish that once, just once, I’ll get all of my picks on the first try, and that whatever box my order lands in next year turns out to be the first box processed. I wonder what it feels like not to have to revise your selections?
* I wish that all the line cutters and line jerks would be punished immediately by attentive theater staff or volunteers and then publicly humiliated (“Hey, you! Are you cutting in line?! In front of all these people?! You should be ashamed of yourself! Who did you think you were going to fool?! Come HERE! All of your tickets are hereby revoked and you are banned from TIFFing for the rest of the fest, now GET OUT!”).
* I wish that TIFF shuttle bus would come back, but with an improved schedule.
* I wish that Michèle Maheux would program ALL the festival’s films. I think she and I share a moviegoing brain. In fact, I also wish that Michèle could somehow intro every movie showing at the festival, because she’s very dry and funny and always entertaining. So there.
And, really, that’s about it. Not much to ask, I don’t think.
Thanks to everyone who followed along with me from home, and I’ll see you back here next September!
Anyway…
Since fewer and fewer folks are surfing over here, I figure everyone’s pretty much had their fill of TIFF coverage, so I’ll keep this relatively short:
Best Films I Saw: Summercamp!, This is England, 2:37 and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing
Best Film I Saw That I Didn’t Really Understand: Day on Fire
Films That Bored Me Silly: The Magic Flute and Quelques Jours en Septembre
Biggest Disappointments: Griffin & Phoenix (oh, how I wanted to love it), The Dog Problem (though, I can’t say I was surprised) and I Am the Other Woman (ah well)
Strangest Cinematic Theme Running Through My Picks This Year: eye surgery and random dismemberment (seriously)
The Only Thing Creepier Than Press-Conference Moderator Henri Béhar: the photo accompanying the synopsis for Pan’s Labyrinth in the program book *shudder*
There weren’t really any outstanding or memorable moments at this year’s TIFF. Aside from the Army of the Odiously Obnoxious, there were no extremes of good or bad, and nothing freakishly weird or scary, either.
So, with TIFF 2006 now a fading memory, I’d like to offer my wish list for TIFF 2007:
* I wish that someone somewhere would have a chat with TIFF co-director Noah Cowan about his eyeroll-inducing, thesaurian pre-screening intros. Honestly, Noah, just because you looked up a bunch of multi-syllabic synonyms for “good” or “interesting” doesn’t mean we’re going to be impressed – just sit down and let us watch the film, please. And the impact of your words is lost when you stand there reading them off of note cards but pretending like they’re just coming to you off the top of your head. We can SEE the cards!
* Speaking of pre-screening intros, I wish that every TIFF staffer assigned to intro a film would take the time to memorize the FOUR sponsors of the fest. I mean, how hard is it to remember Bell, Visa, the Government of Ontario and Telefilm Canada? I’m sure half the people who just read that sentence now have them committed to memory.
* I wish that ticket prices would actually drop next year. I know they won’t. I know they’ll go up again. But this is a wish list, so I’m wishing.
* I wish that once, just once, I’ll get all of my picks on the first try, and that whatever box my order lands in next year turns out to be the first box processed. I wonder what it feels like not to have to revise your selections?
* I wish that all the line cutters and line jerks would be punished immediately by attentive theater staff or volunteers and then publicly humiliated (“Hey, you! Are you cutting in line?! In front of all these people?! You should be ashamed of yourself! Who did you think you were going to fool?! Come HERE! All of your tickets are hereby revoked and you are banned from TIFFing for the rest of the fest, now GET OUT!”).
* I wish that TIFF shuttle bus would come back, but with an improved schedule.
* I wish that Michèle Maheux would program ALL the festival’s films. I think she and I share a moviegoing brain. In fact, I also wish that Michèle could somehow intro every movie showing at the festival, because she’s very dry and funny and always entertaining. So there.
And, really, that’s about it. Not much to ask, I don’t think.
Thanks to everyone who followed along with me from home, and I’ll see you back here next September!
Monday, September 18, 2006
Wanna Post a Comment? Here's How!
Just a bit of housekeeping, since I've had a few emails from people who said they wanted to post comments on my TIFF blog but couldn't figure out how to do it without having to register with Blogger. So, for those of you itching to throw in your two cents (and I really wish you would! we 'Pie pals love comments!), here's all you need to do:
1. click on the "comments" hyperlink at the bottom of the blog entry on which you'd like to comment
2. type your comment into the text box
3. when asked for your identity, simply select "other" -- this opens two new fields: one for your name (or handle or however you'd like to be identified), and one for your website's URL (if you have one or feel like putting one in...it's not necessary)
4. then click "publish your comment" and presto! you did it! hooray!
It's quick, easy and completely anonymous (i.e., in case you're worried, we can't trace you or anything). So, please, comment away!
1. click on the "comments" hyperlink at the bottom of the blog entry on which you'd like to comment
2. type your comment into the text box
3. when asked for your identity, simply select "other" -- this opens two new fields: one for your name (or handle or however you'd like to be identified), and one for your website's URL (if you have one or feel like putting one in...it's not necessary)
4. then click "publish your comment" and presto! you did it! hooray!
It's quick, easy and completely anonymous (i.e., in case you're worried, we can't trace you or anything). So, please, comment away!
TIFF 2006 #13: Insane TIFF Math – The Fest’s Awards Baffle Me Yet Again
I don’t get it.
I don’t understand how the People’s Choice award is decided. Does anyone really know? Because the rules and processes aren’t outlined anywhere, and I’m really curious.
In years past, audience members would fill out a ballot in a quasi-lottery set-up
where you were not only casting a vote for the PC award, but also entering yourself into a prize lottery where you could win things like an Air Canada vacation (years ago) or mutual funds (more recently). So, you took ballots, wrote in the name of the movie(s) you liked best along with your contact info, and dropped it/them into a box. Simple. But not totally fair (see math below).
