Toronto film festival 2017

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tff2017.jpg

Toronto 2017 begins. 7 - 17 September 2017.

Here is a partial list of the TFF 2017 slate. The films list has been reduced by 20% from 2016 in response to complaints by attendees that it had become too hard to negotiate because of its size. A Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Toronto_International_Film_Festival) says that "according to a "fact sheet" released by the Festival before it began, this edition includes 255 feature-length films and 84 short films" and " Of the feature films, 147 are claimed to be world premieres. The number of Canadian films at the Festival (including co-productions) is listed as 28 features and 29 shorts."

For Toronto we can follow Mike D'Angelo's coverage via Tweets. He was not at Cannes even merely as an observer this year and is giving all his attention to Toronto, where he notes it's his 18th time. He's not covering Toronto for any publication either, but he is attending press screenings and I'll transcribe his Twitter review/ratings as before. We'll also survey some other reviews such as Variety's and those of The Guardian, for whom Peter Bradshaw is on hand.

Opening film:
Borg/McEnroe by Janus Metz Pedersen
Closing film:
C'est la vie! by Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano

Gala presentations
55 Steps by Bille August
Borg/McEnroe by Janus Metz Pedersen
Breathe by Andy Serkis
C'est la vie! by Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano
Chappaquiddick by John Curran
Darkest Hour by Joe Wright
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool by Paul McGuigan
Hochelaga, Land of Souls by François Girard
Kings by Deniz Gamze Ergüven
The Leisure Seeker by Paolo Virzì
Long Time Running by Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier
Mary Shelley by Haifaa al-Mansour
The Mountain Between Us by Hany Abu-Assad
Mudbound by Dee Rees
My Days of Mercy by Tali Shalom Ezer
Stronger by David Gordon Green
Three Christs by Jon Avnet
The Upside by Neil Burger
The Wife by Björn Runge
Woman Walks Ahead by Susanna White

Special presentations
120 Beats per Minute by Robin Campillo
A Fantastic Woman by Sebastián Lelio
A Season in France by Mahamat Saleh Haroun
Battle of the Sexes by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
The Brawler by Anurag Kashyap
The Breadwinner by Nora Twomey
Call Me by Your Name by Luca Guadagnino
The Captain by Robert Schwentke
Catch the Wind by Gaël Morel
The Children Act by Richard Eyre
The Conformist by Cai Shangjun
The Cured by David Freyne
The Current War by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Disobedience by Sebastián Lelio
Downsizing by Alexander Payne
The Escape by Dominic Savage
Eye on Juliet by Kim Nguyen
First They Killed My Father by Angelina Jolie
The Florida Project by Sean Baker
Foxtrot by Samuel Maoz
The Guardians by Xavier Beauvois
Hostiles by Scott Cooper
The Hungry by Bornila Chatterjee
I Love You, Daddy by Louis C.K.
In the Fade by Fatih Akin
I, Tonya by Craig Gillespie
Journey's End by Saul Dibb
The Killing of a Sacred Deer by Yorgos Lanthimos
Kodachrome by Mark Raso
Lady Bird by Greta Gerwig
Lean on Pete by Andrew Haigh
Loving Pablo by Fernando León de Aranoa
Manhunt by John Woo
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House by Peter Landesman
Marrowbone by Sergio G. Sánchez
Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller by Jerry Kramer
Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno by Abdellatif Kechiche
Michael Jackson’s Thriller 3D by John Landis
Molly's Game by Aaron Sorkin
Mother! by Darren Aronofsky
The Motive by Manuel Martín Cuenca
Novitiate by Margaret Betts
Number One by Tonie Marshall
Omerta by Hansal Mehta
On Chesil Beach by Dominic Cooke
Outside In by Lynn Shelton
Papillon by Michael Noer
Plonger by Mélanie Laurent
The Price of Success by Teddy Lussi-Modeste
Professor Marston & the Wonder Women by Angela Robinson
Racer and the Jailbird by Michaël R. Roskam
Radiance by Naomi Kawase
Redoubtable by Michel Hazanavicius
The Rider by Chloé Zhao
Roman J. Israel, Esq. by Dan Gilroy
The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro
Sheikh Jackson by Amr Salama
The Square by Ruben Östlund
Submergence by Wim Wenders
Suburbicon by George Clooney
Thelma by Joachim Trier
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri by Martin McDonagh
Three Peaks by Jan Zabeil
Unicorn Store by Brie Larson
Victoria & Abdul by Stephen Frears
Who We Are Now by Matthew Newton
You Disappear by Peter Schønau Fog
Youth by Feng Xiaogang

Midnight Madness
Bodied by Joseph Kahn
Brawl in Cell Block 99 by S. Craig Zahler
The Crescent by Seth A. Smith
The Disaster Artist by James Franco
Downrange by Ryuhei Kitamura
Great Choice by Robin Comisar
Let the Corpses Tan by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani
Mom and Dad by Brian Taylor
Revenge by Coralie Fargeat
The Ritual by David Bruckner
Vampire Clay by Sôichi Umezawa

Masters
The Day After by Hong Sang-soo
Faces Places by Agnès Varda and JR
First Reformed by Paul Schrader
Happy End by Michael Haneke
The House by the Sea by Robert Guédiguian
Loveless by Andrey Zvyagintsev
The Other Side of Hope by Aki Kaurismäki
Our People Will Be Healed by Alanis Obomsawin
Rainbow - A Private Affair by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani
The Third Murder by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Zama by Lucrecia Martel

Documentaries
Azmaish: A Journey through the Subcontinent by Sabiha Sumar
BOOM FOR REAL The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Sara Driver
The Carter Effect by Sean Menard
The China Hustle by Jed Rothstein
Cocaine Prison by Violeta Ayala
Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars by Lili Fini Zanuck
Ex Libris – The New York Public Library by Frederick Wiseman
The Final Year by Greg Barker
The Gospel According to André by Kate Novack
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami by Sophie Fiennes
JIM & ANDY: the Great Beyond – the story of Jim Carrey & Andy Kaufman featuring a very special, contractually obligated mention of Tony Clifton by Chris Smith
Jane by Brett Morgen
The Judge by Erika Cohn
The Legend of the Ugly King by Hüseyin Tabak
Living Proof by Matt Embry
Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle by Gustavo Salmerón
Love Means Zero by Jason Kohn
The Other Side of Everything by Mila Turajlić
Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me by Sam Pollard
Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood by Matt Tyrnauer
Silas by Hawa Essuman and Anjali Nayar
Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken! by Morgan Spurlock
There Is a House Here by Alan Zweig
Contemporary World Cinema[edit]
Les Affamés by Robin Aubert (fr)
Alanis by Anahí Berneri
Ana, mon amour by Călin Peter Netzer
Angels Wear White by Vivian Qu
April's Daughter by Michel Franco
Arrhythmia by Boris Khlebnikov
Beyond Words by Urszula Antoniak
The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales... by Benjamin Renner, Patrick Imbert
Birds Without Names by Kazuya Shiraishi
Black Kite by Tarique Qayumi
Breath by Simon Baker
A Ciambra by Jonas Carpignano
Dark is the Night by Adolfo Alix Jr.
Directions by Stephan Komandarev
Disappearance by Boudewijn Koole
Don't Talk to Irene by Pat Mills
Euthanizer by Teemu Nikki
Félicité by Alain Gomis
Good Favour by Rebecca Daly
Hannah by Andrea Pallaoro
The Insult by Ziad Doueiri
Insyriated by Philippe Van Leeuw
The Journey by Mohamed Al-Daradji
Life and Nothing More by Antonio Méndez Esparza
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches by Simon Lavoie
The Lodgers by Brian O'Malley
Longing by Savi Gabizon
Looking for Oum Kulthum by Shirin Neshat
Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts by Mouly Surya
Meditation Park by Mina Shum
Miami by Zaida Bergroth
Motorrad by Vicente Amorim
Nina by Juraj Lehotský
The Number by Khalo Matabane
On Body and Soul by Ildikó Enyedi
Porcupine Lake by Ingrid Veninger
Public Schooled by Kyle Rideout
Pyewacket by Adam MacDonald
The Royal Hibiscus Hotel by Ishaya Bako
Samui Song by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang
Sergio & Sergei by Ernesto Daranas Serrano
A Sort of Family by Diego Lerman
The Summit by Santiago Mitre
Tulipani, Love, Honour and a Bicycle by Mike van Diem
Under the Tree by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson
Veronica by Paco Plaza
Wajib by Annemarie Jacir
Western by Valeska Grisebach

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/plmk.jpg
Shia Laboeuf and Svenrir Gudhason in borg/McEnroe

Opening film and another.

BORG/MCENROE : Guardian Peter Bradshaw review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/07/borg-mcenroe-review-shia-labeouf-tennis-wimbledon-toronto-tiff-2017) – "Needle-free account of celebrated on-court duel never breaks a sweat" - 2 OUT OF 5 STARS - "Shia LaBeouf is perfectly cast as superbrat tennis ace John McEnroe, but this replay of his 1980 Wimbledon final with Björn Borg fails to create drama." Sverrir Gudnason as Bjorn Borg bears an eery resemblance. But the relationship has no interest; McEnroe's relation with his father or his coach is more interesting. "The awful truth was that for all their rivalry and wildly different styles, there wasn’t any needle between these two men personally, no tension, nothing outside the tennis court for us to get excited about." (Bradshaw)

ON CHESIL BEACH review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/07/on-chesil-beach-review-billy-howle-saoirse-ronan-dominic-cooke) by Peter Bradshaw (Guardian) – "Sensitive translation of Ian McEwan’s elegy to inhibited England" 3 OUT OF 5 STARS. Dominic Cooke, known for his stage work, is in his feature directorial debut here. "Billy Howle and Saoirse Ronan are on song as the young couple in Britain’s duffel-coated early 1960s, in a restrained adaptation of McEwan’s novella."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Some Mike D'Angelo TFF tweets.

Bear in mind that these are hints, not reviews. But they come with his precise numerical ratings, which allow us to see his relative ranking of all the films he sees at the festival. I'll arrange them in rating order rather than viewing order.


Mike D'Angelo Sep 5
Headed to TIFF for the 18th consecutive year. At 10 days per fest, I'll soon have lived in Toronto for a cumulative six months.

The Rider (Zhao): 67. Literally a film about getting back on the horse, distinguished by its lived-in authenticity. Some clumsy symbolism.

Western (Grisebach): 54. Another film where I felt my ignorance—in this case, re: Bulgarian-German history—getting in the way. May revisit.

The Square (Östlund): 46. Like NETWORK had Chayefsky conceived it as a series of vaguely connected interludes rather than as a narrative.

Happy End (Haneke): 34. What Scott said.:
Scott Tobias: If not Haneke's worst film, certainly his dullest. Just raw contempt for the bourgeoisie, augmented by nothing.
Unrated by D'Angelo so far:

Loveless (Zvyagintsev): TK. Feels like there's a political allegory here (related to Ukraine ca. 2012) that I'm too ignorant to grasp.
Flat-out loved the first ~45 minutes, which play like Muntean shot by...well, by Zvyagintsev. Then it goes somewhere else. Still pondering.
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/pefgt.jpg
Timothee Chalamet and Arnie Hammer in Call Me by Your Name

The other ("Special Presentations") opening night film.

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Luca Guadagnino). Besides Borg/McEnroe there was another Toronto '17 opening night film, a much more successful one, which already was a "sensation" at Sundance, then Berlin. It is the adaptation of André Aciman's eponymous steamy gay coming of age and summer romance novel. And "the film charts the stormy course of a 1983 summer romance between Elio (Timothee Chalamet), an Italian teenager, and Oliver (Armie Hammer), an American academic seven years his senior who has come to stay at his parents' villa. Oscar nominee James Ivory adapted Andre Aciman‘s 2007 bestseller of the same name" (GoldDerby (http://www.goldderby.com/article/2017/call-me-by-your-name-from-toronto-film-festival-opener-to-oscars/)). The film comes out in the US Nov. 24. Filmleaf has had reviews of Guadagnino's 2009 I Am Love (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2857-I-AM-LOVE-(Luca-Guadagnino-2009)) and his less impressive 2015 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?4146-NEW-YORK-MOVIE-JOURNAL-(May-2016)&p=34688#post34688) Guadagnino makes movies with a swoony sensuality, and in this new one he may have found a flat-out ideal subject. Jordan Hoffman already gave a glowing review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/23/call-me-by-your-name-review-italian-romance) of it in the Guardian in January. I am glad he said "This is not a love story that 'just happens to be gay,'" as people annoyingly said of Brokeback Mountain. I'm reading the book to be able to make comparisons when I see the movie. I'm prepared to like this: it sounds like Guadagnino's best yet and stylistically his most unpretentious. Note: now that I've read the novel I'd add that both 17-year-old Elio and 24-year-old Oliver are Jewish; that's pretty important, to the book's author, André Aciman anyway.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

More D'Angelo.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/oinm.jpg
The Florida Project still


Zama (Martel): 51. Sorry to say this felt less to me like Martel than like recent Sayles (specifically AMIGO). Worthy and ponderous.
The Florida Project (Baker): 81. Possibly the most extreme swing from hate to love I've ever experienced over the course of a first viewing. More on THE FLORIDA PROJECT: ]]Owen Gleiberman of Variety: (http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/the-florida-project-review-1202439902/) "Sean Baker has ditched the iPhone camera, but his follow-up to 'Tangerine' is another vibrant tale of the American lower depths, this one rooted in the magic and heartbreak of childhood." Guardian's (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/22/the-florida-project-review-sean-baker-cannes-2017)Jordan Hoffman gives it 5 OUT OF 5 STARS And writes: "Following his much lauded iPhone-shot Tangerine, director Sean Baker (working once again with co-screenwriter Chris Bergoch), has lost none of his fire and exuberance working with a larger budget and some well-known cast members. Indeed, Willem Dafoe, as the reluctant father-figure manager at the Orlando motel where this movie is set, gives one of the best film performances of his entire career. Baker, who has a number of microbudget features under his belt, has catapulted himself into a whole new league now."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Still more D'Angelo tweet ratings and comments.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/3wse.jpg
Still from The Death of Stalin

These are rearranged in descending order of rating rather than viewing order.


mother! (Aronofsky): 85. Here's the thing: Metaphors are inherently kinda dumb. If you're making one, GO FOR MOTHERFUCKING BROKE. Comme ça.


PROTOTYPE (Williams): 69. Astonishing 3-D images—and I *despise* 3-D as a rule—make for a singularly hallucinatory post-disaster journey.
(Blake is a friend, but other friends of mine will tell you that I don't praise friends' work indiscriminately. This is worth seeking out.)


Let the Corpses Tan (Cattet & Forzani): 68. More of a concrete narrative than I prefer from them, but the genre changeup compensates.
Pretty sure I've heard more creaking leather in Cattet & Forzani's three features than in all of the other 8000+ films I've seen combined.


Molly's Game (Sorkin): 64. Will fulfill all Sorkin-based expectations, good and bad. Bonus for poker players: great scene of monkey tilt.
(I also got weepy at the end because what happens to Bloom in court happened to me almost identically, right down to my dad being there.)


The Death of Stalin (Iannucci): 63. Tricky juggling of tones, mostly pulled off. Never got used to the collection of Brit/American accents.


Outside In (L. Shelton): 56. Earnest, performance-driven relationship drama, better than her last two but not a patch on her improv work.


Brad's Status (White): 55. Suspect I'd have actively liked this w/o the wall-to-wall expository voiceover. That Abrams kid is a real find.


Downsizing (Payne): 45. That is quite a bait and switch. Damon apparently learned nothing from ELYSIUM. I do sort of admire the perversity.


The Motive (Martín Cuenca): 43. These art-imitates-life quasi-thrillers (see also Ozon's IN THE HOUSE) virtually always leave me cold.
Saw this primarily because this director's previous film, CANNIBAL, was quite remarkable formally. But you'd never guess it's the same guy.


The Ritual (Bruckner): 38. Familiar BLAIR WITCH-y horror with a Nordic twist. Hero's clichéd personal demons seem almost irrelevant.

Note: Aronofsky's mother! (the title has no caps officially, it seems) debuted at Venice and I posted about Peter Bradshaw's 5 OUT OF 5 STARS Guardian review last Wednesday. D'Angelo's fairly low rating of Downsizing differs from Jordan Hoffman's Guardian 5 OUT OF 5 STARS and its Metacritic Generally Favorable 77%. PROTOTYPE is a highly abstract 65-minute-long art piece described as a "featurette" and categorized on IMDb as a "documentary." See CriticsRoundup (https://criticsroundup.com/film/prototype/). Armando Iannucci is the writer of In the Loop and the TV comedy series "The Thick of It" and "Veep." Peter Bradshaw gives The Death of Stalin a 5 OUT OF 5 STARS rating.

What does Mike mean by "Damon apparently learned nothing from ELYSIUM"? That makes two of us because I didn't either. Finding out what the more cryptic remarks mean unfortunately will be harder without D'Angelo's former excellent roundup reviews of festivals he covered for The Dissolve or AV Club.

mother! opens in US cinemas this Friday Sept. 15.

The Florida Project is coming to uS theaters Oct. 6.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Peter Bradshaw (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/09/the-death-of-stalin-review-armando-iannucci-toronto-film-festival-tiff) (Guardian) on Iannucci.


Fear rises like gas from a corpse in Armando Iannucci’s brilliant horror-satire The Death Of Stalin. It’s a sulphurous black comedy about the backstairs Kremlin intrigue that followed the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, adapted by Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin from the French graphic novel series by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin. 5 OUT OF 5 STARS. Iannucci's brand of antic satire carried into a wild adaptation that ought to be very funny and also creepy at times. NOted, D'Angelo's discomfort with the mix of British and American accents. How about that they're not speaking Russian? Might that bother you?

Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/09/the-death-of-stalin-review-armando-iannucci-toronto-film-festival-tiff).

CHAPPAQUIDICK. Jordan Hoffman (Guardian):
"Jason Clarke impresses as the last Kennedy brother, whose reputation never recovered following the death of a young supporter in murky circumstances." - review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/11/chappaquiddick-review-toronto-film-festival-tiff) - 3 OUT OF 5 STARS. The film sounds unsatisfying to me. I think of how awful the family must feel about this recreation, as well as those who admire Ted Kennedy's many years of sterling service as a liberal lion of the Senate.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

More D'Angelo TFF 2017 tweets.


Faces Places (Varda & JR): 66. The usual Varda delightfulness, which I might have preferred to see challenged rather than reinforced.


BPM (Campillo): 58. Loved the depiction of ACT UP strategizing. Shift to the personal feels comparatively familiar, even shopworn.

Ex Libris (Wiseman): 53. I know we're supposed to rubberstamp these, but there's so much overlap here with AT BERKELEY. Feels redundant.

Man Hunt [or maybe ManHunt, but definitely not Manhunt] (Woo): 50. Just all over the fucking place, from masterful to inept. Loved Angeles.


The Shape of Water (Del Toro): 44. But I feel similarly meh about every film he's ever made. It's always "I acknowledge your cinephilia." [smiley]
http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

More GUARDIAN (https://www.theguardian.com/film/torontofilmfestival) coverage. Sept. 13.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/7b7b.jpg

THE DISASTER ARTIST: – "James Franco's ode to bad film-making is a riot." - Benjamin L ee review (Benjamin Lee review) - 4 OUT OF 5 STARS. "The story behind cult movie The Room is brought to life with affection and painstaking detail and features a staggering transformation from the lead Based on the book about the hilariously awful 2002 movie The Room." Directed by and starring James Franco, co-starring his brother Dave, and with Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Jacki Weaver, Sharon Stone, Melanie Griffith, Megan Mullally, Hannibal Buress, Judd Apatow, Bryan Cranston, Zac Efron and Ari Graynor. In theaters December 8.

