/* Rachel - I heard you got married - congratulation */ - Rachel Getting Married - sisters are doing it for themselves

Rachel Getting Married debuted at the TIFF 08 in the gala portion which seems quite contrarian to the movie's presentation. The glamorous Anne Hathaway on the red carpet totally undercuts her depiction of Kim - the sister of Rachel who is getting married.

Jonathan Demme, director of Silence of the Lambs, gets down to the nitty gritty of sisterhood and being family compounded by the attendant pressures of the impending marriage and accompanying farfula and intertwining of both sides of the wedding.

The entire film rings with honest truth as the family deals with Anne Hathaway's harrowing past through self destruction, addiction and rehabilitation as it slowly comes to light.

Taking place during a wedding brings together a huge assortment of characters - family members, best man, maid of honour, friends of family, musicians - [ even one Robyn Hitchcock who plays in performance at the wedding ] - far too many characters to keep track of which really drags out too many scenes too long - and the transition of scenes is far from smooth as scenes play out then tail off.

The movie continually focuses back on Anne Hathaway - even as she tries to stay in the background and listen to the testimonials from friends and family to the upcoming newlyweds the camera records her emotional dissatisfaction. She finally has to grab the spotlight and the microphone and tries to make amends to her sister as part of the twelve step programme as the rest of the room fidgets uncomfortably.

Hathaway should be a deserving subject of award season nomination for best actress - for a persona so far removed from Princess Diaries or Devil Wears Prada.

/... more

Inspirational genius in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Woody Allen is back to the sharp clever banter that was the trademark of those classic films a la Annie Hall or Manhattan.

This movie is a delightful romp in the sunny clime of Barcelona where two American girls go for a vacation - each with different traits and personalities- the seemingly straight laced dark haired girl and the stunningly attractive blonde live for the moment and easily romanced.

DAY 10 - /* the only thing that can hurt me is out there */ - The Wrestler - Mickey you da man !

DAY 9 - /* Just you and me and the deadgirl */ - Deadgirl is a tromatic affair

At TIFF we actively seek those little teen ensemble movies that mark the coming of age - in the past it's been movies such as Little Athens, Mysterious Skin, 2:37, 11:14.

This year it's Deadgirl and one of our definite favourites of this year's fest.

DAY 9 - /* There's no reason to screw the computers */ - Control Alt Delete

Those three familiar words of the PC lexicon either define you as computer geek or normal everyday guy.

Control Alt Delete is definitely not normal - does it get any weirder than having sex with your computer ? If it does we do not want to know you.

The movie sets itself a month away from the eve of the Y2K crisis - a period defined where the missing two digits in front of a year as stored in computer data records which held only the last two digits [ i.e. anyone born in 1953 would have 53 in the YY but with the Y2k the years 00 could mean either century ] marked a potential conflict between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and the end of civilization as we know it unless the problem could be fixed - usually by endless bouts of programming. Which brings us to the setting of the story - the offices where the computer programmers and techs work.

However, the good thing about the movie is the hot Laura Bertram [from Ready or Not or Trance Gemini on Andromeda] being seen naked on the screen for the first time in bed with boyfriend played by Tyler Labine.


What's number 3?

/* Did you just throw water at me */

So the big fat loud guy with the glasses in the last row of the theatre asked me "Did you just throw water at me?" and I said "Yeah, I am trying not to hear you!"

Of course it was entirely justified - he was in loud discussion with someone about the TIFF movies that had seen or about to see - and movies that we were still hoping to see or had seen and spouting off loud obnoxious opinions that we disagreed with but we were well contemplating doing another Viggo Mortensen episode a la A History of Violence- he's always the guy who laughs too loud too and eats popcorn with his mouth open - they're allowed to shoot horses, don't they? so why not obnoxious moviegoers?

Day 8 - /* Where do we go from here? We just keep on going */ - Uncertainty does a double riposte with Revanche

The theme of the night of Day 8 at the Festival was uncertain futures and even more uncertain ends.

In fact both movie's three endings were more of no ends - Uncertainty was more acceptable but Revanche clearly in line with La Haine a la Charbol - after almost two hours of gruelling tolerance Revanche - a German spoken Austrian movie with a French title - utterly failed to justify its hype. A couple secretly in love, a girl from the Ukraine trying to make a go of it in Vienna - and working at a brothel run by a powerful fat slob [ not totally unlike the guy who got water thrown at ] - she being Tamara in her hooker heels and he is Alex, the boss of the brothel's grunt labour. Nothing can go wrong with a plan, he says, as he figures a way out of their situation at the brothel - a plan that comprises a bank robbery. A chain of events is set in motion that leads to more than two hours of endurance by the audience.

