TIFF 2012 – Top 10 Anticipated Female Performances (Paolo Kagaoan)

The greatest female performance I’ve seen so far this year is Zoe Kazan in the titular Ruby Sparks, a role that she wrote for herself. Now I don’t think that I need to ‘rectify’ anything but I’m sure you’re all thinking that I need to watch more movies. Well, TIFF fixes that. In ten days, the festival gives us a dose of what will be in our theatres for the next season, and they are also a way for actresses – established, relatively obscure or upcoming ones – to show what they’ve got to the most eager and eclectic movie lovers in the world.

Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone – This seems like a quiet movie but then I watched the trailer and saw Cotillard play fifty interpretations of broken. She was always third in my mind, especially with her clunky work in American movies that can only be described as passable. But this film might just make her jump to first in my heart.

Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina – Keira Knightly is a good actress, and some people agree with me on this, ok? (Eds note – Where’s the proof?) If she pulls this off, she can complete her hat trick of overlooked awesomeness, pulling the rug out from under actors like Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender in movies like Never Let Me Go? and A Dangerous Method.

Maggie Smith in Quartet – Back up other festivals because we TIFFers get to see Quartet first. This movie, based on Ronald Harwood’s play, is Dustin Hoffman’s highly-anticipated directorial debut and he has Maggie Smith on his team playing Jean, an opera singer stirring things up in a retirement home for a musical clientele. Will she do her own singing? It doesn’t matter because she’s Maggie fricking Smith.

Zhang Ziyi in Dangerous Liaisons – Director Hur Jun-ho gives one of my favourite actresses ever, Zhang Ziyi, a great challenge in casting her in this new adaptation of Cholderos de Laclos’ epistolary novel of the same name. She plays Du Fenyu, based on the character Madame de Tourvel, a woman of 1930’s Shanghai whose innocence comes into conflict with a blossoming sexuality. The trailer already shows how she can convey desire and sorrow, marking a truly great actress.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Smashed – Mary Elizabeth Winstead is my MVP in 2010’s Scott Pilgrim because of her voice and poise, giving the love interest archetype a different colour. Winstead retells Ramona Flowers’ troubled past but in James Ponsoldt’s Smashed she makes her audience confront Kate Hannah’s present drug addiction. The buzz for her performance here has started in Sundance and it will continue to build until the whole world will get to see what her talent can offer.

Isabelle Huppert in Dormant Beauty – Huppert’s buzzier film is Amour but she’s barely mentioned in reviews of that movie, despite being Isabelle Huppert, who I would call the best French actress ever had I seen The Piano Teacher. She leads an ensemble cast who have to live amongst people with comas. I’m not trying to dissuade you from seeing Amour but that movie will come out and depress you during winter. This might not get limited distribution here in Canada.

Olivia Williams in Hyde Park on Hudson – Early reviews have not been nice to this movie and, if I take their word for it, it deserves the lack of praise. Director Roger Michell’s takes us to the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (Bill Murray) affair with his cousin (Laura Linney), but I hope that Olivia Williams will show her usual innate strength in playing FDR’s wife Eleanor, without relying on stereotypes of what we the audience think of her historically. She’s the reason I’ll be buying a ticket.

Halle Berry in Cloud Atlas – Unlike Scott Weinberg, I’m actually looking forward to Halle Berry’s comeback, and I shouldn’t be using that word because she has starred in under-watched curiosities after her Oscar win. It’s her mix of beauty and pathos that still gets her in the door. Despite being in an all-star cast to end all-star casts, she can make her two subplots stand out. I’m jealous of people seeing this and I also can’t wait to see what they will tell us about it and one of its many stars.

Rachel McAdams in Passion – McAdams mixes up her good romance movies with vampy ones, and as her career progresses it’s as if she’s trying to see what would happen if Regina George grew up. Passion is based the French movie Love Crime, where Kristin Scott Thomas cobbled the shoes McAdams has to fill. This also looks like a chance for her to dive into the inner bad girl within the heroines of director Brian de Palma’s hero, Alfred Hitchcock.