This year, going into every screening, we were handed a ballot with a line on which to write that film’s title (sometimes the title had already been pre-written for you), and then the numbers one to five printed in a large font below. All we had to do was circle the number we felt the film deserved…though, no explanation was ever given that a number “5” meant you thought the film was excellent, and a “1” meant you didn’t like it at all, not the other way around.
This seems like it would be fairly obvious, but director Lucy Walker (Blindsight) told my audience at the second screening of her film that she, herself, voted incorrectly for her own movie at its previous showing…having thought that by voting “1” she was, in fact, giving it the highest rating and voting it the “#1 movie.”
I wonder how many other filmgoers made that same mistake?
Aside from numerical confusion and the lack of a prize incentive
for bothering to vote, I’d like to know: how were the votes tallied? There’s no way this could be at all fair, especially to the smaller films screening in smaller venues. Here’s why…
Given the wide range in venue capacity, where some theaters hold only a couple hundred people while others boast more than 1200 seats, it seems hugely unfair if the award is decided based on the total sum of the numeric votes (i.e., adding up all the numeric votes to reach a total).
Ex. 1
* Movie A screens twice at the Cumberland, and gets 400 votes of 5 (excellent) for a total point value of 2000.
* Movie B screens three times (let’s say, twice at the Paramount and once at the Varsity) and gets 900 votes of 3 (meh) for a total point value of 2700.
Does this mean that movie B wins?
Let’s say for argument’s sake that the People’s Choice winner goes to the film that scored the most 5s. That doesn’t work either.
Ex. 2
* Movie A screens twice at the Cumberland and gets 400 votes of 5 (excellent), from a total audience of, say, 600 people…meaning 2/3 of the people who saw it thought it was fantastic.
* Movie B screens once at Roy Thompson Hall and once at the Ryerson, and gets 500 votes of 5, from a total audience of more than 2000…meaning, only ¼ of the people who saw it thought it was great.
Again, does this mean movie B, which technically had less success, wins simply because its sample audience was much, much bigger?
No matter how you slice it, the system is wildly flawed, and that’s without getting into the issue of ballot stuffing or the fact that the People’s Choice prize is being decided before some films have had their final screenings on day 10 of the festival (where do those votes go???). Heck, by the time I got home from my final film on Saturday, TIFF brass had already handed out the awards and held an afternoon press conference to say so!
I’m going to say it once, and I’m going to hope for the love of fairness that the folks at TIFF hear me…
The only fair way (or, perhaps, the least unfair way) for the People’s Choice Award to be decided is to allow each filmgoer to vote only ONCE. Period. Save the voting for the day after the fest is over, and allow each person to vote ONLY for a single, absolute-favourite film. Then count ‘em all up and hand out a trophy. The end.
This concludes the PC Rant of 2006.
Having said all that, here’s a list of the official fest winners:
THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD went to Bella. What the hell? Bella??? Really?? (A quick glance at the schedule reveals that Bella screened three times – 2 Paramounts + a Varsity. Did that help? Probably.) Honourable mentions went to Mon Meilluer Ami and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing.
SWAROVSKI’s CULTURAL INNOVATION AWARD went to Özer Kýzýltan’s Takva: A Man’s Fear of God. Honourable mention went to Khadak. I can honestly say I have no recollection of either film in the program book, and didn’t hear anyone in any line or theater talking about either.
THE DIESEL DISCOVERY AWARD went to Joachim Trier’s Reprise, a comedy from Norway. Didn’t see it.
THE FIPRESCI PRIZE, awarded by a group of international press, went to the much-ballyhooed Death of a President (D.O.A.P.). All the buzz I heard about this one was that it was highly overrated and unworthy of all the attention, so go figure.
CITYTV AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE FILM went to Sur La Trace de’Igor Rizzi. Never heard of it.
TORONTO-CITY AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FEATURE FILM went to Manufactured Landscapes, the doc about photographer Peter Mettler. Honourable mention went to Monkey Warfare, which was mightily crapped upon by many. Again, go figure.
SHORT CUTS CANADA AWARD for best Canadian short film went to Les Jours.
I dunno…what do those of you who attended TIFF think about the prizes, either in terms of how they’re handed out or who actually won this year?
As for me, I’m going to take a short breather and return with my take a little later.
I don’t understand how the People’s Choice award is decided. Does anyone really know? Because the rules and processes aren’t outlined anywhere, and I’m really curious.
In years past, audience members would fill out a ballot in a quasi-lottery set-up
where you were not only casting a vote for the PC award, but also entering yourself into a prize lottery where you could win things like an Air Canada vacation (years ago) or mutual funds (more recently). So, you took ballots, wrote in the name of the movie(s) you liked best along with your contact info, and dropped it/them into a box. Simple. But not totally fair (see math below). This year, going into every screening, we were handed a ballot with a line on which to write that film’s title (sometimes the title had already been pre-written for you), and then the numbers one to five printed in a large font below. All we had to do was circle the number we felt the film deserved…though, no explanation was ever given that a number “5” meant you thought the film was excellent, and a “1” meant you didn’t like it at all, not the other way around.
This seems like it would be fairly obvious, but director Lucy Walker (Blindsight) told my audience at the second screening of her film that she, herself, voted incorrectly for her own movie at its previous showing…having thought that by voting “1” she was, in fact, giving it the highest rating and voting it the “#1 movie.”
I wonder how many other filmgoers made that same mistake?
Aside from numerical confusion and the lack of a prize incentive
for bothering to vote, I’d like to know: how were the votes tallied? There’s no way this could be at all fair, especially to the smaller films screening in smaller venues. Here’s why…
Given the wide range in venue capacity, where some theaters hold only a couple hundred people while others boast more than 1200 seats, it seems hugely unfair if the award is decided based on the total sum of the numeric votes (i.e., adding up all the numeric votes to reach a total).
Ex. 1
* Movie A screens twice at the Cumberland, and gets 400 votes of 5 (excellent) for a total point value of 2000.
* Movie B screens three times (let’s say, twice at the Paramount and once at the Varsity) and gets 900 votes of 3 (meh) for a total point value of 2700.
Does this mean that movie B wins?
Let’s say for argument’s sake that the People’s Choice winner goes to the film that scored the most 5s. That doesn’t work either.
Ex. 2
* Movie A screens twice at the Cumberland and gets 400 votes of 5 (excellent), from a total audience of, say, 600 people…meaning 2/3 of the people who saw it thought it was fantastic.
* Movie B screens once at Roy Thompson Hall and once at the Ryerson, and gets 500 votes of 5, from a total audience of more than 2000…meaning, only ¼ of the people who saw it thought it was great.
Again, does this mean movie B, which technically had less success, wins simply because its sample audience was much, much bigger?
No matter how you slice it, the system is wildly flawed, and that’s without getting into the issue of ballot stuffing or the fact that the People’s Choice prize is being decided before some films have had their final screenings on day 10 of the festival (where do those votes go???). Heck, by the time I got home from my final film on Saturday, TIFF brass had already handed out the awards and held an afternoon press conference to say so!
I’m going to say it once, and I’m going to hope for the love of fairness that the folks at TIFF hear me…
The only fair way (or, perhaps, the least unfair way) for the People’s Choice Award to be decided is to allow each filmgoer to vote only ONCE. Period. Save the voting for the day after the fest is over, and allow each person to vote ONLY for a single, absolute-favourite film. Then count ‘em all up and hand out a trophy. The end.
This concludes the PC Rant of 2006.
Having said all that, here’s a list of the official fest winners:
THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD went to Bella. What the hell? Bella??? Really?? (A quick glance at the schedule reveals that Bella screened three times – 2 Paramounts + a Varsity. Did that help? Probably.) Honourable mentions went to Mon Meilluer Ami and Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing.
SWAROVSKI’s CULTURAL INNOVATION AWARD went to Özer Kýzýltan’s Takva: A Man’s Fear of God. Honourable mention went to Khadak. I can honestly say I have no recollection of either film in the program book, and didn’t hear anyone in any line or theater talking about either.
THE DIESEL DISCOVERY AWARD went to Joachim Trier’s Reprise, a comedy from Norway. Didn’t see it.
THE FIPRESCI PRIZE, awarded by a group of international press, went to the much-ballyhooed Death of a President (D.O.A.P.). All the buzz I heard about this one was that it was highly overrated and unworthy of all the attention, so go figure.
CITYTV AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE FILM went to Sur La Trace de’Igor Rizzi. Never heard of it.
TORONTO-CITY AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FEATURE FILM went to Manufactured Landscapes, the doc about photographer Peter Mettler. Honourable mention went to Monkey Warfare, which was mightily crapped upon by many. Again, go figure.
SHORT CUTS CANADA AWARD for best Canadian short film went to Les Jours.
I dunno…what do those of you who attended TIFF think about the prizes, either in terms of how they’re handed out or who actually won this year?
As for me, I’m going to take a short breather and return with my take a little later.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
TIFF 2006 #12: Celebrity Doppelgangers and The Wonders of a Full Night’s Sleep
Last night, and for the entire day beforehand, I was felled by PFS. Sore throat, fatigue, general malaise. Blah.
Then I got home yesterday, took a pile of vitamins and had ten hours of sleep.
This morning, PFS is history! Who knew? Sore throat’s gone, energy’s up and (knock on wood) I believe my PFS has departed PDQ. :-D
Going back to yesterday’s films…
I’m pleased to report that it was another fairly decent final day of TIFF for me, movie-wise. It’s always a huge bummer if your last day’s movies suck, but (thankfully) that wasn’t the case for me.
I began with the somewhat curious Day on Fire (6/8), which I didn’t fully understand yet still found totally interesting. Written and directed by Jay Anania, it isn’t so much a film in the standard-narrative sense, but more of a cinematic meditation (if you just gagged or rolled your eyes, I understand) that blends music, images and character…which is to say, it’s kind of weird and trippy. The film, which is visually spectacular, tracks the interactions between five different characters, whose lives intersect briefly and randomly multiple times before a tragic event. The most compelling of these characters, and the ones on whom much of the film’s success relies, are Najia (Carmen Chaplin) and Shira (Alyssa Sutherland), two strangers who strike up a life-changing friendship in a matter of hours. As I watched, I wished that Anania had chosen to focus solely on these two, since I found myself distracted and losing interest whenever any of the other three characters were getting screen time. Again, there was plenty about the film that I didn’t get – like what exactly was up with Martin Donovan’s character whom, for a while, I thought was supposed to be God or the Angel of Death (he’s neither, btw) – but it’s haunting.
And holy hell but is Carmen Chaplin (left) ever brilliant! I’d never heard of her before 
(and, yes, she comes from that Chaplin lineage), but she’s apparently prolific in French indie cinema. She was riveting – a feat given the film’s rather sparse dialogue. And, is just me, or does she bear a striking resemblance to one of my other film faves, Lena Headey (right)? It was a little uncanny and I remember thinking that they could very easily play sisters.
Next up was Margarethe von Trotta’s I Am the Other Woman (5/8), which was also a little confusing (coulda been my aforementioned fatigue, though). It follows the exploits of a lawyer (Katja Riemann), who’s leading a double life (possibly, a triple life) as a result of multiple-personality disorder. By day, strait-laced professional. At night, saucy sexpot who drops trou in half-a-second. Now, that sounds great and all, but the resulting film didn’t quite measure up to my expectations. I found my mind wandering and my eyelids getting droopy over and over again and, based on the twitters of “what? that’s it?” when the closing credits abruptly started, I wasn’t the only one who was left a tad unfulfilled by film’s end. von Trotta was slated to arrive for a post-film Q&A, but I opted to leave. Perhaps if I’d stayed I would have been able to better grasp whatever it was she was trying to say with the movie.
