“Everyone I know goes away in the end.” ~ Nine Inch Nails, “Hurt”
When asked recently about the essential difference between his original U.K. version of The Office and its American remake, series creator/star Ricky Gervais stated that while Americans are brought up to believe in their boundless potential for success, British children are more often reminded of their social standing and limitations. I expect that this difference has quite a bit to do with the chilly reception Mark Romanek’s delicate adaptation of Never Let Me Go has found on these shores. Like The Remains of the Day, the most notable big-screen Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation, Never Let Me Go is a story about people who have been born and raised for the express purpose of serving. It’s not necessarily a theme that resonates widely in a culture that values determination and grit, but it’s a more universal idea than most people would probably care to admit.
If there’s a theme for this year’s 2nd Annual Shock Around the Clock! 24-Hour Horror Marathon, it’s anniversaries. Fully half of the scheduled repertory schedule for this year’s marathon consists of movies that are celebrating some round-number anniversary or other. The biggie, at least in terms of historical import, is the centenary of Frankenstein on film.
Yes, Mary Shelley’s enduring horror story first appeared onscreen in 1910, the subject of a short film produced by Edison Studios, and Marathon gurus Joe Neff and Bruce Bartoo have booked the film for this year, along with the classic 1931 James Whale version. And while I personally prefer the 1935 follow-up Bride of Frankenstein- currently celebrating its 75th, come to think- I certainly won’t complain about this one playing instead. Beats the hell out of the Branagh/DeNiro version of the story- and the Sting version, for that matter.
However, Filmic Frankenstein’s impending birthday salutation from Willard Scott is far from the only big news at this year’s marathon. After all, there’s another horror masterpiece that’s turning 50. That’s right, folks- William Castle’s 13 Ghosts has its golden anniversary this year, and Bruce and Joe have booked a 35mm of the film, which will of course be shown in Castle’s patented gimmick cinematic breakthrough Illusion-O, to get the full ghostly effect. Should be fun.
Oh wait, you thought I was referring to another 50th Anniversary? Like, say, Psycho? Never fear, folks- the Marathon has booked Hitchcock’s masterful thriller/shower deterrent too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in 35mm, so that ought to be a treat.
Where there’s Hitchcock, you know that DePalma can’t be far behind. Not just any DePalma either, but rather DePalma’s most Psycho-esque film, Dressed to Kill. As an unapologetic DePalma fanboy, I believe Dressed is almost the equal of Psycho, so I’m excited to see it included on this program, especially if they’ve booked a nice clean print. Oh, who am I kidding- I’d watch this one projected through cheesecloth if need be.
Like Dressed to Kill, Dario “Monkey Bite!” Argento’s Inferno is turning 30 this year. I’ve only seen this one once, on a beaten-up VHS from the library, and I know enough about Argento to know that this antiquated format couldn’t come close to doing justice to his famed use of color and light. So seeing it on the big screen promises to be pretty eye-opening.
In addition to being a 25th Anniversary screening, this year’s marathon showing of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 also represents Joe and Bruce’s tribute to the late Dennis Hopper, who of course passed away this year. I for one plan on hitting the Grandview’s open bar, grabbing a drink (they sell Pabst Blue Ribbon, by the way) and raising a toast to Hopper, although I’d understand if you’d prefer using a nitrous inhaler for the same purpose. Hey, I’m not here to judge.
The last and perhaps most monumental marathon anniversary this year is the Platinum celebration of that eternal marathon favorite, Kevin S. O’Brien’s Night of the Living Bread cycle. For those who don’t know, O’Brien is a longtime Marathon attendee who decided to make a short spoof of Night of the Living Dead, and has since gone on to make several follow-up movies, all of which have become Marathon traditions. Bruce and Joe have hinted at special Bread-themed gifts for all attendees this year, so if you’re looking for a reason to come, there you are.
Of course, there are plenty of other goodies on the agenda beyond the requisite yeasty goodness. 1932’s Island of Lost Souls, featuring the dream pairing of Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi, will be making a rare 35mm screening here. That’s especially good news since the movie has yet to see an honest-to-goodness domestic DVD release. Personally, I’m eager to see this story done well in a way that doesn’t involve Marlon Brando playing piano duets with a little person.
And speaking of weirdness, word on the street is that Nobuhiko Kobayashi’s House is a classic head-scratcher. I wasn’t able to make it to the Wexner Center screening this past spring- I know, bad bad me- so I’m stoked that Joe and Bruce booked it for this event.