Janet McTeer in Hannah Arendt – This movie seems like the Barbara Sukowa show but being the MVP in last year’s Albert Nobbs, I can’t wait for her to steal the show as the equally tough Mary McCarthy, a writer who deserves a biopic of her own.

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TIFF 2012 – The Movie Junkie’s Top 10 Anticipated Films (Kirk Haviland)

Kirk here, as the Toronto International Film Festival begins I’m here to spotlight my top picks for the fest and perhaps fill those leftover vouchers or last minute gaps in the schedule with some films that have definitely caught my eye. I will be brief in detail to avoid spoiler type material, but for further info on all titles go to the TIFF website by clicking on the titles below.

 

Painless – Dir. Juan Carlos Medina

Spanish Horror Thriller about a man who slowly unravels the truth about his origins, and a series of experiments conducted on children at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War.

Screening Sat Sept 8th, Sun Sept 9th and Sat Sept 15th

 

Berberian Sound Studio – Dir. Peter Strickland

A British sound engineer (Toby Jones) starts a descent into madness when he starts to work for a flamboyant Italian Horror director.

Screening Mon Sept 10th and Tues Sept 11th

 

Fin (The End) – Dir. Jorge Torregrossa

A post-apocalyptic thriller set in the shadow of the Pyrenees Mountains in which a group of survivors set out to survive nature and their own demons after an all-encompassing blackout and the apparent disappearance of everybody else on the planet.

Screening Sat Sept 8th, Mon Sept 10th and Sun Sept 16th.

 

Tai Chi 0 – Dir. Stephen Fung

Martial Arts meets Steampunk in Director Fung’s hyper-stylized account of the founder of the Yang school of Tai Chi set during the Qing Dynasty. Crazy, delirious fight scenes ensue.

Screening Sat Sept 8th, Tues Sept 11th and Sat Sept 15th.

 

Thale – Dir. Aleksander L. Nordaas

While cleaning a cabin in the Norwegian wilderness, two forensic clean-up crew members stumble upon a deadly mythical siren known as a ‘Huldra’, known for luring men away to their demise.

Screening Wed Sept 12th, Thurs Sept 13th and Sat Sept 15th

 

No One Lives – Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

Midnight Madness vet Kitamura returns after 10 years since “Versus” to deliver a tale of a gory home invasion that goes wrong when the ‘helpless’ victims turn out to be anything but helpless.

Screening Sat Sept 8th, Mon Sept 10th and Fri Sept 14th

 

Looper – Dir Rian Johnson

The mind-bending futuristic tale of a mob hit man whose job is to exterminate people from the future. The job becomes less appealing when he is assigned the task of killing his future self.

Screening twice on Thurs Sept 6th (Opening Night Gala)

 

Much Ado about Nothing Dir – Joss Whedon

After his mega hit The Avengers, Whedon strips down to deliver a faithful retelling of Shakespeare’s play set in a contemporary world and populated by many of the actors from his television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly.

Screening Sat Sept 8th, Sun Sept 9th and Fri Sept 14th.

 

Hellbenders Dir – JT Petty

The Hellbound Saints of Brooklyn Parrish are the most foul-mouthed, ill-tempered, beer-swilling, raucous group of priests you’re likely to meet. But you’ll want them on your side if you need an exorcism performed in this town.

Screening Sun Sept 9th, Tues Sept 11th and Sat Sept 15th.

 

The Hunt – Dir. Thomas Vinterberg

Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor prize at Cannes for his performance as an innocent man accused of child molestation in this ferociously powerful new film that is sure to be controversial.

Screening Mon Sept 10th and Wed Sept 12th.

And a bonus Pick!….

Come out and Play – Dir – Juego de Ninos

In a Children of the Corn inspired Mexican thriller a vacationing couple must unravel the blood soaked mystery of why a mysterious island is apparently only populated by children.

Screening Thurs Sept 13th, Fri Sept 14th and Sat Sept 15th.

The staff here at Entertainment Maven will be out there killing ourselves to provide the most coverage we can for your benefit, so if you stumble upon us during your TIFF adventure don’t be afraid to come by and say hello, have a beverage with us, or just provide a shoulder for us to cry on!

Till Next Time,

Movie Junkie TO

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TIFF 2012 – Top 10 Directors You May Miss, But Shouldn’t (Paolo Kagaoan)

How am I just knowing about this director’s new movie at TIFF? You are all FIRED! Ok, to be honest I’m not really mad. The most buzzed directors in this year’s festival include Paul Thomas Anderson, who gets better with every movie he does; Jacques Audiard, a director finally emerging with his fifth feature film; and Lee Daniels, a troll. So I understand that with those names and many others like it, there’s not going to be room in the headlines for all the directors. Even some Galas get sidelined. So here are ten movies from five filmmakers that you may have missed, because I almost did. And I’m trying to fit all of them in my schedule.

Bernardo Bertolucci’s Me and You: Bertolucci filmed “The Conformist,” helped Marlon Brando and Debra Winger into career-best performances, won an Oscar, hasn’t made a movie since “The Dreamers” and wants to put Jennifer Lawrence in a movie. But here he works with relative newcomers Jacopo Olmo Antinori and Tea Falco who play half-siblings within a family with a complex history.

Billy Bob Thornton’s Jayne Mansfield’s Car: No jokes about Thornton’s connection to Winterbottom, please. Thornton has acted in both comedies and dramas but his directing work is more broody stuff. The title feels irreverently cheeky despite portraying a story about death. His usual Southern backdrop now has a mix of British characters (including John Hurt), bringing home a woman who is also the matriarch of a wealthy family in 1969 Alabama.

Margarethe von Trotta’s Hanna Arendt: The fact that I heard that she made one about medieval curiosity Hildegard von Bingen, who I briefly studied in Art History, means that she has my utmost respect. I was also dissuaded me to choose this movie about Adolf Eichmann’s that stars Janet McTeer and Barbara Sukowa and was told to watch a sex comedy…shiver instead. I need better friends.

Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air:  Assayas’ “Carlos” was the toast of the town in 2010 so it’s strange that we’re having a less than bombastic response to his return to this city. Like the miniseries, he brings us to Paris in the early 1970’s, an era that seems further away but I’ll assume that the political and social upheaval that Assayas portrays can be relatable to our present-day volatility.

Francois Ozon’s In the House: I was having a conversation over the phone with friend Corey Atad who has already seen this movie with Kristin Scott Thomas and a kid (Ernst Unhauer) who is writing about her and his fictionalized story becomes true. I like KST’s francophilia but I miss her, bitchy character or otherwise, in good English-language movies. He omitted the part that the quirky Ozon directed it – nobody’s fault. This sounds heavier than most of Ozon’s fare but I am so in for this.

Michael Winterbottom’s Everyday:  Winterbottom’s name conjures up Steve Coogan comedies but he also has a dedication to interpreting Thomas Hardy novels for the big screen and has also made gritty movies – those latter two are what he started with. “Trishna,” based on Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Ubervilles,” had a lukewarm reception and I hope he bounces back with “Everyday,” a five-year journey in the lives of Karen (Shirley Henderson) and her jailed husband (John Simm).

Takeshi Kitano’s Outrage Beyond: Kitano’s “Zatoichi” takes us to the past but I’m hoping he expands his horizons and shows us what he can tap into regarding contemporary life. Well, at least the life within the Yakuza subgenre. Japanese movies are loud and emotionally impactful to me, just as they have been in the past, and I can’t wait to find out what the audiences will think of this one.

Manoel de Oliveira’s Gebo and the Shadow: De Oliveira’s has had films here like “The Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired” and “The Strange Case of Angelica,” the former having a run at the old Cinematheque Ontario. This year he unites great actresses like Jeanne Moreau and Claudia Cardinale in a movie where the latter deals with the return of her prodigal son.

