Resurrection

We're back! I secured 40 tickets for TIFF this morning and gleefully printed out my pick-up voucher, even though I won't get to use it for ten weeks. I can't wait to get back to Toronto.

Toronto International Flesh Festival

We noticed that this year's films, at least the ones we saw, contained a lot of nudity.  It wasn't necessarily sex or even sensual, but certainly a lot of nudity.  Is it a trend, or did we just pick pervy movies?  We may never know.

Review: Short Cuts Canada Programme 2

Every year, we see a programme (Canadian spelling, eh?) of short films from emerging Canadian directors.  Most of the films in this year's screening were decent, though nothing knocked my socks off.  Here are brief reviews of each the films we saw in this year's batch.

Tabula Rasa - Directed by Matthew Rankin.  A strange telling of people reacting in different ways to natural disaster, in this case flood.  Perhaps I'm dense, but I didn't quite "get it".  Nonetheless, there were some interesting images and subtle humor here and there.  My imdb rating: 6/10.

Solar Wind - This was a rather creepy tale of a mass cult suicide, drawing inspiration from Heaven's Gate and other cult suicides, the director creates great suspense and foreboding with sparse dialog.  The film made me think of early David Lynch.  Rating: 7/10.

The Fuse: Or How I Burned Simon Bolivar - Directed by Ian Lagarde, this film is essentially a short documentary.  Relying primarily on footage from family and friends, it explains how, as a boy, Lagarde thought that he caused civil war to erupt in Bosnia by performing poorly on an art assignment in school.  I liked the film for its personal treatment of a subject which my only previous exposure consisted of the nightly news, and how that subject looked through the eyes of a young boy. Rating: 7/10.

Afternoon Tea - DJ Parmar directs this tale of a boy who seeks out his grandfather, an elderly Indian man who has cut off ties with his daughter due to cultural disagreements.  Apparently, the man doesn't know what his grandson looks like, and the boy claims to simply be a kid who needs to use a phone to contact his parents.  He goes on, though, to probe into the man's family.  The script felt a little contrived, and I felt the film landed a little flatly.  Rating: 6/10.

The Paris Quintet In Practice Makes Perfect - Benjamin Schuetze directs and performs along side four other sharply dressed men in a strange apartment, apparently in the sea, completing one another's actions with precision.  The effect is amusing and intriguing to watch.  The unanswered question from the Q&A: Is it really five guys, or just one guy with multiple personalities?  Rating: 7/10.

The Pedestrian Jar - Evan Morgan directs this short mockumentary.  You have perhaps experienced an office that collects money from associates who are late to a meeting, swear in a meeting, etc.?  This film twists that around into a hilarious public service announcement.  Employees in this office deposit a quarter into the jar for each pedestrian they hit on the drive to the office.  Bicyclists?  $0.15.  This was probably not the most challenging material, but it was executed well, and the result is very funny.  Rating: 7/10.

Sorry, Rabbi - Mark Slutzky directs this odd but funny short, which combines romantic comedy with misunderstanding between Josh, the romantic male lead, and a small group of Hasidic Jews.  They believe Josh has purposely struck one of them with an object in the head, causing minor injury.  It's up to the rabbi to sort through the information, determine the truth, and ultimately negotiate an acceptable outcome.  Josh, meanwhile, also needs to save face with his girlfriend, who he has given a rather unacceptably romantic anniversary gift.  Rating: 7/10.

Review: Extraterrestrial

Extraterrestrial was one of the films we picked to lighten up our schedule, in terms of drama, though it had potential for actual social commentary.  We also wanted to see a film from Spain, where we had visited early this summer.  It is the second feature film from Spanish writer/director Nacho Vigalondo, who set the bar high with his debut film Timecrimes.  We have yet to see this one, but we've added it to our Netflix queue.

This story opens with the debris from a one night stand.  Julio, portrayed by Julián Villagrán (Nacho called him the Spanish Adrien Brody), awakes alone in an unfamiliar bed, clothes strewn about the room.  Unable to locate his pants, he wanders into the living room in his boxers.  He and his co-conspirator introduce themselves.  Somehow, he forgot that her name is Julia (Michelle Jenner).