Movie #3 was the British slasher comedy Severance (6/8), which was being billed as The Office meets Deliverance. Not sure if I agree with that assessment, but the film is nonetheless outrageous and fun. The story centers on a group of arms-company employees (including Danny Dyer, Laura Harris and Toby Stephens) on a “team-building” jaunt to eastern Europe. Problems, and severed body parts, arise when they wind up stranded at a remote lodge where they’re promptly targeted for grisly deaths by…let’s just say some scary people. Unapologetically bloody and hugely entertaining, the film garnered a nice amount of audience participation and cheers, especially for Harris’ (literally) ass-kicking performance.
Last on the docket was Outsourced (6/8), a great little culture-clash comedy about a Seattle call-center manager (Josh Hamilton), whose department is outsourced to India and who must subsequently travel to a small Indian town to train the local replacement staff. While the core of the story – a fish out of water gradually learns to understand, accept and appreciate a vastly different environment – may not be new to movie audiences, the backdrop for the action (filmed on location) is, and the undeniable charm of the cast made the film a super way to close the door on TIFF 2006 for me. I left smiling and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. One woman, who clearly LURRRRRRRVED the movie, stood up to congratulate the director and vowed to tell everyone she knew to go see it. Sadly, the flick doesn’t have a distributor yet, so if it pops up at a film fest near you, by all means check it out!
And then…TIFF 2006 was over. That’s it. The end.
Later today (or tomorrow), I’ll post all my final thoughts, award winners, random questions about this year’s fest and wishes for TIFF 2007.
Celebrity Sightings: Not a chance.
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: My day was shameful. Crap from morning until night. Crappiest crap, though, was lunch – a bag of Garden Salsa SunChips + a root beer. Shameful!
Line Buzz: Variations on “I’m tired,” “I’m exhausted,” “this is my last movie” and the like. Most folks could barely remember what they’d seen over the past 10 days, let alone whether any of it was any good.
Then I got home yesterday, took a pile of vitamins and had ten hours of sleep.
This morning, PFS is history! Who knew? Sore throat’s gone, energy’s up and (knock on wood) I believe my PFS has departed PDQ. :-D
Going back to yesterday’s films…
I’m pleased to report that it was another fairly decent final day of TIFF for me, movie-wise. It’s always a huge bummer if your last day’s movies suck, but (thankfully) that wasn’t the case for me.
I began with the somewhat curious Day on Fire (6/8), which I didn’t fully understand yet still found totally interesting. Written and directed by Jay Anania, it isn’t so much a film in the standard-narrative sense, but more of a cinematic meditation (if you just gagged or rolled your eyes, I understand) that blends music, images and character…which is to say, it’s kind of weird and trippy. The film, which is visually spectacular, tracks the interactions between five different characters, whose lives intersect briefly and randomly multiple times before a tragic event. The most compelling of these characters, and the ones on whom much of the film’s success relies, are Najia (Carmen Chaplin) and Shira (Alyssa Sutherland), two strangers who strike up a life-changing friendship in a matter of hours. As I watched, I wished that Anania had chosen to focus solely on these two, since I found myself distracted and losing interest whenever any of the other three characters were getting screen time. Again, there was plenty about the film that I didn’t get – like what exactly was up with Martin Donovan’s character whom, for a while, I thought was supposed to be God or the Angel of Death (he’s neither, btw) – but it’s haunting.
And holy hell but is Carmen Chaplin (left) ever brilliant! I’d never heard of her before 
(and, yes, she comes from that Chaplin lineage), but she’s apparently prolific in French indie cinema. She was riveting – a feat given the film’s rather sparse dialogue. And, is just me, or does she bear a striking resemblance to one of my other film faves, Lena Headey (right)? It was a little uncanny and I remember thinking that they could very easily play sisters.Next up was Margarethe von Trotta’s I Am the Other Woman (5/8), which was also a little confusing (coulda been my aforementioned fatigue, though). It follows the exploits of a lawyer (Katja Riemann), who’s leading a double life (possibly, a triple life) as a result of multiple-personality disorder. By day, strait-laced professional. At night, saucy sexpot who drops trou in half-a-second. Now, that sounds great and all, but the resulting film didn’t quite measure up to my expectations. I found my mind wandering and my eyelids getting droopy over and over again and, based on the twitters of “what? that’s it?” when the closing credits abruptly started, I wasn’t the only one who was left a tad unfulfilled by film’s end. von Trotta was slated to arrive for a post-film Q&A, but I opted to leave. Perhaps if I’d stayed I would have been able to better grasp whatever it was she was trying to say with the movie.
Movie #3 was the British slasher comedy Severance (6/8), which was being billed as The Office meets Deliverance. Not sure if I agree with that assessment, but the film is nonetheless outrageous and fun. The story centers on a group of arms-company employees (including Danny Dyer, Laura Harris and Toby Stephens) on a “team-building” jaunt to eastern Europe. Problems, and severed body parts, arise when they wind up stranded at a remote lodge where they’re promptly targeted for grisly deaths by…let’s just say some scary people. Unapologetically bloody and hugely entertaining, the film garnered a nice amount of audience participation and cheers, especially for Harris’ (literally) ass-kicking performance.
Last on the docket was Outsourced (6/8), a great little culture-clash comedy about a Seattle call-center manager (Josh Hamilton), whose department is outsourced to India and who must subsequently travel to a small Indian town to train the local replacement staff. While the core of the story – a fish out of water gradually learns to understand, accept and appreciate a vastly different environment – may not be new to movie audiences, the backdrop for the action (filmed on location) is, and the undeniable charm of the cast made the film a super way to close the door on TIFF 2006 for me. I left smiling and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. One woman, who clearly LURRRRRRRVED the movie, stood up to congratulate the director and vowed to tell everyone she knew to go see it. Sadly, the flick doesn’t have a distributor yet, so if it pops up at a film fest near you, by all means check it out!
And then…TIFF 2006 was over. That’s it. The end.
Later today (or tomorrow), I’ll post all my final thoughts, award winners, random questions about this year’s fest and wishes for TIFF 2007.
Celebrity Sightings: Not a chance.
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: My day was shameful. Crap from morning until night. Crappiest crap, though, was lunch – a bag of Garden Salsa SunChips + a root beer. Shameful!
Line Buzz: Variations on “I’m tired,” “I’m exhausted,” “this is my last movie” and the like. Most folks could barely remember what they’d seen over the past 10 days, let alone whether any of it was any good.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
TIFF 2006 #11 1/2: Yeah, TIFF's Over, It's Late and I'm Germy and Exhausted...
...thus, I am making an executive decision to write my last-day entry tomorrow, after I've had a good, long night's sleep. I'll also be writing my TIFF '06 wrap-up, including the official fest awards along with my own.
In the meantime, feel free to post your own TIFF highlights: favourite films, least-favourite films, best place to get cheap food...whatever. Talk amongst yourselves.
And watch this space for entries #12 and 13. More TIFFing coming soon!
In the meantime, feel free to post your own TIFF highlights: favourite films, least-favourite films, best place to get cheap food...whatever. Talk amongst yourselves.
And watch this space for entries #12 and 13. More TIFFing coming soon!
Friday, September 15, 2006
TIFF 2006 #11: Movie Cooties
Rats.
I think I’m getting PFS (Post-Festival Sickness).
My throat remains scratchy.
I remain zonked.
This is not good.
I hate PFS. And, if it really is PFS, it’s not even waiting until after my final screening to kick in this year. Evil! I am fighting its onset tooth and nail, dosing myself with plenty of vitamin C and zinc and trying my best to include some modicum of healthy eating (along with more than six hours of sleep these last couple of nights) so as to give my immune system some fuel as it goes into this near-annual battle. But I fear my efforts may be futile. At this point in the fest, there are just too many cinema cooties floating around to avoid. Moviegoers have been pushing themselves hard – staying out in the rain, dashing in and out of cold theatres, picking up germs elsewhere and then carting them along to screenings to share with the rest of us. It’s like we’re all going to movies in giant Petri dishes. I’ve heard people coughing up lungs, blowing noses and generally giving aural clues that they are perhaps less than well. If I had a biohazard suit, I might be tempted to wear it on days like this.
[Fest-goers, please feel free to post your own strategies for avoiding germs during TIFF.]
My scratchy throat and I began the day with the Austrian drama Falling (5/8), which follows five former school friends (now thirtysomething adults) as they reconnect while attending the funeral of one of their former teachers. The cast is made up of five actresses, and all are very good/convincing as their characters reveal secrets from the past and open up about the present. But those same characters are never really fleshed out, and I honestly can’t remember which one was which. I think Carmen was the actress. Alex was…the drunk brunette? And, while the action held my interest and the performances were solid, the film’s final five or six minutes were completely baffling. I have no idea what the final two or three scenes are supposed to mean, or why they were tacked on. If anyone knows, by all means say so.
After a quick hop to Tim Horton’s for a very pathetic lunch, my scratchy throat and I returned to the Paramount for film number two, the documentary American Hardcore (5/8), which examines the hardcore punk movement in America during the early 1980s. It features tons of rare archival footage and dozens of interviews with influential figures from the era but, not knowing much about hardcore punk rock beforehand, I was only seeing the film as a way to educate myself (as opposed to the hardcore hardcore fans in attendance). As such, it didn’t work for me on the same level it did for them. Sad when the only people you recognize out of the huge bunch of interviewees are Henry Rollins, Flea and Christine McCarthy (formerly Elise), who used to be on China Beach and 90210. The theater was barely half-full, and the audience demo was overwhelmingly male. I felt a smidge out of place.
My scratchy throat and I had just under two hours to kill, so we opted for an immune-boost smoothie from Jugo Juice + a bagel. Then we popped into TGH to check email before making our way to the last film for today, True North (6/8), a rather unsettling but well-done drama about a group of Scottish fishermen (including the always wonderful Peter Mullan), who decide to smuggle a group of Chinese immigrants into the country aboard their trawler. Not surprisingly, all does not go well. Aside from its hugely impressive on-location shooting (i.e., on a real trawler, on the real ocean, with really big waves and real actors trying not to fall overboard), the film’s plot is perfectly compact and finite, which I loved. It’s a small story about a big issue, and its intimacy made its point much more effective than if it had been a massive epic featuring a cast of thousands. It’s just a crew of four guys, one stowaway girl and cargo hold full of terrified human cargo.
I was a little out-of-sorts thereafter, not because of the scratchy throat or the movie’s content but because I was finished a TIFF day at 7 p.m. I came home and felt a little lost. Shouldn’t I be running back out the door for my next screening, I thought, or popping into some random fast-food outlet for a calorie-laden between-film snack? Is there a line I should be standing in? Something?
Nope.
So, as TIFF begins its official wind-down, so did I. It was nice to be able to sit down, read NOW, have dinner and watch some press conferences (Emilio Estevez actually started to cry during the PC for Bobby! Sharon Stone was typically Sharon Stone-y! The Dixie Chicks were plucky and fun!).
I also had a stern talk with my scratchy throat and requested that it vacate my premises by morning. We’ll see if it listens.
Celebrity Sightings: French actress Isild Le Besco, who was leaving the Paramount solo as I was arriving. And (this is how truly sad celeb sightings are at this point), Toronto’s own Marilyn Denis strolling in Yorkville! Yeah, baby! It’s all about the A-listers!
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: A Tim Horton’s Iced Capp + a leaden croissant.
Line Buzz: Only one film required standing in line today, but both the person in front of me and the person behind me opted to read books. In-theatre chatting was also non-existent, since I had empty seats beside me at all three screenings. Yep, it’s getting quiet and empty ‘round here.
Weather for Tomorrow: Mainly cloudy. High near 23C.
I think I’m getting PFS (Post-Festival Sickness).
My throat remains scratchy.
I remain zonked.
This is not good.