FIRST THEY KILLED MY FATHER: "Angelina Jolie's triumph spotlights casualties of war." 4 OUT OF 5 STARS - review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/12/first-they-killed-my-father-review-angelina-jolies-triumph-spotlights-casualties-of-war) by Peter Bradshaw. "The actor turned director’s passion project is a psychological stunner that shows the effects the Khmer Rouge’s reign left on the people of Cambodia." A Netflix production which airs later this month.

THE WIFE (dir. Björn Runge) – Glenn Close is unreadably brilliant as author's spouse plunged in late-life crisis." 5 OUT OF 5 STARS. "As the apparently-perfect wife of a Nobel prize-winning writer, Close gives arguably her best ever performance in an adaptation of Meg Wolitzer’s novel." - Peter Bradshaw review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/12/the-wife-review-glenn-close-brilliant-toronto-film-festival-tiff-2017). He thinks her portrayal of the "unnervingly subtle, unreadably calm, simmering with self-control" wife of a famous New York author may be her "career best," ranking with her performances in Dangerous Liaisons and Fatal Attraction, a "hugely enjoyable drama" with Jonathan Pryce as the Nobel-Prize-winning husband in this adaptation of the novel by Meg Wolitzer.

ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. (dir. Dan Gilroy) – "Denzel Washington captivates in unusual legal drama." 4 OUT OF 5 STARS. "A nervy, compelling performance from the Oscar-winning actor dominates this unconventional morality play from the writer/director of Nightcrawler." Review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/12/roman-j-israel-esq-review-denzel-washington-toronto-film-festival-tiff) b Benjamin Lee. Odd role for Denzel as a semi-autistic lawyer. Co-starring Colin Farrel as the slick head of a law firm who hires Israel, when his own firm collapses,and he is forced out of the woodwork. Out in the US November 3rd.

HOSTILES: (dir. Scott Cooper) - "Christian Bale soldiers on in brutal, beautiful and flawed western." 3 OUT OF 5 STARS. - "Bale stars as an oppressive army officer seeking redemption in the Old West in Scott Cooper’s striking, if somewhat glib, take on the genre." Peter Bradshaw review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/12/hostiles-review-christian-bale-toronto-film-festival-tiff). "[As Blocker, Christian Bale is] "An habitually ruthless oppressor of the Native American peoples, though certainly someone possessed of military discipline," who is forced to accompany a dying Cheyenne chief to his homeland. The film seems to think ramping up the violence and beauty of landscape can "dissolve historical wrongs." This "is a little glib."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Sept. 10 Guardian TFF reviews.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/ourw.jpg
"Exhilaratingly clever … Beast."

BEAST: "Serial killer mystery offers a masterclass in slow-burn chills." - 4 OUT OF 5 STARS.- Peter Bradshaw review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/10/beast-review-michael-pearce-toronto-film-festival-tiff). - "Michael Pearce’s feature debut is a smartly layered thriller that draws haunting drama from a creepy location and an array of plausably shady characters." The title promises horror or melodrama but there "is little of both," instead more sharp domestic drama as serial killing of young women goes on outside on the island where this takes place, with an "exhileratingly clever and ambiguous" final scene with "finely judged performances" shot in an "intelligent, responsive way."

DISOBEDIENCE: "Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams impress in powerful love story." 4 OUT OF 5 STARS. Peter Bradshaw review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/10/disobedience-review-toronto-film-festival-tiff). "The English language debut from Chilean director Sebastián Lelio is a rich and rewarding drama about a woman [Rachel Weisz] returning home to the Orthodox Jewish community of north London." She becomes involved in a lesbian affair with her youthful best friend [Rachel McAdams], now the wife of her newly deceased rabbi father's main disciple, excellently played by Alessandro Nivola.