Soon, the pair start to notice that things are not normal in Madrid.  The cable is out, the streets are empty, and eventually they notice that a space ship, miles wide, is hovering in the sky.  Nacho introduces a couple other characters, namely Julia's boyfriend Tipo (Miguel Noguera), and her intrusively creepy neighbor Ángel (Carlos Areces).

The presence of the UFO, which provides the plot with an excuse to keep the characters together, first distracts the characters from the obvious nature of Julio and Julia's relationship.  Eventually, however, Ángel becomes suspicious, and to discredit him, Julia drops the suggestion that perhaps he is an alien and can't be trusted.  This sets off a series of misunderstandings, confusion, and accusations -- all handled with comedic wit.

The script stays true to the self-absorbed characters, avoiding the typical "lessons learned" ending, yet ends satisfactorily.  My imdb rating: 7/10.

Review: Take This Waltz

Our third and final Rush experience this year was for Sarah Polley's sophomore directorial feature film, Take This Waltz.  We got there a solid three hours before showtime, and by the time they were giving out Rush passes, Maureen had already secured a ticket from a woman who approached her in line and said, "Here, take this."  People are always giving Maureen stuff.  She took the ticket and, assuming I'd get into the theater (right, honey?) enthusiastically joined the ticket holders' line.  We entered the theatre simultaneously.

Polley, who also wrote the script, assembled an small but interesting cast for this drama with occasional comedic moments.  Michelle Williams plays Margot, a woman who apparently fears transitions, but at the same time craves the fire of a new relationship.  Seth Rogen is her husband Lou, a chicken-only cookbook writing nice guy, with an odd practical joke sense of humor.  Sarah Silverman plays Lou's (recovering) alcoholic sister Geraldine.  Lastly, Luke Kirby is Daniel, a rickshaw owner/operator and aspiring artist who Margot meets out of town, only later to learn that he lives in an apartment building across the street from her house.

There is an instant attraction between Margot and Daniel, but when she informs him of her marital status, he politely backs away.  Margot and Lou have an odd relationship.  They occasionally pass the time by informing one another of the ways in which they will physically harm and mutilate each other, typically with kitchen implements.  Lou seems quite content with simply being together, and doesn't recognize Margot's restlessness and anxiety.  Daniel's presence so nearby, Margot will eventually have to make a decision between her husband and the new, shiny guy across the street.

Polley's script creates likable characters with depth -- you understand them and believe the course they choose for themselves.  She weaves in a couple of moments of clever foreboding into the film, if you're paying attention.  I was little shocked at a couple uses of nudity and sex, since she seemed somewhat embarrassed about her own "sex" scene (tame by comparison) from Guinevere, in which she starred several years ago.  She was only 20 at the time, though.  My one critique of the film is that I think the finished product could use some editing, as the pace suffers now and then.  Overall, though, I liked the film.  My imdb rating: 7/10.

Renegade Bikers

This was by no means the only bike attached to the scaffolding.

Review: Juan of the Dead

We've been trying this year to lighten up the mood, after a 2009 season filled with war and other forms of death and destruction.  What better way, we thought, to lighten things up than with a zombie-themed comedy/horror flick?

Juan of the Dead's writer/director, Alejandro Brugués, hails from Argentina, though this Spanish-language film is set in Cuba.  Brugués drops in humor now and then related to the reigning regime, which takes to using typical Communist propaganda to blame the zombie behavior on the Americans.  Zombies are now "dissidents".

Other than that and dark humor moments, such as Juan's sidekick friend's occasional accidental harpooning of a non-zombie, there just wasn't too much much to keep a viewer awake for this one.  Overall, the film had a very melancholy feel to it.  A common theme was various characters' motivation to return to or to leave Cuba.  Juan, meanwhile, is confident he will survive the zombie plague, as he has other catastrophes in his homeland.  He's going nowhere.

I wanted to like this movie.  Despite my best efforts, I just couldn't enough reason to.  My imdb rating: 5/10.