It’s that time of year again. The Toronto International Film Festival goes into high gear this week. I’m seeing 9 films this year. Here they are:
Captain Mike Across America
FRI 09/07/2007 06:00pm — Ryerson
L’ Ennemi intime
FRI 09/07/2007 09:30pm — Scotiabank 4
Control
SAT 09/08/2007 09:00am — Scotiabank 2
Juno
SAT 09/08/2007 06:00pm — Ryerson
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
SAT 09/08/2007 09:00pm — Elgin
L’ Ennemi intime
SUN 09/09/2007 03:00pm — Cumberland 2
Margot at the Wedding
TUE 09/11/2007 06:00pm — Ryerson
Surfwise
TUE 09/11/2007 09:30pm — ROM
You’ll notice that I have L’ Ennemi intime down twice. It was an alternate selection and TIFF gave me another two tickets even though I have two.
If anyone is willing to trade or purchase these tickets, please contact me at jay[at]torontoscreenshots.com.
Rize (Director: David LaChapelle, USA, 2005): David LaChapelle is mostly known for his photography and music videos. If you haven’t seen this documentary film, then you’re probably not familiar with clowning and krumping, a dancing subculture in Los Angeles.
The film looks at the dance movement known as clowning which was started in south central LA by Tommy The Clown. Tommy took a job dressing up as a clown to entertain kids at birthday parties in the hood. He incorporated dance into his show and krumping was born.
In the film Tommy drives around in his green 5.0. Now, how can you not like a guy like that drives a green Mustang, dresses up like a clown and creates an entire dance movement?!
The dancing in this film is incredible. The music is also great and you’ll want to jump off the sofa and bust a move but don’t. You’ll just look like an idiot.
Do rent this film. It’s extremely entertaining and you’ll thank me for the recommendation later.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (Director: Alex Gibney, USA, 2005): It took a little while for me to get around to seeing Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) but it was worth it. Everyone knows something about the collapse of Enron but how much do you know about “the smartest guys in the room” — Jeffery Skilling, Kenneth Lay, Andrew Fastow and Lou Pai.
Alex Gibney’s film provides a great overview of the Enron scandal by giving us a glimpse into the lives of some first class weasels. Lou Pai is by far the luckiest and the smartest of the weasels. He left the company with $280 million, became the second-largest land owner in Colorado and married the stripper girlfriend who had his love-child.
Without being too ‘preachy’, Gibney’s documentary shows how these guys thought they could outsmart the system. Their incredible greed and their willingness to rip off their stockholders and customers is legendary. There is a lot of information to absorb in this film but it does a fabulous job of explaining the whole scandal.
Gummo (Director: Harmony Korine, USA, 1997): Writer/director Harmony Korine is one strange dude. Gummo (1997) is one strange film. It follows two bored kids as they wander around a small town in Ohio looking for things to do. They sniff glue, listen to black metal music, ride dirt bikes, kill cats and run into some of the strangest residents in the US. Harmony Korine claims that he cast the bizarre secondary characters in his film by hanging out at a Burger King for 45 minutes. I believe him.
Some of the more memorable moments in the film:
- trailer trash hanging out in the kitchen, drinking beer and wrestling chairs ( I actually laughed out loud during this scene because it was so absurd and probably real)
- a deaf couple screeching while having an argument in a bowling alley
- kids sniffing glue and getting high
- a mentally challenged woman shaving off her eyebrows
- an albino woman without any toes talking to the camera
I tried watching Korine’s other film Julien Donkey-Boy (1999) and didn’t enjoy it either. Somebody in Hollywood thinks that Korine is a genius because of his bizarre films — random scenes, no narrative, weird characters.
His films could be described as experimental but I prefer to call them crap. This guy doesn’t come close to the creative genius of say, David Lynch.
Harmony Korine’s latest film, Mister Lonely is due to be released this year. I’ll take a pass and I doubt that I’ll watch another film by Korine. In my opinion, there are much better films out there that I could watch.
Hot Docs has come and gone for another year. Having missed most of my films, I wanted to get an overview of the festival — find out which films I need to see and which ones to pass on.
For Livebait.tv, I decided to interview James because of the stellar job he did in reviewing all the films he saw. Also interviewed were Philip Hamilton and Ian Stuart who, between them, saw 73 of the 129 films at Hot Docs this year. Incredible!
In this interview, filmed at the Drake Hotel, James, Philip and Ian provide a nice overview of Hot Docs and discuss some of the films they saw.
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