A few days ago, the one and only Vern wrote a characteristically whacked-out review of Slugsin which he impugned the titular creatures’ lack of scare potential. Well, I think this year’s Marathon would beg to differ, since they’ve booked a double feature of creepy-crawly chillers. First off, there’s the 2006’s super-gross Slither, featuring a veritable army of slugs that besiege a small town, and Michael Rooker as a local bigwig whose fate is particularly grisly.
The slightly more cerebral half of the pairing is David Cronenberg’s They Came From Within (aka Shivers), in which nasty, slug-like monsters infiltrate a high-rise apartment. This is another one I’m looking forward to seeing in 35mm, especially now that I know more about Cronenberg than I did the first time I saw it.
So let’s see- Whale, Hitchcock, Castle, DePalma, Argento, Cronenberg, Hooper- what other big-name horror directors could Bruce and Joe have shoehorned into this year’s lineup? Why not John Carpenter? This year’s Carpenter selection, Prince of Darkness, isn’t one of my favorite films of his, but it’s pretty fascinating in that he basically makes a horror movie out of little more than some menacing props, some colored-mist effects, and a cast that’s basically called upon to react to these two things. I’m curious to see how well this has aged.
Finally, it wouldn’t be a marathon without a handful of local premieres. So far, there have been some rumors floating around- A Serbian Film, Tuckers and Dale vs. Evil, the I Spit on Your Grave remake- but there’s only one title confirmed as yet. That would be the notoriously brutal French film Martyrs. Much like last year’s screening of Irreversible, this isn’t exactly a “premiere” since both films were already available on DVD by the time they played the Marathon. However, in both cases the Marathon screenings representing their first big-screen showing in Central Ohio. And like Irreversible, Martyrs promises to be polarizing in its violence, albeit in a way that’s slightly more palatable to genre fans.
All in all, this looks to be a Marathon to remember. I only wish Ang was able to come with me this weekend. Alas, she’s got some family business to attend to that supersedes her desire to accompany me. Although considering Martyrs’ rep, maybe that’s for the best.
The 2nd Annual Shock Around the Clock! 24-Hour Horror Marathon runs from noon on Saturday, October 23 through noon the next day. It will take place at the Grandview Theatre, located at 1247 Grandview Avenue, in Columbus. Ticket purchase information and more can be found at http://www.horrormarathon.com/. Hope to see you there!
Update! The Marathon powers that be have announced a second area premiere for this year's Marathon- the cult-ready Japanese exploitation flick RoboGeisha. Yeah, me neither, but having watched the trailer I'm guessing this will be... interesting. Hopefully it's more Lady Terminator than Arthur Golden, if you know what I mean. Here's the trailer:
The overwhelming majority of titles that could be classified as “killer animal movies” fall squarely under the heading of B-movies. After all, for most people the phrase “killer animals” conjures up images of swarms of insects, jungle cats, or even giant bunnies on the loose, laying waste to human civilization. Hell, even the A-list movies in the lot- Jaws, most obviously- are still mostly about scaring the pants off the audience. I’m guessing that when Steve announced this Killer Animal Blogathon, his primary goal was to spotlight some of the genre’s more entertaining classics.
My selection is not one of these movies. Steve left the guidelines for the blogathon fairly vague, so while many people no doubt picked fun creature features, I decided to go the opposite direction. Not that there are many “serious” killer animal movies out there- in fact, I could only think of one. Then again, when many people hear about Sam Fuller’s White Dog, they mistake it for an especially sleazy entry into the genre. After all, it’s about a dog who kills African-Americans, so it’s got to be KKKujo, right? It was this same misconception that got White Dog withheld from American audiences by Paramount in the first place, and since then it’s gotten a bad reputation mitigated only slightly by the 2008 Criterion DVD release of the film. But then as now, White Dog is a major work by one of American cinema’s most incendiary talents, and it deserves to be taken seriously.
First, let’s just delve into that premise. Yes, this is a movie about a big white German shepherd that attacks and kills African-Americans, or as they still called them back in the early 1980s, “blacks.” But this white dog isn’t your garden variety killer animal. Unlike many killer-animal movies, White Dog never turns its titular character into a plot device who only turns up to maul someone then fade into the shadows until another victim comes calling. If anything, he’s the central character in the movie, around which all of the others revolve. Even when the dog is offscreen, he’s still the focus of the human characters’ lives and relationships with each other. At numerous points during the film, Fuller even adopts the dog’s point of view, in order to show us how he sees the world and to gauge the other characters through his eyes. In other movies, these shots might feel gimmicky, but here they enhance the film’s effect.