More palatable was the couple of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins in Uncertainty who after a toss of a coin at the bridge run in two separate directions and thrust into two distinctive and dense plotlines - the crux of each being a decision and "will it be the right decision?"

Two more days of TIFF08 to go. O joy.

/* Never do an armour truck */ - Life is a slammer in What Doesn't Kill You

One day at a time. Living life.

Another story set in the gritty world of Southie - South Boston. The true story of Brian [ as played by Mark Ruffalo ]

< ... more to come >

One week of TIFF08 behind us. Can it get any better?

DAY 7 - /* I'm a Jew you're a Nazi - game over */ - Viggo Mortensen is GOOD

Good based on the stageplay by the RDA in England at its best is provocative, at its lullpoints merely good.

Viggo Mortensen is a university professor John Halder of literature in Berlin during the 1930s whose book has come to the attention of the new to power Nazi party. The subject of the book is on the right to life, or merciful ending. He is told that the Fuhrer himself has read the book and it seems the party is about to embrace its ideal - to which Halder clearly shocked says, "It is a work of fiction."

But in stages, the university professor is co-opted into joining the Nazi party and rises in scholarly rank and wage, much to the dismay of his friend Maurice [ Jason Isaacs who is also a co-producer and maybe more familiar in his Harry Potter film role ] who is Jewish. Maurice pleads with Halder to save his life and get him a visa out of the country. However, Halder despite rank is forced to take the cowardly way out in front of youth comrades of the party and switches the destination of his ticket from Paris to Brandenburg where his ailing mother lives.

By always trying to do the good thing [for the country or for himself], and always seeming to make the wrong choice but pressured otherwise, Halder is a victim of his decisions, each marked by a bout of music [Mahler] - he writes a paper for the Party, he forsakes his marriage for a younger university girl attracted to him - by the end, Halder is in full Nazi officer uniform. "Call me Professor."

From Finland after Three Wise Men - merry christmas!

Mika Kaurismäki's Three Wise Men debuted at TIFF back on the second day of TIFF08 on Friday, Sept 5. We had to investigate that club and found out online that the club for the karaoke scene is very much real so an email was sent. This is their reply.


>Hello.
thankyou for mail.
i am happy you can see finnish film about finnish 3 friends on chritmas
party which was some part of film filmed in swengi night club.
hello to everybody.
you welcome again to helsinki.
Best wishes!
Mr.Bakar Manager.

/* An unwritten life */ - The Brothers Bloom takes you along for the ride

From the director of Brick comes this next setpiece The Brothers Bloom making its world premiere to an ardent crowd at Ryerson. With an amusing intro and antics by director and the three leads in the cast and the director's cousin? on guitar the audience was primed. In the hands of two professionals Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, the story of the Brothers Bloom as two conmen is worth the emotional investment. When their final *mark* is the fetching Rachel Weisz, Is that worth a wow?

/* Un nuit de chien */ - DAY 6 - Nuit de chien is a night of chaos

Werner Schroeter Un nuit de chien [ called Tonight internationally ] is a monumental travesty of a film - this was the type of film we were trying to avoid after being somehow drawn to see Peter Greenaway's Nightwatch at last year's TIFF. A puzzling movie, Un nuit de chien is ,ore of an art piece than a piece of entertainment that one could keep praying would end any moment. Devoid of any realism, and having pieces of popular classical music such as Air on a G String pitched at high volumes it really begins to tax the patience and the nerves. Very Kafkaesque in its puzzlement at what is going on, a German director with a French cast fighting a Spanish war, a Fellini clown selling balloons at night - the movie only really begins to pick up after the lead Ossorio encounters a young Victoria - the daughter of his comrade Barcala which turns the film into The Professional.

It is odd this movie had the highest ratings on the sites devoted to TIFF reviews because no one came out of this movie seemingly to like it.

/* War is a drug */ - Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker a searing indictment of war

War is hell - it's a phrase worth repeating over and over again. Kathryn Bigelow's movie with its North American premiere at Ryerson on Monday evening is based upon the stories of an embedded reporter in Iraq. If these stories are any indication, then the war can only be viewed as pointless or unwinnable. Iraq is really a warzone fought in the streets with its mazes of streets and hidden bombs which B Company have to defuse.

