Friday, September 28, 2007

Filmfest diary 2.02: Let's do this again...

VIFF officially started today, and the understated continued with the first film having very few audience member (the theatre was less than half full). It was really nice to see everybody having a conversation before the film started, and it was great to see that the theme of comical advertisements from the sponsors prior to the movie was once again present. The second movie had a few more people in attendance but it still was not a packed house, leading me to believe that daytime matinée screenings are similar to the Toronto daytime screenings - not often sold out. The theatre complex itself is okay, but it doesn't meet my standards in terms of seat arrangement. I managed to find some seats that gave me a good view of the screen, but I can see full screenings being a hassle.

Here are links to the reviews of the two films that I watched today:


The first is an early favourite of mine for the festival, and I suspect that it will be hard to topple.

You may have noticed that my reviews have been getting shorter and shorter. I would attribute this to my tiredness. The long journey and the immense amount of movies that I have been seeing has really drained me. This is not to say that I am sick of it, but I am simply just tired.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Harvest moon

The season in North America officially ticked over into autumn on the 23rd (as explained here), though you could have sworn that it's closer to winter than it is to summer. The temperature has been lingering around or below a comfortable 15 degrees, and the sun has found its way through the clouds on a couple of days, but it has otherwise been overcast or rainy. Being the start of fall, it also happens to be the harvest moon tonight. Couple that with a pre-season hockey game for the Canucks, and it's a perfect recipe for loud people out in the town (and restless nights due to the resulting noise).

Speaking of which, I bought a ticket to see the Canucks season opener on the 5th of October against the San Jose Sharks, so I'll finally get to see an ice hockey game, and a Canucks one at that. Once again I screwed up with scheduling (I seem to be good at doing this when it comes to festival time), having already bought a ticket to see a film festival movie that same night. However, unlike last time, I'm not too fazed as the cost of the movie ticket was not too great (as opposed to the $20 tickets in Toronto), so even if I can't offload it to somebody else through Craigslist (or some other means), I'll only be losing a nominal amount. Plus, I did manage get the season opener ticket for the regular price instead of needing to buy it at a premium, which was what I was expecting.

Last night, I saw They Might Be Giants live in concert at the Commodore Ballroom (which is only a few minutes walk from the hotel). I'm not a huge TMBG fan, but I have heard a few of their songs and like what I've heard, so I decided to see them, and it turned out to be a very good decision. The support band, Oppenheimer, a duo from Northern Ireland, started things off to a good start, with witty banter in between songs, which set up the mood for the headline act. They Might Be Giants came out to positive cheer from the audience and played for about two hours, including three (yes, three) encores, which were absolutely mind-blowing. I don't think they planned on coming back onto the stage that many times, but the crowd didn't let up on their applause, and they seemed more than happy to come back a few times to play more songs and have fun with the audience.

As you may have noticed, the banners on the blog now rotate around between several different pictures. I did that when I was bored, and I have this site to thank for giving me the code to allow me to do this.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Filmfest diary 2.01: Cheap, accessible, and friendly

As much as I liked the film festival in Toronto, there was the issue of the high prices and low availability. This is not the case in the Vancouver International Film Festival.

When I arrived at the box office to purchase my tickets, what initially struck me was the lack of people. There was only one person filling out a form for tickets, and another person at the actual box office. There was also a very helpful and friendly volunteer who would look up codes for the movies in order to fill out the forms properly. We had a nice chat about the difference between the Toronto and Vancouver festivals, as well as some other things.

Another thing I noticed was the availability of the screenings. I got every ticket that I was looking for (24 of them, so I won't list them at this present moment), and had another friendly conversation with the person at the computer who was responsible for bringing up the order. I also got charged slightly less than what I did in Toronto for twice as many movies - apparently, the advertised prices already included tax, which pleased me quite a bit. I haven't yet seen the quality of the theatres, but I am so far impressed by this festival. It's smaller, but it's definitely more accessible than Toronto.

Vancouver

Showers, Showers, Partly Cloudy, Showers, Showers, Few Showers, Showers, Showers, Showers, Showers. That's the 10-day weather forecast for Vancouver. Still, I'm in high spirits, despite the weather and a couple more things.

I'll get the annoyances out of the way. My internal alarm clock woke me up at around 6 in the morning, so after being awake for more than thirteen-and-a-half hours, I'm feeling quite tired at the moment. That's not the worst bit though.

That award goes to customs, who harassed me at the border due to a miscommunication. When asked where I lived, I answered "Australia", assuming they meant my country of residence. However, I was apparently meant to answer "Canada" due to my working holiday visa, despite not having a permanent address because, and despite the purpose of a working holiday visa being an extended vacation with the possibility of work. This slight confusion with semantics prompted the officer to check my bag, which would have been okay but for the fact that he took out half of the contents of my backpack, leaving me to repack everything when he determined that I was fine to cross the border.

But, as I said in my intro, I've been happy to put this behind me, as everything else has gone quite smoothly since - a lot more than I had planned, in fact. After catching a taxi to the hotel (it was far too wet for me to bother with public transport), I got checked in to the hotel expediently, and it was a really nice room. Then, I booked my stay at the nearby HI hostel (for when I check out of this hotel), and checked the bag that I left there almost five months ago - still intact with all its contents. Finally, I ate some sushi then went to the box office for the Vancouver International Film Festival. I'll post my very good first impressions of VIFF later on.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Sleepful in Seattle

I guess the good thing about this weather is that I've had more than enough time to try to get rid of my jetlag. Apart from that, I've more or less been staying inside, roaming around the Internet. There was a period of sunshine yesterday, in which I took the chance to have a stroll around the city. It's a pretty cool place, though I had one of those "you know you're back in the USA when..." moments as I got off the bus on the first day and noticed the lack of cleanliness, as opposed to Canadian cities, which tend to be rather clean.