I hate PFS. And, if it really is PFS, it’s not even waiting until after my final screening to kick in this year. Evil! I am fighting its onset tooth and nail, dosing myself with plenty of vitamin C and zinc and trying my best to include some modicum of healthy eating (along with more than six hours of sleep these last couple of nights) so as to give my immune system some fuel as it goes into this near-annual battle. But I fear my efforts may be futile. At this point in the fest, there are just too many cinema cooties floating around to avoid. Moviegoers have been pushing themselves hard – staying out in the rain, dashing in and out of cold theatres, picking up germs elsewhere and then carting them along to screenings to share with the rest of us. It’s like we’re all going to movies in giant Petri dishes. I’ve heard people coughing up lungs, blowing noses and generally giving aural clues that they are perhaps less than well. If I had a biohazard suit, I might be tempted to wear it on days like this.
[Fest-goers, please feel free to post your own strategies for avoiding germs during TIFF.]
My scratchy throat and I began the day with the Austrian drama Falling (5/8), which follows five former school friends (now thirtysomething adults) as they reconnect while attending the funeral of one of their former teachers. The cast is made up of five actresses, and all are very good/convincing as their characters reveal secrets from the past and open up about the present. But those same characters are never really fleshed out, and I honestly can’t remember which one was which. I think Carmen was the actress. Alex was…the drunk brunette? And, while the action held my interest and the performances were solid, the film’s final five or six minutes were completely baffling. I have no idea what the final two or three scenes are supposed to mean, or why they were tacked on. If anyone knows, by all means say so.
After a quick hop to Tim Horton’s for a very pathetic lunch, my scratchy throat and I returned to the Paramount for film number two, the documentary American Hardcore (5/8), which examines the hardcore punk movement in America during the early 1980s. It features tons of rare archival footage and dozens of interviews with influential figures from the era but, not knowing much about hardcore punk rock beforehand, I was only seeing the film as a way to educate myself (as opposed to the hardcore hardcore fans in attendance). As such, it didn’t work for me on the same level it did for them. Sad when the only people you recognize out of the huge bunch of interviewees are Henry Rollins, Flea and Christine McCarthy (formerly Elise), who used to be on China Beach and 90210. The theater was barely half-full, and the audience demo was overwhelmingly male. I felt a smidge out of place.
My scratchy throat and I had just under two hours to kill, so we opted for an immune-boost smoothie from Jugo Juice + a bagel. Then we popped into TGH to check email before making our way to the last film for today, True North (6/8), a rather unsettling but well-done drama about a group of Scottish fishermen (including the always wonderful Peter Mullan), who decide to smuggle a group of Chinese immigrants into the country aboard their trawler. Not surprisingly, all does not go well. Aside from its hugely impressive on-location shooting (i.e., on a real trawler, on the real ocean, with really big waves and real actors trying not to fall overboard), the film’s plot is perfectly compact and finite, which I loved. It’s a small story about a big issue, and its intimacy made its point much more effective than if it had been a massive epic featuring a cast of thousands. It’s just a crew of four guys, one stowaway girl and cargo hold full of terrified human cargo.
I was a little out-of-sorts thereafter, not because of the scratchy throat or the movie’s content but because I was finished a TIFF day at 7 p.m. I came home and felt a little lost. Shouldn’t I be running back out the door for my next screening, I thought, or popping into some random fast-food outlet for a calorie-laden between-film snack? Is there a line I should be standing in? Something?
Nope.
So, as TIFF begins its official wind-down, so did I. It was nice to be able to sit down, read NOW, have dinner and watch some press conferences (Emilio Estevez actually started to cry during the PC for Bobby! Sharon Stone was typically Sharon Stone-y! The Dixie Chicks were plucky and fun!).
I also had a stern talk with my scratchy throat and requested that it vacate my premises by morning. We’ll see if it listens.
Celebrity Sightings: French actress Isild Le Besco, who was leaving the Paramount solo as I was arriving. And (this is how truly sad celeb sightings are at this point), Toronto’s own Marilyn Denis strolling in Yorkville! Yeah, baby! It’s all about the A-listers!
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: A Tim Horton’s Iced Capp + a leaden croissant.
Line Buzz: Only one film required standing in line today, but both the person in front of me and the person behind me opted to read books. In-theatre chatting was also non-existent, since I had empty seats beside me at all three screenings. Yep, it’s getting quiet and empty ‘round here.
Weather for Tomorrow: Mainly cloudy. High near 23C.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
TIFF 2006 #10: Viggo…Is That You? Plus, I Want to Hug Shane Meadows and Amanda Peet (Together or Separately, I’m Not Fussy)
I must begin this entry by posing a question to anyone out there who’s been reading along here while TIFFing: did anybody attend the screening of Alatriste this afternoon at the Paramount? If you did, please post a comment and let me know if I saw whom I thought I saw exiting the venue earlier today: Viggo Mortensen.Yes, that’s right Jennifer, I think I might have seen your Viggo. From behind, and from about 25 feet away (hence my uncertainty), but who else would be leaving the theater with a full camera crew – complete with lights and a sound guy – in tow? I was stuck in the heart of a serpentine line of people waiting for the next screening, so I was unable to scramble out for a better look. The subject of the crew’s attention seemed to be a man, about Viggo height and build, with Viggo-esque hair, walking briskly out past the concession stand. Was it him? I don’t know. I want to believe it was. If anyone knows for sure, please let us know!
Onwards to the movies…
My first screening of the day was Shane Meadows’ This is England (7/8…and it might still get a full pie because I’m not completely set on my rating and very tempted to bump it up a slice). I’ve seen every Shane Meadows film but one (Dead Man’s Shoes, simply because it didn’t fit in my sked when it played at TIFF) and have followed his career since his Romeo Brass and twentyfourseven days. So, his was one of my must-sees this fest and I’m delighted to say that I was not disappointed. Plenty of folks have been trumpeting the film’s merit, so allow me to chime in to say that this is not only my new favourite among his works, but I also think it’s his best film to date. It’s gorgeous to look at, brilliantly written and insanely compelling to watch. It tells the story of Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), a bullied 11-year-old boy, who falls in with a gang of skinheads in 1983. Initially a goofy group united through music and mischief, the boys (and girls) soon splinter with the return of the menacing and seriously militant Combo (Stephen Graham in a positively terrifying performance). I’ll save the details for my eventual review, but the film had me riveted from start to finish…which is not something I can say about most of the movies I’ve taken in this year.