Raul Ruiz’ Night across the Street: TIFF’s Masters Programme is a great way to discover great directors and see movies of an acquired but rewarding taste. After last year’s “Mysteries of Lisbon,” thankfully we have his new offering that explores his childhood memories in what he believes are the last moments of his life.

Kim Ki-Duk’s Pieta: Kim has once brought us “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring,” something that most recent Film Studies majors encounter in their private cinephile binges. Here he combines art, sadism and love when a loan shark employee meets a woman who claims to be his mother.

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TIFF 2012 – Casting Jason Reitman’s Table Reading of American Beauty (Paolo Kagaoan)

By the time this post is up, Jason Reitman would be cementing the details for the ‘Special Event’ at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, that special event being a Jason Reitman table reading of Alan Ball’s American Beauty. The movie, directed by Sam Mendes, became the People’s Choice Winner and established our festival as the one that crowns Oscar Best Picture contenders. Jason Reitman probably has announced his cast for this reading, maybe based on the people who have been in his movies (Jason Bateman, Vera Farmiga). It could also be actors who are available during the festival (Ben Affleck, Amy Adams) or actors who are available during the festival who have also been Academy favourites just like American Beauty’s stars were (Michael Shannon, Amy Adams). But here’s who I would pick:

Lester Burnham. My pick: Peter Sarsgaard. He has that everyman aura that Kevin Spacey exuded in the original, excelling compared to the pretty boys who Reitman usually casts (not that I’m complaining). He’s also the kind of talent that doesn’t come with the overwhelming star wattage, which is what Mendes had in mind while casting Spacey.

Carolyn Burnham. My pick: Carla Gugino. She shows her wit in the TV show Political Animals and her flirtations with the cartoony side of acting in the beautiful mess that is Sucker Punch. Besides, she really needs to be in more stuff as a leading lady.

Jane Burnham. My pick: Saorise Ronan. I’ve only seen her play British or German but Peter Jackson took her on to play the quintessential innocent American in The Lovely Bones. And Hanna already explored the dark sides of her talent and maybe we’ll see more of that if she gets a role like this.

Ricky Fitts. My pick: Logan Lerman.  While I’m writing this Reitman already chose Adam Driver to read for the part but Logan Lerman might fit the role too. Lerman’s already becoming increasingly divisive but I have faith in him, jumping from a douche in Paul W.S. Anderson’s guilty pleasure The Three Musketeers (he’s one of the best things in that movie) to introvert in the upcoming The Perks of Being a Wallflower. He seems like the kind of guy capable of bottled and distilled anger. And heck, he’s already in town for the next couple of weeks so why not do this?

Angela Hayes. My pick: Shailene Woodley. You know what? Despite of Spacey’s win and Annette Bening’s nomination I actually think that Mena Suvari is my MVP for this movie. But who else to pick but Woodley, whose beauty is equally not impeachable?

As for the other adults, why not Josh Brolin as Col. Frank Fitts, Timothy Olyphant as Buddy Kane and Robin Tunney as Barbara Fitts? Brolin, by the way, is working with Reitman in the latter’s next movie Labour Day, a more dramatic turn for both involved. Olyphant has the versatility and approachability, and Tunney should get a role like this and stop being Mindy to Simon Baker’s Mork.

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TIFF 2012 – Top 10 Most Anticipated Films (Dustin SanVido)

In five days the city of Toronto will once again play host to the 2012 iteration of the Toronto International Film Festival, and it looks like I will be dropped into the mix of what looks like the most stacked group of films in the festival’s history, at least on paper. There are great looking movies in every programme as always, from the expected star power of the Galas and Special Presentations to the Vanguard and Masters Programmes, this year seems like the most complete variety of films to date.  In particular, the Midnight Madness programme is easily the most mainstream and thus accessible list I have seen as a returning viewer of seven prior festivals.