Likewise, Fuller allows us to gain further sympathy for the dog by focusing not on people who are against him but rather those who are most concerned. First, there’s Julie (former child star Kristy McNichol), a struggling actress who accidentally injures him with her car and takes him in before discovering his secret. Then there’s Carruthers (Burl Ives), who owns a company that provides animal performers for Hollywood. Finally, there’s Keys (Paul Winfield), the wild animal wrangler who takes it upon himself to re-educate the dog. All of these people care about the dog’s well-being in some way- Julie because she’s grown to love him, Carruthers because of his feelings about animals in general, and Keys (who is African-American) because he hates what has made the dog into a killer.
Julie is ostensibly the movie’s main human character, but Fuller is clearly most interested in and sympathetic to Keys. More than the other two, Keys recognizes that the dog is not to blame for his impulses to kill African-Americans. He speaks of the history of “white dogs”- how they were once used to track down freed slaves, then after the Civil War, escaped black prisoners (“but what about white prisoners?” Julie wisely asks). This dog’s urges are born from careful programming- early exposure to desperate African-Americans who have been paid by white racists to mistreat the animals- and based solely in fear and conditioned hatred. Keys knows that if he is to make the dog well again, he first needs to make the dog learn to trust him and his skin color. The film’s central scenes show Keys alone with the dog, allowing the dog to attack him (under pads, of course), never once retaliating. Once the dog begins to learn that Keys won’t hurt him, Keys begins to feed the dog in order to gain his trust.
Of course, it’s a long and difficult process toward rehabilitation, and at one point the dog escapes and kills an African-American man (Fuller removes any suspicion that White Dog is an exploitation film by avoiding showing both the killing and the aftermath). But even after this happens and even Julie and Carruthers want to put the dog down, Keys wants to cure the dog more than ever, motivated to score a victory against racism. In Romain Gary’s original novel, Keys acted on a need for revenge and re-trained the dog to kill whites, but Fuller wisely deviates from this and makes Keys’ motives more enlightened. The dog, by nature, is ruled by its programming, but humans are able to choose their actions.
And it’s this idea that makes White Dog more than just a killer-animal movie. By presenting us with an animal that isn’t governed by thought, Fuller asks us to consider our own deep-seated urges. After all, we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, but much of how people self-identify is based in personal taste and bias. Some of these biases are natural and healthy, like what foods we like. Others are mostly harmless, such as the crazy-ass belief floating around nowadays that skinny waifs are somehow more attractive than curvy women (really, guys? Really?). But sometimes, these beliefs- be they religious, political, or social- can turn into a wedge and cause rifts in our society.
For example, look at the way the word “Muslim” is treated by many Americans as a dirty word. Of course, many of these same Americans know little about Islam other than that they bombed the World Trade Center and hate women and America, but that’s enough for them to be suspicious of and hateful to over one billion people worldwide. It doesn’t help that we’ve been bombarded by decades of nefarious big-screen terrorists and images of bearded, glowering men living in caves on the nightly news. But ultimately, it’s up to us whether we want to accept our often secondhand prejudices or come to terms with life’s complexities by using facts and reason. It’s only when we learn to consider their own thoughts and actions instead of accepting them at face value that we can move past our more hateful natures. And that’s what Fuller is saying with this movie- that if you can’t learn to see the world in anything more than simple black and white, you don’t have any more sense than… well, a white dog.
Footnote: I didn’t have room in my review for this, but after watching White Dog I couldn’t help but think back on my own experiences with racism, and more specifically my first experience with it. Back in grade school, I was looking at our class’ globe with one of my classmates when we started pointing out different countries. After a while, he spun the globe around to Africa, pointed at “Niger,” and said… I’m sure you can guess. After he did this, he started chuckling to itself, said it again, and looked at me like I was supposed to laugh too.
That evening, I asked my parents what the word meant, and I was sort of stunned at what they told me. By this time, I knew about different countries and races, but I couldn’t fathom the idea of prejudice based on skin color. For one thing, one of my best friends at the time was African-American, so the idea of looking down on someone for being darker-skinned sounded strange to me. Learning about racism at that age was a rude awakening for me. In fact, I’d say I grew up more that day than on any other day of my life, even more than when I learned the truth about Santa Claus. At least when I found out about Santa Claus, the explanation seemed logical. Whereas racism still doesn’t quite compute for me.
Oh, and I still can’t read the country name “Niger” without thinking of that jackass kid. Thanks a lot, buddy.