And, seriously, how huggable is Shane Meadows? He’s so cuddly and adorable, and I lurrrrrve that accent. I just want him to read me bedtime stories while we eat cookies and milk. I was sitting in the fairly empty (considering) lobby of the Ryerson this morning before the start of the screening, eating my breakfast muffin and watching people stream in. As the crowds thinned, I heard Shane’s distinct voice chatting someone up and there he was. In the lobby, hanging out before heading in. It was all I could do not to be a squirrelly fangirl, but I did give it some serious thought. I refrained.
Next up was Breaking & Entering (5/8), the latest epic from Anthony Minghella. There’s a lot going on in this film, so here’s the shopping list: Jude Law is an architect named Will, whose firm is repeatedly targeted by young acrobatic thieves. One of those thieves is Miro (Rafi Gavron), a teenage refugee from Bosnia. Miro’s mother is Amira (Juliette Binoche), who’s befriended (and later bedded) by Will after he follows Miro home one night post-thwarted robbery. A whole bunch of relationships get really complicated. While all this is going on, the luminous Robin Wright Penn tries to carve out her own character (Will’s wife), but winds up underused, in my opinion. The movie was long and could have been about 15 minutes shorter, but it was fine overall. Not amazing, not terrible. Just fine.
I’m going to preface this next blurb by saying that I adore Amanda Peet.
I think she’s a supremely underrated actress whose career is practically screaming out for a meaty dramatic role…one through which she could totally knock the socks off the moviegoing public (see also: Elizabeth Banks). Perhaps her gig on the new TV series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will do that, but I suspect not. Her newest film, the teeny indie Griffin & Phoenix (4/8), was my third film of the day and, sadly, it was disappointing. Peet co-stars with Dermot Mulroney as a pair of terminally ill people who fall in love. Now, revealing their illnesses to you is not a spoiler, since it’s obvious from about minute seven of the movie that both characters aren’t long for this world. So, with the cosmic clock ticking, the pair set out to do fun things like hop on freight trains or paint water towers…but so what? The movie didn’t connect with me at all, and I found myself much more annoyed than engaged. It’s too bad, too, because Peet does some nicely nuanced work here, being more vulnerable and sweet and, yes, huggable than she’s ever been in a film before. At least she managed to rise above the material.
I treated myself to a deeeeeelicious Jugo Juice smoothie (Copa Banana, in case you’re curious) + some less-delicious take-out spaghetti for dinner, then headed to the Cumberland for my last film, White Palms (5/8). The story is based on actual events, and follows a young Hungarian gymnast from his childhood training at the hands of a ruthless coach, to his own coaching job guiding a Canadian champion (Canadian Olympic gold medalist Kyle Shewfelt) decades later. The film jumps back and forth in time, but the sequences in the past (when the main character is a boy) were far more interesting than those featuring him as an adult. And the final 15 minutes seemed to drag on needlessly in order to show off creative editing. Perhaps I would have enjoyed that more had it not been the end of my filmgoing day. Perhaps not.
I am mildly alarmed because my throat is kind of scratchy tonight. Scratchy in that “hey everybody! I feel a cold coming on!” way. I do NOT want to get sick. No PFS for me, please! At least, not until Sunday. I have taken extra vitamin C tonight just in case, but I’m sure the past two days of rain + my poor diet + cooties everywhere + total lack of rest will = PFS shortly.
Celebrity Sightings: As is usually the case at this point, the pickings are getting slim. Today it was only Shane Meadows and Kyle Shewfeldt.
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: The aforementioned breakfast muffin – triple chocolate – which was not only bad for me, but extremely messy.
Line Buzz: Lots of so-so rumblings about the much-ballyhooed D.O.A.P. and the non-ballyhooed The Last Winter; good buzz on Black Book.
Weather for Tomorrow: Partly cloudy. High near 22C.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
TIFF 2006 #9: Is There a Doc in the House?
Before I begin: an announcement!
The official TIFF page at the 'Pie has now been updated to include most of the entries previously posted on this blog, so if you wanna wander over (but make sure you come back here!) to see Linda's phancy formatting and photo selections, please do!
Now...
Today’s film selections were mostly documentaries, and today’s weather was mostly rainy. Line-ups at outdoor theaters were on the damp side, and filmgoers learned that a seemingly innocuous steady mist can gradually result in rather effective soakage.
I started the day with Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing (7/8), Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s multi-year doc that follows the Chicks from their infamous Shepherd’s Bush concert and anti-Bush statement, through the sometimes scary/sometimes frustrating/sometimes infuriating repercussions thereof that took place in the three and a half years since. It’s also a really great examination of female solidarity and the power of friendship, as Natalie, Martie and Emily weather the political storm, ridiculous protests and almost-constant media attention. An absolute must-see for fans, who will no doubt love love love it, the film is nonetheless totally accessible to all audiences regardless of their level of Chicks fandom. I’ve always liked the group, but don’t own any of their albums and have never seen one of their live shows. After seeing the film and witnessing their unflappable pluck, though, I plan to get to shopping.
It was also nice to have Kopple and Peck intro the movie. They explained that their schedule wouldn’t permit them to return for a Q&A, but they both gave lovely little speeches before the film started.
