Quite honestly – I chose this film based on the previous work of director Richard Linklater. The man responsible for DAZED & CONFUSED and WAKING LIFE has been responsible for some of the most maverick movies of our time. Then again, he was also responsible for remaking BAD NEWS BEARS and THE NEWTON BOYS. Could…
Listen Like Thieves (Thoughts on TIFF Day 8)
During the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, some jackass caught a few minutes of the Borat movie on his cellphone and posted it online. Ever since then, the studios have gone apeshit paranoid, and the festival organizers have bent over to appease them. There are security guards in many screenings with night vision scopes looking…
TIFF Reaction – FIFTY DEAD MEN WALKING
Just before the lights dimmed, I wondered why a smaller film about the IRA struggles would choose a title so similar to a famously Oscar-nominated movie? These are the things that pass through my sleep deprived brain these days. Fifteen years ago, it felt like every month there was a new IRA film hitting screens.…
TIFF Reaction – WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU
My ticket wallet feels a whole lot thinner, and the pile of ticket stubs on my desk is growing by the minute. Must mean we’re coming up on the end of this crazy ten days. It’s this stretch of the festival that things get a little unpredictable. In recent years, TIFF has become a very…
Suddenly I See (Thoughts on TIFF Day 7)
All afternoon I’d been wondering about what sort of TIFF update I wanted to write today. In the end, indecision has won out. So rather than give you a few hundred words on my experiences over the last day, I figured I’d let the pictures do the talking for once. First from last night’s premiere…
TIFF Reaction: COOPER’S CAMERA
Yesterday I wrote about not believing the hype. This afternoon, my theme could be don’t believe the trash. Of all the movies I picked to see, two of them snagged bad press before the festival started: I ended up loving them both. Then there was the flick I chose for today – COOPER’S CAMERA –…
TIFF Reaction: SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
First things first: it’s pronounced sin-ECK-DA-key. Now that I have that out of the way, I’ll try to talk about this amazingly odd movie from the go-to-guy for amazingly odd, Charlie Kaufman. For those of you who don’t know, Kaufman wrote such strange stories as ADAPTATION, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, AND ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS…