Category Archives: TIFF

Toronto International Film Festival

Models

Models (Austria, 1998, Ulrich Seidl, director) was my first film of the festival. It was a thoroughly unpleasant tale, shot in a documentary style, about coked-up and unhappy models in Vienna. The excruciatingly long scenes alternated between existential longings for … Continue reading

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The Movies They’re Showing Downtown

Noted: “You want to know the Christians’ biggest mistake? Not recognizing the neutrality of media. You don’t like the movies they’re showing downtown? Then make some of your own. You spend all your time preaching to the choir, it just … Continue reading

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Line Up

Today I began the annual bittersweet ritual of lining up for the Toronto International Film Festival. Today it was picking up the program book. Thursday morning, it’s lining up to drop off my film picks. Monday morning is lining up … Continue reading

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Final Two Films

My final two films of the film festival: Before Night Falls – Directed by artist Julian Schnabel (who also directed Basquiat), this tells the heartbreaking true story of Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, persecuted, imprisoned, and finally allowed to leave Cuba, … Continue reading

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Yet More Films

Yet more films: Possible Worlds – Canadian film directed by Robert Lepage, a well known theatre director. This was an awkward mixture of philosophical “arty” film and B-movie sci-fi schlock. When someone says the line, “They took his brain,” how … Continue reading

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