Due to the aforementioned weather, I've only seen a limited amount of the city's sights, though one gets the impression that there isn't a lot more to see beyond what I've already seen. The first major attraction I knocked off the list was the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, both of which were incredible, although more so the Science Fiction Museum for its sheer number of artifacts from the sci-fi world. Another cool place I visited was The Elliot Bay Book Company, which was the coffee shop/bookstore that loosely inspired Café Nervosa, one of the main settings on the TV sitcom Frasier. The place was huge, and I could have easily spent a fortune there (if I had a fortune to spend). The last place I went to was the Central Library, which had some nice modern architecture for a library.

That's about it for Seattle. I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow, hopefully in the morning.

Seattle overview

Days spent: 4
Overcast days: 3.5
Gourmet coffee shops: Almost 1 per person
Theme song/s: Pearl Jam - Present Tense

I've also copied my TIFF reviews onto my new sub-blog, headless reviews, where I will post any future reviews - I will now only link to reviews, as opposed to placing them within blog posts in verbatim. However, as well as appearing on the new site, past reviews will also remain in their respective posts as I am too lazy to edit all of the posts to fit the new format.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Seattle

Once again, the weather proves that it likes to follow me around... I got rain on my first day in Seattle. However, it did allow me to sleep a bit. I got very little sleep in transit, you see. Nothing much of note to say apart from that. I'm glad to finally be back in the west coast.

There are also new photos up. You may notice a slight drop in quality in some of the latest ones. This is most likely due to the ISO setting, which appears to cause noise to appear after a value of 200, meaning that the 400 setting, which I was using, was making the pictures look bad. I shall remember not to use it again. I think I started using it during the Salty Bear Tour, and it shows. I'm not even going to bother posting any pictures from the TIFF Q&A sessions, they look positively horrible.

While on the topic of photos, I've uploaded some photos from St. John's as part of a "Director's Cut" series, in which I will be posting up previously unposted (or altered) photos.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.08: Wrapping up

The 2007 Toronto International Film Festival draws to a close today (well, technically, tomorrow morning at around 1:30), and I was there in the afternoon to watch my last movie of the festival. Before it all started (which seems so long ago), when I was picking which movies I wanted to see, I decided that I wanted my last one to be a fairly big movie. For the most part, I tried to avoid the movies which were guaranteed to get a wide release in Australia. However, I did feel that I needed to spoil myself a tad bit. The first of such movies was George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead (which is now officially my pick of the festival). The last was the movie that I viewed today, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Director: Sidney Lumet
Country: USA

In this modern film noir, Hank (Ethan Hawke) and Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are two brothers involved in a heist gone wrong. As they try to cover up their tracks, they are forced to make decisions that slowly lead to their lives spiraling out of control.

Writer Kelly Masterson and director Sidney Lumet craft this story in a very well-paced fashion, splitting up sections of the film to follow each individual involved one at a time so as to reveal events slowly and deliberately. The story itself is very gritty, and profiles three lives in turmoil. The three characters in question - Hank, the divorced father of one in need of child support money, Andy, the drug-abusing corporate accountant, and Charles, their father - are all handled skillfully by accomplished actors (Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Albert Finney, respectively).

This is a very good film that explores the psychology of desperation realistically without condoning or condemning it. Sidney Lumet shows why he is still a great filmmaker after his debut effort (the classic 12 Angry Men) 50 years ago. Philip Seymour Fans (of which I am one) will be glad to hear that his superb acting skills continue to amaze with this performance. Highly recommended.

Final film festival findings

There were many things I liked about the festival. The Q&A sessions (when they were held) were almost always interesting, the inevitable "yarr!" coming from the audience whenever the anti-piracy message showed up before a movie always produced laughs, the applause for the volunteers at every screening (and they did one hell of a job helping out in running such a huge festival) was quite noteworthy, and, of course, watching the great films on show was an absolute pleasure.

What irked me a bit were the exorbitant (almost extortionate) prices that were being charged for screenings (and the ticketing system in general) and a few of the cinemas (in particular, the ones with bad seating arrangements that greatly detriment the view of the screen for short people). I think I'll also include "nitpicky guy", as there seems to be one at every other Q&A session. However, all in all, I thoroughly my first full film festival experience (not counting last year, when I attended the first-ever Tropfest to be rained out, though that too was enjoyable, but for different reasons), and would love to return to Toronto some time in the future to do it all again.

TIFF overview

Films viewed: 12
Well-known celebrities spotted: 3 (all at Q&A sessions)
Thumbs up: 2
Theme song/s: Feist - I Feel It All

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.07: Chaos

Today I saw two films at the festival that were told in somewhat unconventional ways. I first watched Tracey Fragments in the early afternoon, and then went to another theatre to watch Eastern Promises (a non-festival screening – it came out today). Going by the screen time and the length of the movie, the timing seemed to be pretty convenient – I had around 35 minutes after the movie to get to my second festival film of the day, Chaotic Ana, and it only took around 15-20 minutes to get in between the theatres. Alas, things don’t always work out the way you plan.

I knew I was going to be cutting it close when Eastern Promises only started after a good 15-20 minutes of advertisements and previews. The movie itself was fairly bland (I had been expecting more from Cronenberg, though I suppose the weakness was more in the script than anything). After the movie, it was raining, which made me think that my luck was not going to be turning any time soon. I was right, as there was a long delay at the connecting train station, prompting me to run out of the station and to the theatre. It was actually quite cool frantically running to the theatre – I felt like I was in some action movie, weaving through human traffic on the wet concrete as rain fell. I got there on time, just as the movie was being introduced by a festival programmer, and sat down at the back, panting heavily as I caught my breath and cooled down.

Anyway, without further adieu, I present today’s reviews.

The Tracey Fragments
Director: Bruce McDonald
Country: Canada

The Tracey Fragments follows Tracey (Ellen Page), a 15-year-old girl who has run away from dysfunctional home in search of her missing brother, Sonny. The basic premise is pretty simple, but the story is told from Tracey’s perspective, and so we get a lot of disorganized memories as she recalls the events of the past few days.

What makes this film unique from other films with a disjointed narrative is that it is shot almost entirely in split screen segments, meaning that, most of the time, there is more than one shot on screen at the same time. Often, there are multiple shots, and it was not uncommon for these images to come and go rapidly, and in quick succession. I loved how Tracey’s story was told, and the fact that there was so much going on in every single minute of this movie, its short length (only 77 minutes) did not at all detract from it. Canadian Ellen Page depicts teen angst masterfully in this movie, and it is no surprise that she is one of the emerging (and I hate to use that word because, in my mind, she has already proved herself in several performances) talents in cinema today.

This is one of those films that really stand out from the rest for its style that is beyond the norm. Not only that, but it is a great story (adapted for the screen by Maureen Medved, based on her novel of the same title) too. I highly recommend it to anybody who enjoys movies.

Q&A: Bruce McDonald answered several questions about the movie and made several jokes (which may not have been jokes) about doing drugs during the editing process, which took 7 months (the filming only taking around 14 days). One of the things that he mentioned was that they have released all of the footage that they filmed for the movie on the website for people to re-edit and are soon holding a competition for the best use of the footage.

Caótica Ana
(Chaotic Ana)
Director: Julio Medem
Country: Spain

Ana (Manuela Vellés) is a young artistic talent from Ibiza that is taken into the big city by Justine (Charlotte Rampling), a talent scout of sorts. As she begins to expand her horizons in art and in life, she soon discovers that her daydreams are more than what they seem. Reluctantly, she tries to decipher what these images mean through hypnosis, and at the same time she tries to make sense of her own life.

This is, essentially, a coming of age film. It seems that it was told in such a way that it parallels the hypnosis that Ana undergoes during the film – it begins with the number 10 being shown on the screen, and then starts to count down after every few narrative sequences. I didn’t completely understand certain aspects of this, so I can’t really explain it in more detail at the moment, but the film was interesting enough to make me want to watch it again to fully comprehend what Julio Medem was trying to do.

This is a daring movie, and is not for everybody. At any given point in the movie it can be fun, shocking, surprising, philosophical, and dramatic. Overall, I enjoyed it.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.06: Fusion

It's always a treat to see movies that successfully blends two or more genres together to make a somewhat unique movie. Today, I saw an example of how to do this right, and an example of how it can, to some extent, go wrong. I also happened to finally score a ticket to The Tracey Fragments for tomorrow afternoon (the tickets have been "off sale" all week until I checked today), so I am now seeing two movies tomorrow instead of one.

Walk All Over Me
Director: Robert Cuffley
Country: Canada

Alberta (Leelee Sobieski) is an innocent klutz who is always getting into trouble. After running away from her boyfriend, she ends up in Vancouver, and turns up at the home of her friend Celene (Tricia Helfer), a dominatrix who is aspiring to be a successful actress. Alberta ruins one of Celene's expensive outfits and, in order to raise enough money to buy a replacement costume, she takes one of Celene's prospective clients behind her back. It just so happens that this client, Paul (Jacob Tierney), is being chased by some gangsters who want to interrogate him about some missing money.

This movie was an absolute blast to watch. I actually cannot comment a lot on the directing or cinematography too much due to viewing issues - I was sitting at the very front because the seating arrangement in that cinema was horrible for a short person - but I can say that the script was very sharp and witty, and was certainly enough to carry the movie, even from my awkward angle. One of the best things about this movie is that it's a nice and healthy mix of several genres, including (but not necessarily exclusive to) a coming of age story, film noir, comedy, and the buddy movie. Leelee Sobieski and Tricia Helfer both play great leading roles, but Sobieski steals the show with her very convincing performance as the clumsy Alberta. The supporting cast also did a very good job.

I may not win any major awards, but Walk All Over Me is just a really fun movie, and should be checked out by everybody who can get access to it (mainly Canadians, I would suspect). It's a nice movie to cheer you up when you're feeling a bit down.

Q&A: The director, Robert Cuffley, and actor Michael Eklund (who played Aaron in the film) introduced the film and so I was only expecting the two of them to come up after the movie to answer questions. Instead, we got the two of them plus Leelee Sobieski, creating a nice dynamic, with most questions (mostly about the process of making the movie) being answered in a concise and sometimes entertaining fashion. I especially liked it because, while I didn't like the position in which I had to sit, I was close enough to see how beautiful Leelee Sobieski is in person.

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO
Director: Takashi Miike
Country: Japan

A mysterious lone horseman rides into town and soon discovers that it is under a power struggle between two gangs. It seems like your average premise for a western movie, but then you see that something is different - the clothes, the buildings, the samurai swords. This is east meets west, as Japanese actors speak phonetic English, characters eat Japanese food, and a conflict intensifies between the white gang and the red gang as they both aim to find the town's hidden treasure.

Think of this as a movie that Quentin Tarantino would have made if he were Japanese. In fact, Tarantino makes a cameo in this movie as a cowboy in his trademark overacted style (which he probably thinks is good acting). The scenarios are ridiculous, the dialogue is intentional, and the action is intense. I did like all these things about the movie, but what I didn't like is that it didn't captivate me. I laughed at the funny moments and I enjoyed the gun slinging and sword swinging, but, and I can't put my finger on why this is (perhaps it is due to the forced English), the movie as a whole just didn't seem as cohesive as it could have been.

That being said, I do believe that fans of westerns and samurai movies will love this, and fans of movies like ones made by Miike and Tarantino will appreciate the unique style. If you don't like either genres or either directors, you should probably leave this movie alone.

Tonight, I also had dinner with Anna and Kathleen, whom I both met back at the hostel in St. John's. It's always nice to have a chat to people with similar hobbies, like movies, books, and whatnot. You always get some good recommendations and get to share your thoughts about... stuff.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.05: Extras

I was only meant to see one movie today, but I ended up seeing three. I saw the first, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, with Janna at around noon. It's actually a movie from 1974, starring Ellen Burstyn, who was on hand to introduce the film and to discuss how the impact of the movie on her career and on the industry. Afterwards, I saw Stuck in an effort to burn a bit of time in between the first movie and the next, which was Pisay (Philippine Science), the only film that I had originally planned to see.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Director: Martin Scorsese
Country: USA

I won't really say a lot about this one since it's an oldie. Basically, it was the first movie to feature a leading woman in a positive role. Ellen Burstyn plays the titular character, Alice (a performance that won her the Oscar for best actress), as she goes through the motions of losing her husband, pursuing her dream as a singer to support her son, and going through abusive relationships.

What I loved about this movie was how real the characters were for a film of that era, and how they interacted with each other. Particularly entertaining was the rapport between Alice and her son, Tommy (Alfred Lutter). I was actually surprised at how humorous much of the movie was despite the serious subject matter. It should also be noted that a pre-teen Jodie Foster has a small bit as Audrey, a girl that Tommy befriends, and does a damn good job of portraying her character.

You should watch this movie, if not only as a study of how the role of the leading lady in cinema was changed so dramatically way back in the mid-70s.

Q&A: This Q&A session was a bit different in that it began with somebody (I feel bad for not remembering her name - she was an accomplished Canadian filmmaker and author I think) asking Ellen Burstyn a few questions in the form of a one-on-one interview before it went to questions from the audience. The reason this was done is because the film was part of a retrospective series called Dialogues, in which people involved in classic films come to discuss said films. It was really interesting to hear from her perspective how she actively sought out a role that didn't have the female character as "the victim, the wife or the prostitute", how she played an active part in its production, and how the movie opened the floodgates for similar roles for women.

Stuck
Director: Stuart Gordon
Country: Canada/USA

The best way I can describe this without giving away too much is that a nurse, Brandi (Mena Suvari) is driving home under the influence late one night and runs into Tom (Stephen Rea), an unemployed man forced into the streets. As a result of this, Tom gets lodged (and thus stuck) in the windshield of Brandi's car. Complications arise.

This movie didn't strike me as anything exceptional. Being based on real events, it seems as though the writing team took a bizarre occurrence - the real case of a nurse hitting a homeless man and fleeing the scene with the body still sticking out of the car - and tried to make too much out of it than they could. The story itself is fairly solid for a 'psychological horror' (as I'd like to label this film), but the script seems to stretch out a bit, especially at the beginning. I also did not like the creative decision to be extremely graphic. It didn't really serve the story too well. I mean, sure, some of it was acceptable, even necessary, but at some points it felt like the story was there to serve the blood and gore rather than the other way around.

Despite my thoughts on the movie, I think this film will be big with fans of horror, and particular of the subgenre of horror that is more closely related to psychological thrillers. Anybody who cannot stand blood and gore should avoid this one. In fact, I found it amusing that I heard a lot of audible gasps from the audience during some of the gruesome scenes. The lady beside me even looked away a few times. Even I cringed one or two times. If you do see this, try not to eat a lot of food beforehand.

Pisay
(Philippine Science)
Director: Auraeus Solito
Country: Philippines

This movie is a coming of age high school story that chronicles the lives of a group of students at the Philippine Science High School (nicknamed Pisay in the Philippines) during the mid-80s, a politically turbulent time in the country. Each year, from freshman to senior, follows one or two characters as they go through hardships and successes both personally and academically in the backdrop of the political changes of the time.

This was my favourite film of the day and my second favourite of the festival so far. I went into this movie looking for a Filipino movie that wasn't just a mindless attempt to get a few laughs and some money, and I was certainly not disappointed. In fact, this film does two things very well. Firstly, it does what the director intended, to portray Filipinos as more than just fools or hospitality workers, but as intelligent people who are just like everybody else. What it also does is provide a perspective of life during the time of the people's revolution of the mid-80s and of the internal politics of the PSHS. Another thing I liked about it is that the script was funny without being pretentious. The story itself was very good due to the fact that it drew upon many facets of the Auraeus Solito's time at Pisay.

I highly recommend this movie, although I may be a bit biased as I am a Filipino, and was very proud to be one after seeing it, as were most of the audience (I barely saw anybody in the audience who weren't Filipino) when the credits rolled and the applause filled the room.

Q&A: The director, writer, and the actor who played Auraeus Solito's alter-ego went up on stage to answer a few questions after the movie. Most of the questions were congratulating them on making a great film and asking things about certain bits of the story and how similar it was to real life. The bit I liked best was when somebody was nitpicking about how it was the counselor and not the physics teacher that usually makes the speeches to the students. Solito replied that it was a cinematic device that they used so they didn't have to hire another actor. Solito: 1, that guy: 0.

After I left the theatre, there was a huge frenzy outside, with people stacking up like a concert mosh pit trying to get a glimpse of some presumably famous star. I can only guess that it was either one of the many stars from I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan biopic that was premiering tonight, or Ellen Page, the star of The Tracey Fragments, a movie that also had its first screening tonight. I didn't stick around to see who it was, as I don't really get into the whole stargazing thing.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.04: ...of the Dead

I'll get right into it today.

George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
Director: George A. Romero
Country: USA

This was the movie that I was looking forward to the most out of all the films in the festival, and it did not disappoint. I don't want to speak prematurely, but it is certainly a strong frontrunner as my favourite film of the festival, and even of all the films released in this calendar year.

The film, which effectively reboots the Dead saga's universe (or, as I like to think of it, creates an alternaverse), begins when the dead start becoming reanimated, hungry for human flesh, much like the events of Romero's original horror classic, Night of the Living Dead, except that it takes place in the modern day. The story follows a group of film school students as they are filming a horror movie. During a break, they hear reports of the dead coming back to life, and dismiss it as a hoax. As they soon realize that the events are reality, they continue their filming in an effort to document the truth of what is transpiring while they struggle to survive.

The film is littered with social commentary, as is common with Romero's films. In fact, it is perhaps his most socially relevant work since his masterpiece Night of the Living Dead. It would not surprise me if I find a handful of new meanings to the movie each time I see it again in the future. The filming style (that is, a mockumentary using multiple cameras of varying quality), makes the movie unique within its genre (with The Blair Witch Project being the only other film of particular note with a similar approach), while at the same time enhances Romero's commentary on pervasive technology and media. Romero's writing and directing does not falter one bit, which, with the help of some excellent acting from a largely unknown cast, drives the point home even better.

Diary is a sublime modern retelling of an old idea. From start to finish, I could find nothing wrong with this movie. I absolutely loved it, and highly recommended it, unless you are particularly offended by blood and gore. Alas, despite it being the second screening of the movie, George A. Romero wasn't available to answer any questions.

Monday, September 10, 2007

The "other" festival

There was almost seven hours in between the two film festival movies that I watched on Friday, so I took it upon myself to get a few things done during that period. Most notably, I finally finished off Neuromancer, William Gibson's revolutionary science fiction novel, watched 3:10 to Yuma (which was great), and checked in at a hostel.

The hostel room was for a place to crash for Karen, Janna, and myself, as we had planned to meet up and go drinking in the city. After much confusion on her part, I met up with Karen soon after The Man from London finished. We had a couple of beers in the room before meeting up with Janna then going out. We started off at a bar with a large outdoor patio, and then went on to look for more exciting places. Unfortunately, every place that looked even remotely interesting had a large line, or a cover charge, or some stupid dress code (although most places with dress codes do not appeal to me anyway). It turned out that we walked around in circles for a while before finally settling on going back to the first bar that we went to. We had breakfast at this little hole in the wall (often the best kind of place to go to for breakfast), then sold my ticket to Juno before Janna and I headed to the Virgin Festival with Janna's brother.

The festival was awesome. I admit that the main reason that I went was to see Björk perform live again, but I did enjoy myself for the entire day. The first act we saw was k-os, who was alright. At this point, we felt like getting some food and drinks, so we proceeded to get ripped off. Festival food is usually overpriced, but to add insult to injury, the way in which food and drinks were purchased was a silly ticket-based system. One place would sell tickets, while several other places exchange tickets for food. What was annoying about this was that you'd end up with people essentially lining up twice for the same thing. The thing that seems to ruin festivals these days are the stupid decisions and regulations made by other people who probably have no interest in the music being played.

We saw Kid Koala (who was called up at the last moment to do a filler set) spin some pretty good tunes for a few minutes, but he didn't spend a lot of time on stage due to some apparent technical difficulties. After another drink, we went to see the Arctic Monkeys, which I only went to for the benefit of staying in a group. I really don't like the band, and wasn't really too impressed with the set, though everybody else went nuts. We split up for the first time after the Arctic Monkeys set when I decided to watch Hayley Sales instead of Interpol.

I'm glad I saw Hayley Sales for the second time (the first being at Whistler), as it's always a pleasure to listen to her nice and relaxing acoustic surf rock. In fact, the whole set was really relaxed - the whole crowd was sitting on the grass in front of the stage and just chilling out. Sadly, not a lot of people seemed to sing along when Keep Drivin' came along as the last song. Almost immediately after Hayley Sales finished, Mute Math started playing on a neighbouring stage. I hadn't heard of them before, but from the one song I heard, they seemed like a decent hard rock band. I went back to catch the end of Interpol (who kind of sucked - they screwed up a few times) and meet back up with the others.

Björk was the headlining act of the night, and deservingly so, as she just blew everybody else - as well as the crowd - away. In fact, after she finished, a common sentiment I heard from the crowd was something along the lines of "I wasn't really expecting her to be that good, but she was really awesome!" Of course, I already knew she was going to be awesome, and just enjoyed the incredible set that she played. It varied slightly from her set from Coachella, which was more than enough to keep me satisfied. The laser light show was also cool, as was the weird visual electronics interface that the "DJ" was playing around with.

Because the Virgin Festival was being held at the Toronto Islands Park, and there were only one or two ferries running, it took a really long time to get everybody out of the grounds. About an hour and twenty minutes after the gig ended, the three of us finally landed back at the harbour.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.03: Masters

I got very little sleep in between my first movie on the first night of the festival, and my second on the morning after. The day's schedule consisted of two films, both at the Scotiabank Theatre, which was a much larger complex than the Varsity Theatre where most of the opening night screenings were held. This meant that the only really large line outside was the line for last-minute rush tickets.

Les Amours d'Astrée et de Céladon
(Romance of Astrea and Celadon)
Director: Éric Rohmer
Country: France/Italy/Spain

Based on L'Astrée, a classic French novel from the 17th century by Honoré d'Urfé, this film tells the story of, as the title suggests, the romance of two young shepherds, Céladon (Andy Gillet) and Astrée (Stéphanie Crayencour). At the beginning of the movie, we soon find out that the two are deeply in love. However, Astrée sees Céladon kiss another girl (a deception intended to please Céladon's parents), and complications arise as Astrée forbids Céladon to ever set eyes on her again, to which Céladon reacts by throwing himself into a river to try to drown himself. Céladon survives, naturally, but this sets the scene for the rest of the story.

The movie plays out as a classic comedy of errors, with plenty of dramatic irony to please the audience. The acting was good, although I can't really say it's great, as I tend not to be able to judge foreign-language acting quite as well as acting in English. What really made me love this movie was the production. Éric Rohmer, most famous for his role as one of the pioneers of French New Wave cinema, obviously had a clear vision of what he wanted to do when he adapted the novel, and it shows. The film is preceded by a message regarding the filming of the movie, which did not take place at the original setting, but at a similar region that was less touched by human expansion. From this, you could tell that Rohmer really wanted to do the story justice. As a result, the movie felt as if it had stuck close to the original material (although I can only assume this, as I have not actually read the novel, nor can I read French). I found this approach really refreshing.

I highly recommend this movie to anybody who doesn't mind a bit of old-fashioned romance with a whole lot of comedy, and I especially recommend it to those who are sick of the overproduced romantic comedies that come out of Hollywood. Perhaps the only disappointment that I had with the movie was the fact that Éric Rohmer wasn't on hand to do a Q&A session with the audience.

A Londoni férfi
(The Man from London)
Director: Béla Tarr
Country: Hungary/France/Germany

The story, yet again based on a novel, follows Maloin, a regular joe who happens to one night witness a deal gone bad at the French port where he works. Maloin goes about his business, but with the knowledge of what had happened that night on the back of his mind, and also, it soon becomes apparent, with the British currency that he recovers from the harbour from that night. Soon, a man from London turns up investigating some missing money.

I really didn't like this movie but, oddly enough, I did like most aspects of it. What first caught my eye was the old-fashioned use of blacks and whites, in the style of the really old film noir of the early days of cinema. I immediately thought "awesome". There are not enough modern black-and-white films that have imitated the movies of old quite as well as The Man from London has. I also really like the point of view from which the story is told, and that is, from Maloin, who is not involved in the death at the beginning, but is hounded by this mystery as he tries to go on doing what he normally does.

Unfortunately, what will undoubtedly make this movie disliked is Béla Tarr's method of storytelling through his choices in cinematography. I haven't seen any Béla Tarr movies in the past, but it soon became apparent to me that he had a distinct style, in particular with his penchant for long takes. He wants the audience to really soak up each scene, and this is evident from the very first take, a 12-minute shot that sets the scene for the events to come. This makes the film very atmospheric, almost a snapshot of the environments familiar to Maloin, but also tests the audience's patience more than a few times. In fact, I noted that a lot of people left before the movie even ended, and as early as halfway through the 135 minute movie. Also, a lot of people would start whispering to one another whenever the next scene started to drag on. I respect Tarr's decision to do these long takes, but I admit even I thought that, most of the time, they went on for far too long.

I'm afraid that, apart from film buffs, who would no doubt find purpose in Tarr's long takes, I cannot recommend this film lightly. If you like Béla Tarr, I suppose you would probably like it, and if you like film noir, it's a good study on how to tell an otherwise noir story in a somewhat unconventional fashion while keeping true to the most of the conventions of the black-and-white crime genre. In fact, the story style, coupled with the long takes can almost make this movie classifiable as an anti-noir.

Q&A: I stayed for about half the Q&A session, but there didn't seem to be a lot of people interested in asking questions, so I left after a few minutes.

Adaptations, remakes, and sequels

A general observation that I've made with film trends as of late is the seemingly increasing amount of films that are based on other material, or are sequels to previous movies. The first three movies that I've seen during this festival, for instance, have all been based on novels. Even 3:10 to Yuma, which I watched in between the two movies reviewed on this post, was a remake of a 1957 western. Now, I do like any movie that is done well, but I would really like to see more and more people doing something original and making it work, instead of a constant stream of adaptations, remakes, and sequels.

9 out of 10

Soon after purchasing my tickets, I realized that I had made a potentially fatal mistake. Well, maybe not fatal, as it wouldn't kill me, but it would sure dishearten me. I turned out that I had scheduled two movies on the same day that only gave me 25 minutes in between in which to move between theatres. This was bad because people are not generally let in after a film has begun, and the two theatres were about 15 minutes apart at best. Not only that, but the first movie that I had a ticket for was Diary of the Dead, which is, out of every movie in the festival, the one that I really wanted to see.

The prospect of having to skip out on a possible Q&A with George A. Romero was really getting to me, so I went on Craigslist, and sold the ticket (to Juno) on there, leaving me with only nine movies, unless I decide to see another movie. It worked out pretty well, as I only lost 50c in the whole deal. In the end, I don't even know if George A. Romero will be on hand to answer questions for a daytime screening, but at least I won't have to worry about it.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.02: Starting out

As a premise to the reviews that I will be providing in this post, and in the future, I would just like to state that I am certainly not qualified to be a film critic, nor do I consider myself a "film buff". I do not have enough education or training in the art of film that I am able to provide a detailed critical analysis of the movies I see, nor can I reasonably rate films on scale of 1 to 5 (or 10), as I have not put very much thought into the minute details of what makes a film achieve a certain score. In short, I don't have any type of complex pedagogy of film review, and I don't think that anybody should be scoring anything out of a certain number without first having thoroughly thought out a series of measures that contribute to such a score.

That being said, I do consider myself a fan of movies. I love watching them, I like discussing them, and I like telling people what I think of them. Therefore, the reviews you will see here will be exactly that - my personal opinion of the films that I have just seen. I will say what I liked about them, and even occasionally mention fancy movie terms such as 'directing', 'screenwriting', and 'cinematography' if I feel it is relevant to my opinion. However, I will not give any film a score. Instead, I will say whether or not I thought the film was worth seeing, and under what circumstances I would recommend it to other people (e.g. "if you liked movie x, then you will love movie y"). That, in my opinion, is the extent of my reviewing privileges. I did consider doing a "thumbs up/thumbs down" approach, like the system that is employed by film critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper (and formerly Gene Siskel), but I decided against it, as this in itself is still a scale, albeit a limited one.

But, I digress. This post is about my initial thoughts on the Toronto International Film Festival (henceforth referred to as TIFF) and the first movie of the festival that I watched.

As I previously mentioned, I'm more of a fan of movies than a "buff". Consequently, I have been fairly ignorant of the film festival scene. My first festival experience was when I happened to be in Berlin at the same time as Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival. I saw a couple of films and enjoyed the overall experience, telling myself that I should attend more of these. I didn't really know much else about which festivals were "big" (all I knew was that the "big 3" in Europe are Cannes, Venice, and Berlin). Therefore, coming to Canada with a main objective of working at a ski resort, I didn't really research any of the festivals that were taking place - they were merely afterthoughts to my plans. So, it came as a bit of a shock to me when I found out that TIFF is actually one of the two most prestigious film festivals in the world (next to Cannes), and considered by some to be the most important. You could certainly tell by the mania that has swept the city of Toronto.

I got to the cinema about 45 minutes before screen time, and the line outside was already pretty lengthy. My first reaction was "wow, it's already that long?" but then I realized that it was partly because the cinema complex was not large enough to hold the amount of people lining up for the various movies showing on opening night, so they had to make an additional line outside the cinema that had ticket holders to all the night's movies. This made it quite confusing, as there were movies starting at different times, so there would often be workers who made announcements as to who could move forward at certain times. In the end, I finally got into the theatre, and took a seat at the very back. I was very pleased with the small theatre, which had a good raised seating plan (very important for us short folk).

Starting Out in the Evening
Director: Andrew Wagner
Country: USA

The movie, based on the novel of the same name, is about an ageing author, Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella), who becomes the subject of a master's thesis by young graduate, Heather Woolfe (Lauren Ambrose). Heather has a passion for literature uncommon for her age and an unusual fixation on Leonard's work and on Leonard himself. Complications arise as Heather tries to resurrect Leonard's career. There is also a side-plot involving Leonard's daughter, Ariel (Lili Taylor) as she reaches 40, and tries to make some important decisions in her life.

A good part of the first half of the movie is spent establishing the principal characters of the movie. Unfortunately, this seemed a bit rushed and, at times, quite pretentious, and on the verge of straight out forced (in terms of dialogue). It almost felt like the movie was a victim of its own title - it only really started to feel like the movie it was meant to be towards the end. However, I guess it's a lot better to see a movie with a bad start that ends well than a movie that starts off brilliantly but is ruined by the last 10 minutes. This is how I felt with Starting Out in the Evening - it was a movie that was redeemed by the way the end was handled (although I guess that may have to do with how well the book was written).

Apart from the ending, which I loved because it didn't resort to any cliché of a May-December romance, what I liked the most about the movie was Frank Langella's performance. The acting overall was pretty solid, but Langella was superb as Schiller, the seemingly burnt out writer determined to finish one final novel before he dies.

This film is a hard one for me to decide how to recommend it. I did like it, but I didn't love it, and it kind of falls into an "in-between" category in that it's certainly not a cheap cheesy Hollywood chick flick, but it also has enough unlikable elements to deter the indie movie crowd. I would say that it's one of those rental movies for a slow week if you feel like a romance that has a bit of character.

Q&A: I didn't actually stay for the Q&A for this one. I wasn't in the mood for one after the movie ended - I was feeling quite tired, and wanted to get home to relax. As I exited the theatre, the crowd was still as huge as it was when I entered, and there was a small queue of people trying to get into the theatre for the Q&A session. Yup, this festival has certainly begun.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Filmfest diary 1.01: Sponsored by VISA

The reason that I had planned two stints in the Greater Toronto Area was because the Roger Waters, which was on my birthday, and the Toronto International Film Festival, which starts tomorrow, were not close enough to each other to warrant a single stay. This worked out well in terms of the extra travel I got to do in the eastern provinces, but had the unfortunate side-effect of not being able to get advanced ticket packages for the film festival. This was completely my mistake, and it stemmed from a significant lack of research.