THE CURRENT WAR: – ( dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon) - "Benedict Cumberbatch transmits medium voltage portrait of Thomas Edison." Peter Bradshaw Review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/10/the-current-war-review-benedict-cumberbatch-edison-toronto-film-festival-2017-tiff). 3 OUT OF 5 STARS. "The battle over rival electricity systems fought out between Edison and fellow inventor George Westinghouse is illuminating – but perhaps not quite as much as it could have been."

THE CHILDREN ACT: – (dir. Richard Eyre ) "Emma Thompson rules over hot-button legal drama." Peter Bradshaw review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/10/the-children-act-review-emma-thompson-ian-mcewan-toronto-film-festival-tiff). 3 OUT OF 5 STARS. - "Thompson’s performance as a brilliant but tortured judge elevates the second Ian McEwan adaptation of this year’s Toronto film festival, a stately courtroom saga with parallels to the Charlie Gard case."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo. . .



Lean On Pete (Haigh): 70. Flirts with doing something extraordinary, can't quite commit. But terrific detail even at its most conventional.

Who We Are Now (Newton): 68. I'm now convinced this guy has a great film in him. Just needs to rid himself of a few Syd Field-y habits.

Lady Bird (Gerwig): 62. A tad earnest for my taste (esp. its dedication of an ending), but a warmly funny “spiritual prequel” to FRANCES HA.

Caniba (Paravel & Castaing-Taylor): 8. A deeply unpleasant experience offering virtually nothing in the way of insight or formal interest.
The Globe and Mail calls Caniba festival's most confrontational film." It's about a Japanese cannibal, who does self-mutilation. I'm wondering how this fits in with the Harvard Sensory Ethnology Lab work, in any way? Or the careful environmental observational methods of Sweetgrass and Leviathan that I came to admire.

Lean on Pete got high marks from the Guardian reported here earlier, 4 OUT OF 5 STARS from Xian Brooks at Venice.

"Who We Are Now is a 2017 American drama film directed and written by Matthew Newton. It stars Julianne Nicholson, Emma Roberts, and Zachary Quinto. It screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festiva" -Wikipedia. "Matthew Newton's well-turned indie drama follows an ex-con who seeks custody of her son after a 10-year prison stint" - Scott Tobias, Variety.

Here D'Angelo seems to have forgotten a numerical rating (amid the other numbers):


BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99 takes 45 (terrific) mins just to get to a prison, over 90 (terrific) mins to get to Cell Block 99. I love this guy.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Bradshaw enthuses over Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman's Churchill film.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/9b9n.jpg

DARKEST HOUR: review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/13/darkest-hour-review-gary-oldman-toronto-film-festival-tiff) by Peter Bradshaw - 4 OUT OF 5 STARS – "Gary Oldman is a tremendous Winston Churchill in high-octane drama." "An Oscar buzzed performance acts as the stoic centre of Joe Wright’s retelling of the events of 1940, played as a House of Cards style thriller.

US on 22 November and in the UK on 12 January. This obviously is a must-see, a grand spectacle and a remarkable display of acting - even though I have a suspicion that as with his numb version of George Smiley for the (already shaky) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by Swedish Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson only more so, the working-class chameleon Oldman will be out of his element playing the patrician Churchill.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

More Guardian coverage from Toronto 2017.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/bgyt.jpg
Kate Winslet and Idris Elba in The Mountain Between US

Two Arab directors and a Turkish one.

THE MOUNTAIN BETWEEN US: "Kate Winslet and Idris Elba heat up snowy romance" (dir. Hany Abu-Assad) - 3 OUT OF 5 STARS - "A pair of engaging star turns elevate a satisfying, if simplistic, adventure about the blossoming relationship between plane crash survivors." Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/14/mountain-between-us-review-toronto-film-festival-tiff) by Benjamin Lee, who believes that if you lower your expectations for this almost-but-not-quite Oscar-hopeful film, you will thoroughly enjoy yourself. This may seem an odd choice for Abu-Assad, a Palestinian director, whose earlier films Paradise Now and Omar were Oscar-nominated, but he handles the ruthlessly efficient action portions with ease. Winslet is good but Idris excels.