Nowadays, we’re told from childhood that we can do damn near anything, provided we’re willing to put forth the effort. And while that’s not entirely wrong, the truth is that some people have a much easier path to worldly success than others. To be born into money is a tremendous leg up for a child, since his family’s social and financial status allows them to use their money and connections to give their child an advantage over those who are less fortunate. And if David Fincher’s spellbinding The Social Network is any indication, the stratification is even more pronounced at the top. In the world envisioned by Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, the Harvard students we see aren’t content to accept that they’re the cream of the crop because they attend America’s most prestigious university- they need to further stratify their society, with the truly elite winning invitation to the school’s prestigious “final clubs” while the others find themselves on the outside, looking in.
You know, I think I’m pretty much done with Solondz. Happiness has its problems, particularly when Solondz feels the need to provoke, but it also makes some genuinely cogent points about the inability of its characters to relate to each other, or in some cases even try. For the most part, Storytelling and Palindromes kept the provocations while jettisoning the incisiveness, but I had some hope that Solondz might be able to pull it together for this sequel to Happiness. Alas, no such luck. Life During Wartime tones down the audience-baiting (to a point anyway), but doesn’t fill the gaps with anything interesting. It’s that rarest of creatures- a bland Todd Solondz movie.
In case you hadn’t heard, a few months back the archive of posts at The Screengrab was removed from the Nerve.com website. Of course, Screengrab shut its doors over a year ago, but I had foolishly hoped that I’d continue to be able to steer folks to my semi-pro reviews and posts in their original context, comments and all. Alas, this wasn’t to be. I suppose Nerve was looking to save themselves some server space, which I guess I can understand. Still, it’s a little disorienting to find that an entire chapter in my life has been removed from the public record.
Anyway, I’m currently in the process of re-posting my long pieces from Screengrab to my “archive” blog My Hermes Handbag!, which had previously been used primarily to host the links to the original pieces. Naturally, this will take some time, but if you’re curious to see the longer stuff I’d write back when I was actually getting paid for it, check it out.
As we reach the beginning of October, we’ve got a scant three months left in the year. And with a fall movie season that will no doubt be packed with big honkin’ Muriels contenders- this weekend alone sees the Columbus release of a new David Fincher movie, the Sundance favorite Catfish, and the winner of the Golden Lion at last year’s Venice Film Festival- I can’t help but think of all the interesting movies I’ve already missed from this year. So I took a look at the list of Muriel-eligible movies from the year to date and was sort of dumbfounded by how much I couldn’t squeeze into my schedule over the past nine months.
Not all of these movies have made it to Columbus yet, so I’ve got an excuse for those. Likewise, not all of these movies hold the same level of interest for me, which is good since I don’t have remotely enough time to watch everything here. So I made the following lists to distinguish between the “must-sees” and the rest of the bunch.
Level 1 – Movies I’m set on seeing before the Muriels Around a Small Mountain (Rivette) [playing 17-18 December at Wexner] – I didn’t fly to NYC to see Out 1 because I’m just a casual Rivette fan, after all Enter the Void (Noe) [no Columbus release date scheduled] – someone pleasepleaseplease open this and book it on the biggest screen you’ve got Greenberg (Baumbach) [now on DVD] Mother (Bong) [now on DVD] Red Riding Trilogy (Jarrold/Marsh/Tucker) [now on DVD] – these last three came out here during a spring which found me extremely busy Never Let Me Go (Romanek) [scheduled to open 22 at Drexel] – reviews from TIFF weren’t great, but I dig the book and I’m curious how this will work onscreen Soul Kitchen (Akin) [no Columbus release date scheduled] – should play OK at home, but I’d be happy to see it in any form The Tillman Story (Bar-Lev) [no Columbus release date scheduled] – my most anticipated doc of the year, since I’m fascinated by the Tillman saga
Level 2 – Movies I hope to see, most likely for a specific reason Bluebeard (Breillat) – between this and Sleeping Beauty, this looks like Breillat is in a strange new phase, and I’m eager to see what she’s up to Chloe (Egoyan) – Egoyan’s sort of lost his way in recent years, but I refuse to give up on the guy, and if all else fails I can always skip ahead to the Moore/Seyfriend sex scene. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “Inferno” (Bromberg/Medrea) – supposedly this is a nothing-special piece of cinema, but seeing Clouzot’s footage is pretty tempting Hideaway (Ozon) – Ozon hasn’t squandered his 8 Women goodwill yet I Am Love (Guadagnino) – I actually went to see this once, but the power went out in the theatre, so if nothing else I’d like to finish what I started; also, Tilda Lourdes (Hausner) – supposedly contains a powerhouse Silvie Testud performance The Oath (Poitras) – missed this doc a few months back, but I’ve heard lots of good things The Secret of Kells (Moore) – the kid subjects me to all manner of big-budget ‘toons, so I’m always curious about new animation talent The Square (Edgerton) – has been compared by many to Blood Simple; does it warrant the comparison? Valhalla Rising (Refn) – I’m still searching for the proverbial “good Viking movie”, and this one could just fit the bill
Level 3 – Movies I’m curious about, but don’t necessarily need to see Agora (Amenabar) Ajami (Copti/Shani) Animal Kingdom (Michod) The Art of the Steal (Argott) The Concert (Mihaileanu) Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (de Oliveira) The Exploding Girl (Gray) Fish Tank (Arnold) I’m Still Here (C. Affleck) The Killer Inside Me (Winterbottom) Leaves of Grass (Nelson) Lebanon (Maoz) Looking for Eric (Loach) Mesrine: Killer Instinct / Public Enemy No. 1 (Richet) Micmacs (Jeunet) Mid-August Lunch (di Gregorio) The Milk of Sorrow (Llosa) Neil Young Trunk Show (Demme) Ondine (Jordan) The Other Guys (McKay) Smash His Camera (Gast) Solitary Man (Koppleman/Levien) Splice (Natali) Spring Fever (Lou) Sweetgrass (Barbash/Castaing-Taylor) Trash Humpers (Korine) Women Without Men (Neshat) You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (Allen) – this one’s kind of sad, since he only directed one of my all-time favorite movies; however, his last decade of work and the lack of quality control he seems to have any more don’t exactly inspire confidence
Bear in mind that I’m only taking into account movies that have already come out in NYC, which means there should be plenty more movies added to these lists before the end of the year.
Like last year, I plan to contact some of the smaller distributors in an attempt to snag screeners for myself and my fellow Muriels voters. But while I certainly wanted to encourage anyone who wishes to assist me in seeing the movies that interest me, I mostly just wanted to post these lists as a way of getting some feedback from you folks. The Level 1 selections are pretty set in stone at this point, but if you think I’ve underestimated one of your favorites of the year, or if I’ve forgotten something altogether, please let me know. And if I’m interested in something that’s just plain terrible, then by all means let me know that as well.
Finally, if you’re curious, here’s my top 10 of the year to date: 1. Dogtooth (Lanthimos) 2. Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy) 3. Winter’s Bone (Granik) 4. Inception (Nolan) 5. The Ghost Writer (Polanski) 6. Everyone Else (Ade) 7. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Wright) 8. Toy Story 3 (Unkrich) 9. Father of My Children (Hansen-Løve) 10. A Prophet (Audiard)
One of the biggest surprises of 2007 was the discovery of Ben Affleck as a serious filmmaker. Some would argue that much of the success of Affleck’s debut feature Gone Baby Gone was due to some fine acting and strong source material by Dennis Lehane, but Affleck was to be commended for eliciting those performances from his cast and finding the right tone and style for the material. Unfortunately, he can’t replicate this success with his follow-up film The Town. There are points in the film where he seems to be chasing after the same downbeat thriller vibe, but the magic never quite happens.
This morning, I received an e-Mail from one Claire Thomas of the Theatre Seat Store site. It seems that aside from its normal line of business of selling seats to aid in the comfy viewing of movies, the folks at the site have taken it upon themselves to spotlight some of their favorite movie-related sites. And somehow, yours truly was one of the bloggers they chose.
Needless to say, I was pretty flattered. I don’t write nearly as much as I once did- don’t have the time, alas- but I always hope that I’ll make at least a little impact on readers, both the ones I know and the ones who just stumble in and stick around a while. I think I’m in pretty good company too, considering that some of their other picks were perennial blog favorites like new At the Movies correspondent Kim Morgan, 2009 Muriels winner Glenn Kenny, and longtime buds Andrew Bemis and James Frazier.
Since I am really humbled about being honored like this, and because one can never have too much flair on one's blog, I’ve gone ahead and posted the banner at right. Thank you, Claire and the Theatre Seat Store powers that be. And thanks once again to all my readers out there.
Not much to report here, except that I recently reviewed the whimsically confounding Wild Grass and the middle-of-the-road Melville wannabe The American.
But if it's something more significant you seek, check out Cinevistaramascope, where my pal Andrew Bemis is putting a poll to determine the best movie of the past decade. I'm a little dismayed to see the steep competition facing my beloved New World. At least 8 Women made it past the first round...
Well, September has arrived, and that could only mean one thing... the Toronto International Film Festival! (What, you thought I was talking about football?) And as usual, part of me wishes that I could return once more this year. I have other commitments that take precedence in my life right now, and even if I had enough money to cover a trip to Toronto there are a number of other vacations for my whole family that I would spend it on first. Nonetheless, my trip back in 2007 was great, and I have a feeling that someday, I’ll make it back again.
If you consider yourself serious about cinema, you owe it to yourself to go to TIFF at least once in your life. Whereas festivals like Cannes and Sundance seem to be staged primarily for critics and industry folk, Toronto places its emphasis on appealing to the audiences themselves, making it very user-friendly even for a first-timer. Still, a festival as large as Toronto can be daunting if you don’t know the lay of the land. So, if you’re going this year, or you’re thinking of going in the future, here are a few tips to make things easier on you:
1. Start planning early.
Going to TIFF isn’t cheap, so locking in your transportation and lodgings early in the game could save you money. This is especially true of area hotels, which get booked pretty solid the closer one gets to September. By taking care of your lodgings early on, you can find a hotel that suits your purposes and won’t drain your wallet, instead of having to settle either for something that costs more than you were hoping to pay or is cheap but subpar.
2. Know why you’re going.
With 300-plus films screening, there are plenty of options for all sorts of filmgoers. So if you’re heading to Toronto, it helps to know what your expectations are from the festivals. TIFF offers more than a dozen programs, from Gala screenings (ideal for star-gazers) to Wavelengths (for fans of avant-garde cinema) to Real to Reel (manna for documentary fans). By knowing what you want from Toronto, you can help to make it a little smaller.
3. Get familiar with the movies before you go.
Beginning in July, the TIFF web site begins to announce the films that are screening at the festival. By mid-August, all of the titles have been announced. So if you want to TIFF, use the official site as a resource to determine what you might want to see. When I went, I even went so far as to make a list of titles that were interesting, with a separate category for movies that intrigued me the most- the movies, you might say, that justified the trip. This may take some time, but when it comes time to schedule your screenings, your efforts will pay off.
4. Take advantage of ticket packages…
Package-holders sometimes have preference for buying tickets to screenings, especially those who buy packages to specific programmes. This is especially true if you want to attend the nightly Gala screenings, which sometimes require special Gala screening passes. And even if you have the option of paying cash at the box office, having a pass can be preferable if you decide to rush a screening or if someone wishes to exchange his ticket.
5. … But don’t bother with the Out of Town service.
I know that for some festival vets, this is going to sound controversial, but hear me out. For those who don’t know, the Out of Town service is the initial chance for non-Toronto residents to purchase tickets to screenings. The process entails receiving your registration packet (including your screening passes, registration forms, and program catalog) one day in late August, filling out your desired schedule overnight, and FedExing it to Canada the next day. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Except that it costs a rather galling $150 for the service. And even if you do everything you’re required to do, you’re still not guaranteed to get everything you want. To me, it doesn’t seem to be worth the price.
Instead, I recommend sketching out a screening schedule before you go up to Canada, then when you arrive, head to the ticket office with your schedule and your passes and buy tickets to as many of the movies you really want to see as you can. If you get locked out of some screenings- and this will probably happen in at least a couple of cases- don’t worry. By and large, the Festival doesn’t sell every seat in the theatre in advance. Every morning, the screening status for movies playing that particular day will be updated, and screenings that had been locked will suddenly find themselves with tickets available to those who don’t mind getting up early and making the trip to the ticket office. And if all else fails, there’s always the rush line (more on this later).
6. Hit town early.
This is especially important for first-timers. Toronto is a very friendly and easily navigable city, especially around the Festival. But like any large city, it can be a little imposing if you don’t know the territory, so plan on showing up a day beforehand and getting the lay of the land. Take the time to find all the screening venues, as well as with the subway that will be transporting you between them. This will prove valuable once the screenings begin, in that you’ll know more or less where you’re going and can concentrate on getting there. And if you have time left over, check out the city, which is lovely and offers plenty of fun even for those who aren’t going to the Festival.
7. Be flexible.
One of the biggest rookie mistakes one can make at Toronto is over-booking oneself. With so many movies to choose from, there’s a temptation to schedule as much as possible in the interest of not missing anything. But by locking yourself in to too many movies, you run the risk of overlooking something just as good or better. So when you arrive in town and head to buy your tickets, go ahead and fill up your few two or three days, but beyond that leave plenty of space in your itinerary. Then as the festival progresses, keep an ear out for buzzed-about titles. TIFF is filled with people who get excited about movies, so if you’re seated next to someone before a screening starts, go ahead and ask about what they’ve seen. Then if something sounds interesting, you can always try to buy a ticket the morning of the next screening, or even…