At the time of this post, I am currently scheduled to view 20 films over the ten days, and I anticipate securing more tickets as the 6th draws closer. Since I’m a huge fan of top ten lists of everything, from sports to vegetables (zucchini can suck it!) and of course movies, I have created a list of my personal top ten most anticipated films of the festival. I was on the fence whether or not to include films I’m not able to see at this point, and as such I will stick to just the movies I can see.

And as our favorite clown prince of crime would say, “Here…We…Go”:

(It is worth noting I have gone against the grain of my own sensibilities and avoided all trailers and potential spoilers pertaining to the films contained in this list)

10.  The Iceman

The story of Richard “the iceman” Kuklinsky is one that I have been aware of since High school. I remember learning of his notoriety through a fellow student and after researching the man and viewing a number of documentaries and taped interviews, I was fascinated with the charm and apparent normalcy of this psychopathic killing machine. To go any further into his story would certainly spoil what the film may offer, but within a few moments of listening to this man speak it is easy to see how a reputed hitman for the mob could switch a button in his mind and carry on a seemingly normal life as a loving and caring family man. One of my favorite actors, Michael Shannon, plays the titular figure and I am excited to see how close the film stays to the facts, which I always felt could be a very cinematic story.

9.  John Dies at the End

This film is the wild card of my slate this year. I have yet to see the director’s previous films which made him a name in the horror genre: Phantasm and The Beastmaster, but was absolutely delighted with his last feature, the Bruce Campbell starrer Bubba Ho-Tep. His wry mix of humour, horror and suspense was a complete surprise to me, even though I’ve come to expect this exact sort of thing from anything featuring Campbell. Little is known to me about this film aside from the fact it features ancient evil, multiple dimensions, two slacker buddies, and of course, Clancy Brown. Being compared by Colin Geddes, the programmer of Midnight Madness and Vanguard, to the earlier works of David Cronenberg and David Lynch has me childishly salivating already.

8.  The Silver Linings Playbook

When mainstream audiences think of David O. Russell, they most certainly associate the polarizing director with his last feature, the Academy Award winning The Fighter, and certainly to a more focused extent, the harrowing and well deserved award-winning performance by Christian Bale as the title character’s estranged brother/trainer. While this is mostly the case, I like to think of David O. Russell as the man who is well known in Hollywood as the most difficult director to work with in the business. Worse than Fincher. Period. Thanks to the wonderful innovation of the internet, one can Youtube Russell’s name, and be treated to the emotional breakdown of Lily Tomlin while on-set of I (Heart) Huckabees, complete with a common screaming tantrum by Mr. Russell, all the while Dustin Hoffman sits in the middle wearing the most awkward face you’ve ever seen. And let’s not forget the infamous story of getting into a fist fight and ultimately receiving an ass-whooping from one George Clooney while on the set of Three Kings. While spreading  tales of Hollywood folklore, I’m failing to mention how much I enjoy his work and how much I’m looking forward to his latest, this story focusing on a recently released psychiatric patient (Bradley Cooper) trying to put his life back together while dealing with his football-obsessed father (Robert De Niro) and an oddly motivated neighbor (Jennifer Lawerence).

7.  Passion

The pre-adolescent man-child in me insists all one needs to know about Passion is it’s an erotic thriller starring two attractive (see HOT) women from the guy who made such fare as Body Heat and Scarface. I promise you, further elaboration of that last sentence is enough to interest the most pessimistic of viewers. Passion is a remake Crime D’amour, a French film seen as a recent selection of TIFF in 2010. 2012’s Passion is directed by Brian De Palma, a master filmmaker in his own right who has worked in Hollywood for over 40 years, and stars Rachel McAdams and Noomie Rapace as a power hungry career woman and her naive assistant, respectively. What unfolds is a sexually charged story of revenge set in the corporate world of advertising, and has quietly become one of the more anticipated films this year amongst fans and critics alike.

6.  Dredd 3D

Guns. Slow motion exploding heads. Post apocalyptic metroplolis. 3D. A faithful adaptation of the titular Judge, complete with non-removal of helmet. Hugely positive word-of-mouth from the screening at San Diego Comic Con. Did I mention exploding heads? Done.