You see, one of the major sponsors of TIFF is VISA, the credit card company. This meant that all credit card sales (and therefore all sales through the Internet and by phone) had to be done using a VISA card, and not any other type of credit card. Since I only have a MasterCard, I had to make all my purchases in person. I only arrived back in Toronto a few days ago, so I missed out on the ticket packages, and had to line up in the wee hours of this morning to get advanced tickets for each individual screening (as opposed to having the option to fill out an advanced order form). In fact, I will suffer a similar fate for the Vancouver International Film Festival, as I will be getting into Vancouver about a week or two after the ticket packages go on sale.

Anyway, after getting up at 5, walking in light rain, and eventually making it to the box office at 7 (right when tickets went on sales), and lining up for about two hours, I did manage to score a ticket to the following 10 films throughout the next 10 days (in screening order):

Monday, September 03, 2007

Cats and dogs

When I first arrived in Halifax, just over a month ago, I was welcomed by gloomy weather. This weather soon cleared, but the rain had returned when I came back from St. John's, this time with a vengeance. After a few more clear days, the commencement of the Salty Bear tour, in which I partook, was met with precipitation and fog. Again, the weather got better after a few days, and all was good. Finally, on my last night, threatening to mark my departure in the same fashion as it had welcomed me, the weather above Halifax became a raging beast, the sky opening up to give free reign to downpour. However, as bad as it looked the previous day, the clouds parted the next morning to give way to just a little bit of sunshine, and I left Halifax, on the train, happy to be quite dry. This pattern of weather is a simple yet fitting allegory on the events of the past month of my travels - a whirlwind of emotions and decisions that ultimately had a happy ending.

Looking back, I now know that my time in the Maritimes was one of the most important periods of my trip, perhaps influencing me as much as my 4-and-a-half months in Panorama. It started off, much like the weather on that first day, as a pretty standard disappointment. I won't lie, I had this really romanticized image of Nova Scotia in my mind (I'm not quite sure where I got this idea). I thought it was going to be this place where I could just walk in, get to know everybody instantly, and have a great month as a local. It wasn't so, at least not straight away. I did make some good (and possibly lifelong) friends at the beginning, but when I walked around the Halifax (when the sun finally came out), I didn't really find anything too remarkable - nothing that really made the city (and indeed, in my mind, the whole Maritime region) stand out. Ironically, it was precisely this reason that I ended up loving Halifax. It's not really a city to go sightseeing - most of the 'tourist attractions' can probably be seen in a day. It's more of a place where you can hang out and just enjoy life.

One of my previous posts talked about first impressions, and how mine always seem to suck. I didn't elaborate on that at the time, due to technical difficulties, but what I was trying to say was that I always seem to jump to conclusions a bit too early about things and places, and my first impression hardly ever seems to stick. I was at St. John's at the time I wrote that passage, and that was probably the turning point of the whole month. I had arrived there, thinking just about the same way as I did when I got to Halifax - "what a boring city." By the time I left, of course, I was (happily) proved wrong. The revelation I had in St. John's was finally remembering the real reason why I was traveling around in the first place - to see the world. Not just see the sights (although I do love taking photos), but truly experience places by sharing tales with locals and travelers alike, and by reveling in those little differences that make places unique.

Despite the soaking I received (and subsequent drying that I had to go through) from the heavy rain on my last night out, I left Halifax on a good note, and the slight hint of heat telling me that the sun was about to break the clouds told me that it's all going to be okay. A funny thing I noticed was that I didn't really take a lot of photos of Halifax. I took plenty of photos at a lot of the other places that I went to in the past month, certainly, but only a few of Halifax itself. Although, I suppose that, by now, the image of the city is so ingrained into my mind that, to misquote Dallas Green of Alexisonfire, "I hardly took any pictures cause I know I'll just be right back."

A slight aside: In another crazy rendition of the whole six degrees of separation thing, I randomly ran into a couple of people who worked at Panorama last winter, and who lived/worked with Shaun (of ski school and jam night fame). They were hanging out with Amy and her friends from work, whom I met up with for drinks to mark my last night in Halifax.

Anti-Pocky

To counter my deep and meaningful exposition seen above, I will end this post with a bit of a pointless complaint. Pocky. Yes, those lovely little bread sticks with the chocolate covered ends. They're absolutely delicious and, upon seeing them in an aisle at the supermarket, I was giggling like a little schoolgirl (well, not really, but I was pretty excited). I promptly picked up a packet to have as minor sustenance for my long train ride to Toronto, but was quite annoyed to find that the packaging of the Pocky sticks proved to be quite contrary to its purpose. You see, the beauty of Pocky, apart from its taste, was that you could theoretically eat all the sticks and you wouldn't get any dirty fingers. However, the packaging was such that all the sticks were packed really close together, with the chocolate making them stick (pardon the pun) together under certain temperatures, so that whenever you tried to remove any individual stick from the packet, it would break apart at the end that had no chocolate coating, leaving a huge set of chocolate-covered Pocky sticks, all stuck together, without any 'clean' ends. In short, you'd get chocolate on your fingers when you try to eat them. Hence, Anti-Pocky.