8. Rush, rush, rush.
For all the assurance you can get from knowing you’ve already gotten your ticket for a particular movie, there’s something about the rush lines that really encapsulates the TIFF experience like nothing else. The way it works is that people who don’t have a ticket to a particular screening can line up outside the theatre in the hope of getting in. Fifteen minutes before the screening starts, the wonderfully helpful festival volunteers will begin letting in people in the rush line, who are permitted to watch the movie in exchange for the cost of admission. So what is it about rush lines that’s sort of magical? Perhaps it’s that tense excitement about the movie, or about the festival experience as a whole, that motivates people to queue up without knowing for sure whether they’ll actually be able to see the movie. Some of my best conversations at the festival were had with complete strangers in rush lines, talking about what we’ve seen, what we were waiting for, and what we’ve heard about from others. And even if you don’t get in, you can always commiserate with your new rush-line pals afterwards, perhaps over dinner or drinks. When the hero of Fight Club referred to single-serving friends, he could have been talking about rush lines.
9. Beware the festival wall.
There are plenty of opportunities to have fun in Toronto, but avoid overdoing it. Seasoned TIFF-goers often talk of a “wall” that sets in around the fourth or fifth day of the fest. After several days filled with four, five, or even six screenings, coupled with having to scramble between different venues, one’s body begins to rebel. Suddenly, those 9 AM screenings aren’t looking so appealing anymore. This is the other reason why you shouldn’t fill up your schedule during the second half of the festival- sometimes it’s necessary to head back to the hotel for a quick nap so you can be alert for the movies you really want to see.
10. Don’t forget to eat.
The festival wall is pretty much inevitable, but it’s less of an issue if you keep to a regular schedule. Sleep sometimes needs to go by the wayside- after all, there’s a new John Carpenter film in Midnight Madness this year!- but that doesn’t mean you need to skip meals as well. Always grab breakfast in the morning, even if it’s just coffee and a bagel at one of the Tim Horton’s that has sprouted up on seemingly every corner. And don’t take all your lunches and dinners during screenings. Concession stand food isn’t the healthiest for you, nor is it always the tastiest option. Every day, try to do either lunch or dinner outside of a theatre setting as a way of decompressing. There are plenty of great restaurants in the festival area to try. Or if you’re pressed for time, there’s always the wide variety of Toronto hot dog carts. Trust me on this- unless you’re completely grossed out by either hot dogs or street vendors, you really owe it to yourself to sample Toronto’s street meat at least once. If those things aren’t famous, they damn well oughta be.
There are plenty of other tips I could give here- for example, avoid seeing movies at the festival if they’re due to be released within the next few weeks, since you’re basically paying three or four times as much for a movie you could just as easily see in the near future for theatre price. But I think the ten bits of advice I’ve given here cover most of the major aspects of the festival that would be of interest to first-timers. If anyone has anything else to add, feel free to use the comments section below. And for everyone who’s TIFFing this year, have a great time!
The history of movies is filled with hermits, but few have been as precisely drawn as Felix Bush, the protagonist of Get Low. Played by Robert Duvall, Felix is a cantankerous old coot- the word “old” would seem redundant but for the agreeable rhythm it brings to the phrase- who’s holed up in his cabin for the better part of four decades, with only a mule as company. One thing I appreciated about Get Low is that it doesn’t strive too hard to make Felix seem purer or more genuine than the more sophisticated townsfolk he meets throughout the film, or to turn him into some kind of backwoods philosopher. That’s not to say Felix doesn’t have wisdom of a sort, but it’s the kind of wisdom one gains through fending for oneself for a long period of time. Four decades alone hasn’t brought Felix any closer to figuring out the meaning of life, but they’ve given him plenty of time to perfect his recipe for rabbit stew.
Well, here we are, folks. This shouldn't be a surprise to any of you, but I'm grateful to all of you who've been reading. Thank you.
So many films have treated the natural segue from youthful idealism to the long-haul pragmatism of adulthood as a tragedy that it’s sort of amazing to see a movie that treats it as a simple fact of life. The marvel of The New World is twofold- that master director Terrence Malick sets this transition in the life of Pocahontas (played wonderfully by Q’Orianka Kilcher) against the backdrop of a land about to make the same leap, and that it does so without ever once insisting upon the point. Yet there’s so much more to love about The New World- the completeness with which its world is imagined (Jack Fisk’s magnificently hewn sets are breathtaking), the breathtaking cinematography (courtesy of Emmanuel Lubezki), and above all, the directorial command that Malick brings to the tale. And to think he’s already got another film on the way!