5.  The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the greatest directors living today and his mark has already been left on Hollywood for generations to come in just five films. His in-your-face, cerebral and highly cinematic style has created a voice all his own, and his films are respectfully works of cinematic art of the absolute highest form. His latest work promises to be much more than a meditation on a controversial religion. My guess is the secrets to his latest film may be in the title itself, which may refer to a more primal subject matter than religion. A stellar cast is provided, as is the case of all of his work, including Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Joaquin Pheonix, the latter providing a performance (according to early rumour) that is an early frontrunner for this year’s Academy Awards.

4.  Argo

In just three films, Ben Affleck has unequivocally proven to his Hollywood peers and the rest of the cinema-going populace that his true talent lies behind the camera. He is a master filmmaker by my standards (I will defend this with reckless abandon), and it is quite clear he was paying close attention to the machinations and techniques of the vast array of directors he worked with as a performer. Thank goodness he never quite reached bona-fide A-list status as an actor, save for Ms. Lopez’s flavour of that year, or we may not have been given such a graceful and sure-handed filmmaker who’s already found a signature voice and style all his own. He will hopefully continue his streak of great films with Argo, an unbelievably true life story of a CIA “Extractor”(Affleck) who devises a plan to rescue a group of American Embassy staff hiding inside the Canadian Embassy in Tehran, Iran circa 1979. His plan involves sneaking out the Embassy workers by posing as a Canadian film crew in production of a fake science-fiction film. This film should be considered a legitimate contender for the Blackberry “People’s Choice Award”.

3.  Seven Psychopaths

There once was a time when a completely unknown actor from Ireland burst onto the scene with a tour-de-force performance in Joel (batsuit nipples) Schumacher’s Tigerland (2000), starring as a rebellious Army recruit being put through the rigors of training before being shipped off to the Vietnam war. His performance in that film is still hailed as his greatest accomplishment in an otherwise diverse but ultimately inconsistent career thus far. It is also widely perceived that his performance in Martin Mcdonehughe’s first film In Bruges is his best work since by a wide margin. His earnest portrayal of a traumatized hitman taking a vacation in the titular city with his working partner (Brenden Gleeson) was a career revival of sorts for Mr. Farrell and his latest film reunites him with that same director for what I hope is a another strong turn in black comedy. Seven Psychopaths features such a strong supporting cast (Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, and Woody Harrellson) that this may be my favorite film of the festival when it’s all said and done.

2.  Cloud Atlas

It’s been four years since the Wachowski siblings gave us the under-appreciated Speed Racer, a film I personally love to pop in the blu-ray player for repeat viewings, and this recent collaboration with Tom Twykver (Run Lola Run) sounds like it could be something great or a complete mess. The fact that it was quietly put into production by Warner Bros. and only recently having revealed the first footage online via a 5 minute sizzle reel leaves one to speculate on what could be. The word of mouth online suggests that the studio was quite enamored by the screening they were shown, so much that they may pursue the aforementioned siblings to direct the recently fast-tracked DC comics superhero team up Justice League.  The story involves a group of characters who are connected over the span of time itself in an adaptation that was long deemed “un-filmable” by the literary and filmmaking community. To say anymore is to possibly spoil the riches or junk that lies within the cinema doors in a handful of days and I am very excited to discover it for myself.

1.  Looper

Is it any surprise that this film finds itself perched at the top of my list. I refuse to go into any plot details concerning the third feature from Rian Johnson, the director of Brick and The Brothers Bloom, and will only say that as a huge fan of his prior work and the work of his leads (most), Looper is a film that has been on my radar since it was conceived some time ago. I respect the fact that Johnson has brought on the director of the cult favorite Primer to work as a consultant on the time- travelling aspects of the story and from what I’ve heard from trusted sources, this is not a film to be missed. And have you seen the practical make-up of a certain actor to better resemble his future self? This is my most anticipated film of the fall, period.

And there you have it, my most anticipated films of the festival. I look forward to sharing my thoughts on everything with you in the coming weeks.

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