One doc followed another, so the second film today was Blindsight (6/8), in which director Lucy Walker – who, by the way, is absolutely STUNNING – embarks on a Mount Everest climb alongside a group of blind Tibetan youths, school teacher Sabriye Tenberken and blind U.S. climber Erik Weihenmayer, along with a support team made up of other climbers and a team doctor. While the documentary itself seemed kind of choppy and could have used an extra half-hour or so, the story it tells is a fantastic one. It’s extremely moving (the woman sitting next to me was sobbing in that gasping-for-air kind of way almost throughout) and inspirational (which sounds cheesy, but it’s true). Walker, Tenberken and one of the blind students were all in attendance, and their genuine joy at being in Toronto and having the film shown was infectious. Unsurprisingly, they were given a standing ovation.
There was a quick trip home to have a snack before heading to my final film (yes, thank goodness, only three today!), Starter For Ten (5/8), which I was very excited about seeing – hello, James MacAvoy! – but which turned out to be kind of a letdown. The story follows a sort-of-geeky university student (MacAvoy) in his quest to be “clever.” More specifically, it follows him onto his school’s “University Challenge” team (think: quiz show), and tracks his rocky courtships of two of his classmates. I don’t know why the film didn’t really do it for me. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe my fatigue prevented me from being fully engaged. Or maybe it was just kind of a meh movie. I can’t be certain, but it was nice to see James MacAvoy in person once again.
Then I dashed to meet my friend from Washington for a coffee and some fest chat before heading home for the night…and, once again proving the effects of lack of sleep, MISSING MY SUBWAY STOP completely. I was so dopey as I rode home that I actually went right past my stop and had to walk back. I really need more than five hours a night it seems. Perhaps tonight I’ll aim for 6 ½…
Oh, and as I posted in the comments section of last night’s entry: yet ANOTHER scutigera scurried across my wall tonight! RIGHT in front of my face, as if to taunt me. It’s the damned humid weather and constant rain. I wish the bugs, and the weather, would go away.
And I hope that scutigera is the one from last night and not a SECOND one. Eep!
Celebrity Sightings: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck, James MacAvoy.
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: Alas, I did not have a single piece of fruit today. Instead, I had a leaden muffin and mint-cip ice cream. Not together.
Line Buzz: Everyone and their cousin is raving about Sarah Polley’s directorial debut, Away From Her…except one woman I met who didn’t like it at all and said it romanticized Alzheimer’s disease. So there you go.
Weather for Tomorrow: Rain? Again? Really? Crap. High near 18C.
The official TIFF page at the 'Pie has now been updated to include most of the entries previously posted on this blog, so if you wanna wander over (but make sure you come back here!) to see Linda's phancy formatting and photo selections, please do!
Now...
Today’s film selections were mostly documentaries, and today’s weather was mostly rainy. Line-ups at outdoor theaters were on the damp side, and filmgoers learned that a seemingly innocuous steady mist can gradually result in rather effective soakage.
I started the day with Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing (7/8), Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s multi-year doc that follows the Chicks from their infamous Shepherd’s Bush concert and anti-Bush statement, through the sometimes scary/sometimes frustrating/sometimes infuriating repercussions thereof that took place in the three and a half years since. It’s also a really great examination of female solidarity and the power of friendship, as Natalie, Martie and Emily weather the political storm, ridiculous protests and almost-constant media attention. An absolute must-see for fans, who will no doubt love love love it, the film is nonetheless totally accessible to all audiences regardless of their level of Chicks fandom. I’ve always liked the group, but don’t own any of their albums and have never seen one of their live shows. After seeing the film and witnessing their unflappable pluck, though, I plan to get to shopping.
It was also nice to have Kopple and Peck intro the movie. They explained that their schedule wouldn’t permit them to return for a Q&A, but they both gave lovely little speeches before the film started.
One doc followed another, so the second film today was Blindsight (6/8), in which director Lucy Walker – who, by the way, is absolutely STUNNING – embarks on a Mount Everest climb alongside a group of blind Tibetan youths, school teacher Sabriye Tenberken and blind U.S. climber Erik Weihenmayer, along with a support team made up of other climbers and a team doctor. While the documentary itself seemed kind of choppy and could have used an extra half-hour or so, the story it tells is a fantastic one. It’s extremely moving (the woman sitting next to me was sobbing in that gasping-for-air kind of way almost throughout) and inspirational (which sounds cheesy, but it’s true). Walker, Tenberken and one of the blind students were all in attendance, and their genuine joy at being in Toronto and having the film shown was infectious. Unsurprisingly, they were given a standing ovation.
There was a quick trip home to have a snack before heading to my final film (yes, thank goodness, only three today!), Starter For Ten (5/8), which I was very excited about seeing – hello, James MacAvoy! – but which turned out to be kind of a letdown. The story follows a sort-of-geeky university student (MacAvoy) in his quest to be “clever.” More specifically, it follows him onto his school’s “University Challenge” team (think: quiz show), and tracks his rocky courtships of two of his classmates. I don’t know why the film didn’t really do it for me. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe my fatigue prevented me from being fully engaged. Or maybe it was just kind of a meh movie. I can’t be certain, but it was nice to see James MacAvoy in person once again.
Then I dashed to meet my friend from Washington for a coffee and some fest chat before heading home for the night…and, once again proving the effects of lack of sleep, MISSING MY SUBWAY STOP completely. I was so dopey as I rode home that I actually went right past my stop and had to walk back. I really need more than five hours a night it seems. Perhaps tonight I’ll aim for 6 ½…
Oh, and as I posted in the comments section of last night’s entry: yet ANOTHER scutigera scurried across my wall tonight! RIGHT in front of my face, as if to taunt me. It’s the damned humid weather and constant rain. I wish the bugs, and the weather, would go away.
And I hope that scutigera is the one from last night and not a SECOND one. Eep!
Celebrity Sightings: Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck, James MacAvoy.
Crappiest Crap I Consumed Today: Alas, I did not have a single piece of fruit today. Instead, I had a leaden muffin and mint-cip ice cream. Not together.
Line Buzz: Everyone and their cousin is raving about Sarah Polley’s directorial debut, Away From Her…except one woman I met who didn’t like it at all and said it romanticized Alzheimer’s disease. So there you go.
Weather for Tomorrow: Rain? Again? Really? Crap. High near 18C.
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