DAY 5 - /* Heights, the dark, public nudity */ - all of Zooey Deschanel's fears realized in Gigantic

Gigantic with its world premiere at Isabel Bader theatre on a rainy Monday night is a very odd, quirky and off-balanced movie but that is a good thing. As Paul Dano's quiet character is about to take a gigantic leap into the unknown all the strangest things surround him or come at him out of the blue. First it might be a homeless deranged man out to get him with an iron pipe, then it might be a study of suicidal rats by his scientist friend, or his eccentric father or brothers - but the weirdest thing to enter his life is the holly-go-lightish Happy character of Zooey Deschanel who really knows how to play directionless.

DAY 4 - /* I'm so scared I can't run away anymore */ - Burning Plain erupts in flame of passion

/* Who do you want to be ? / - Just Katia's sister

From the makers of Bluebird comes this grim bout of art imitating life.

With a one camera intimacy the movie dwells on the young unnamed girl in the movie who when asked by her teacher what she wants to be in life replies: "Just". The teacher continues "Just what?" "Just Katia's sister."

Katia is the young beautiful and vivacious sister who has fallen in love with an Italian by the name of Giac. But the movie always constantly follows Katia's sister - there is no definitive plot - it just follows the course of the night and day in her life - that one glimpse of her drawing in class at the beginning of the movie is the only scene with other pupils.

Otherwise, the movie shows her solitary life in the apartment while the mother is out working, and Katia is out. Or the movie follows Katia's sister outside as she socializes with her grandma. The story's background comes out in small dribs and drabs through memories and old pictures. The daughters do not even share the same father. Things are not all peachy keen - given the mother's trade in life and Katia yearning to join her boyfriend in Pisa, Italy. Katia's sister clearly loves Katia and the feeling is mutual. But things deteriorate as Katia in her bid to gather money quickly joins her friend in a stripclub which clearly does not please the mother and arguments abound. Katia's way of coping is to keep colouring on paper or when left alone she has imaginary conversations with her mother and with Katia in an idealized world.

As things move towards their denouement, the ending is revelatory.

/* Where's Fluffy? */ - DAY 3- world premiere of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist in high fidelity

/* Play ball ! */ -DAY 3 - Un été sans point ni coup sûr hits a homerun

SATURDAY SEPT 6
DAY 3

Un été sans point ni coup sû
3 pm
Scotiabank 4


The first year of the Expos in Montreal and how it affects a baseball crazed boy and his friends and family

Mother says youth does not realize how lucky it is to be so carefree.

A baseball team is forever.

DAY 3 - /* No Music No Dream */ - It might get loud in Detroit Metal City

Day 3 is what TIFF is all about

Detroit Metal City absolutely rock'd - No Hit No Run Summer [ French Canadian movie set during the first year of the Montreal Expos in Montreal ] - the crowd went absolutely wild for the world premiere of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist - it's not totally unlike a certain high fidelity [ which is still a good thing ] but weirderdifferent - and the last movie was Katia's Sister which was Dutch


Detroit Metal City can be blistering loud yet tempered with the Trendy with Tetrapod Melon Tea

With al its death and references to the underworld DETROIT METAL CITY is amazingly funny

/* Sorry Lucy */ = Michelle Williams is a treat to behold in the quiet of Wendy and Lucy

FRIDAY SEPT 5
DAY 2

WENDY AND LUCY
7:45 pm
AMC 7

A girl and her dog on a road trip - stuck in Oregon on the way to Alaska.

Which basically sums up Kelly Reichardt's little movie Wendy and Lucy starring a wistful Michelle Williams - a girl on the road travelling with her dog - with no safety net of her own and no direction home, she is heading away from native Illinois for a better life and financial future in the promiseland of Alaska. But while passing through somewhere in Oregon, the car breaks down leading to a string of misfortune which we will leave you to find out for yourself for now

Reichardt indicated the movie is a reflection of post-Katrina America where the poor and misfortunate are still looked down upon and almost seen to be responsible for their own fates - a post Katrina America where the politicians assume those American people are supposed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps - but what bootstraps? And where is the financial aid?

Wendy meets a kindly older security guard who watches over the parking lot at Walgreen and they in a way befriend each other. But in the town she meets people without a heart. Michelle Williams as Wendy takes it all in with a quiet stoicism, mingled with a certain despair yet still buoyed by a hope for the best imparted by her new friend - it is only her determination which keeps her moving forward. When she stops her life gasps for air. By the end she is on the road again - on the road to nowhere? but moving on.