Before I announce my favorite film of the past decade (announcement scheduled for tomorrow), I'd like to share a few miscellaneous thoughts on the list I've made. First off, my list was compiled on the basis of international premiere rather than U.S. theatrical release, which eliminated a number of films that which bowed in the late 1990s but didn't make it here until 2000 or so. Andrew Bemis is currently compiling a poll of favorite films from the 2000s based on domestic release date, and I've submitted a list to him which, along with most of the top 10 I've listed here, also includes Audition and Beau Travail- both great films which didn't meet the requirements for this countdown, but which definitely deserve mention when talking about tbe best films I saw in the last ten years.
Additionally, when I made this list I decided to only include single films rather than franchises, so that eliminated such notable works as the Kill Bill saga and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. These have always been tricky cases as far as list-making is concerned, since both are essentially multi-part films rather than free-standing units. But whatever they are, they are nonetheless some of the seminal films of the last decade.
Finally, there's Dogtooth, a film that I saw well after I firmed up this top 25 list, but which in my eyes definitely deserves to join its ranks. Rather than trying to squeeze it into the list in media res, I've decided to leave it out for the time being, with the plan to add it in at a later date. The reasons for this are twofold. First, I didn't want to cause confusion in readers by making it look like I was juggling positions on this list while I was unveiling it. But more importantly, I honestly think it's the kind of movie that requires multiple viewings to really be appreciated. With one exception, I've watched every film on this list more than once, and each of them benefit from this process, along with a certain amount of time passing to allow the film's contents to turn over in my brain for a while. Once I get the chance to see Dogtooth again, I'm confident that it will assume a prominent position among my favorite films of the 2000s. But I'm willing to wait for this to happen.
There are actually full-length copies of this on YouTube, but Don Hertzfeldt doesn't really like this, so I'll respect his wishes by posting a section of the film he posted himself. If you dig this, you can buy the full DVD on the Bitter Films site.
Since the mid-nineties, Don Hertzfeldt has been the reigning prankster of American animation, hand-crafting little wonders like the Oscar-nominated Rejected. Yet there’s always been a wealth of ideas behind his work, and these ideas came to the fore most prominently in Everything Will Be OK, a meditation on mortality and circumstance that feels like the cartoon cousin to Raymond Carver. That’s not to say Hertzfeldt has lost his sense of humor- far from it- but that it’s become load-bearing, in the service of some surprisingly profound issues about life.
To its many detractors, Richard Linklater’s Waking Life is little more than a glorified undergraduate bull session, gussied up with some computer animation. But to these eyes, the film is less about the particular (and often conflicting) ideas espoused by its gallery of characters than about capturing the liberating feeling of being able to give voice to such ideas, no matter how facile or misguided. And with the assistance of Bob Sabiston and his team of animators, Linklater has made a film that dances in time with the ideas it expresses.
Ain't there one damn song who can make me... break down and cryyyyyyyyyyyyyy??
At a time when many filmmakers are pushing the boundaries of digital photo-realism, leave it to Lars Von Trier to go in the other direction. Dogville first provocation is to tell its tale on an undressed soundstage with chalk outlines in place of walls, but it’s by no means the last. More than ever, Dogville led its critics to decry its anti-American streak (and not without reason), yet while the characters’ treatment of Grace has distinct parallels in the American immigrant experience, it’s also a pointed parable for humanity’s need to subjugate others throughout history.
But first, this past weekend I took in an odd titles-themed double feature. Consequently, I've got new reviews of Dogtoothand Restrepo.
And now... Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaainage!
“Anybody can make a lot of money, if all you want to do is make a lot of money.” Few big-screen characters have exemplified Mr. Bernstein’s philosophy as Daniel Day-Lewis’ Plainview, the very embodiment of venal, soul-sucking greed. Those who’ve taken P.T. Anderson’s masterpiece There Will Be Blood as an allegory for the modern oil industry miss the point that, if it hadn’t been oil that made Plainview a bazillionaire, it’d been some other damn thing. Anderson’s film isn’t always pleasant or cheerful, but it’s uncompromising, and thanks to the director’s visual pyrotechnics and Day-Lewis’ volcanic performance, exciting as hell.
You were waiting for this one to show up? Funny you should say that...
The setting- a New York City still quaking from 9/11- got most of the press, but Spike Lee’s film would be a major work regardless of its time or place. As Monty (Edward Norton) readies himself for his upcoming jail sentence (for dealing drugs), he has to come to grips with the choices he’s made in life, while assessing his relationships with his friends, his girlfriend, and his family. It’s a lot for one film, but Lee has always been a bold filmmaker, and he never steps wrong. Was there a more heartrending sequence this decade than the final reel of 25th Hour, in which Monty’s dad (Brian Cox) lays out an alternate future for his son? Not for me, there wasn’t.