MARY SHELLEY: "Sturdy literary biopic fails to resurrect spirit of author" - 3 OUT OF 5 STARS - "Elle Fanning plays the Frankenstein author in a dutiful drama that’s adequately entertaining but indistinguishable from other similar films within the subgenre."Directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour, the first woman ever to direct a Saudi Arabian feature film - Wadjda (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3598-WADJDA-(Haifa-Al-Mansour-2012)&p=30918#post30918) (Filmleaf 2012), a portrait of a feisty tween girl. Benjamin Lee reviews, seeming less pleased this time than the above film: maybe the Guardian's ubiquitous 3/5 STAR rating needs some plusses and minuses added to it.

KINGS – "Halle Berry and Daniel Craig fail to ignite baffling LA riots drama" - 2 OUT OF 5 STARS - review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/13/kings-review-halle-berry-toronto-film-festival-tiff) by Peter Bradshaw - "The second feature from Mustang director Deniz Gamze Ergüven is a frustratingly made film with brief flashes of power but a lack of focus." Why should an original Turkish director make a movie about the LA riots, anyway? Finally bad enough for two stars. It's a disjointed, uneven, structurally weak movie about a woman who cares for wayward kids in her home and a hunky Brit (Craig) next door. Some powerful moments but a misstep.

All three of these sound pretty "meh" to me, the last the most "meh", by a fair margin.


http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo, cont'd. He seems to have had a busy day.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/jvlg.jpg
Jane Goodall in Jane

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (Zahler): 75. Riveting amalgam of courtly and brutal, defined by Vaughn's ultra-low-key superhuman badass.
He adds:
Like BONE TOMAHAWK, it justifies its seemingly extreme length (132 mins here, felt like 85) via painstaking accumulation of pungent detail.

Jane (Morgen): 60. Masterfully edits Van Lawick's long-lost footage so that it resembles a fiction feature. Rest is conventional bio-doc.

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond [etc.] (Smith): 55. More interested in watching Carrey channel Kaufman 24-7 than in hearing him self-analyze.

Thelma (Trier): 54. Not sure “It's a *Good* Life” really works as a romance. Maybe with a more distinctive performance in the title role.

Mom & Dad (Taylor): 41. An inspired idea rather poorly executed. Came for nutso Cage, wound up preferring feral Blair.


The Day After (Hong): 37. His blandest film ever, both formally & structurally. The reason he favors diptychs becomes glaring via absence.

The NYFF has two Hong Sang-soo films this year, and from the festival blurb they seem to be connected. The other is On the Beach at Night Alone. I am a fan of Hong Sang-soo and hope to see these, but others understandably find his work repetitious and bland.

Mom & Dad: "A teenage girl and her little brother must survive a wild 24 hours during which a mass hysteria of unknown origins causes parents to turn violently on their own kids." WIth Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters. It sounds like a thoroughly unpleasant experience and a film to avoid.

Jane is about Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE, formerly the Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, now plain Jane Goodall to most, the primates expert, now 93. Directed by Brett Morgan. IMDb entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7207238/) for this documentary: "Using a trove of unseen footage, the film tells the story of Jane's early explorations, focusing on her groundbreaking field work, her relationship with cameraman and husband Hugo van Lawick, and the chimpanzees that she studied." Directed by Brett Morgan, an interesting documentary filmmaker. His previous films: Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015), The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002), the latter about legendary Paramount producer Robert Evans. Jane Goodall is a fascinating figure and a pioneer in simion studies and this one surely is worth seeking out.

On Joachim Trier the Norwegian filmmaker's Thelma, see Dave Erlich's Indiewire piece, "'Thelma' Review: Ingmar Bergman Meets Stephen King in Joachim Trier’s Beguiling Lesbian Horror Movie. (http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/thelma-review-joachim-trier-tiff-2017-1201873811/) The film is Norway's Best Foreign Oscar entry

Trier's first two films were brilliant. His last one , in English, was a relative disappointment to me.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

From the Guardian as Toronto winds down.

SWEET COUNTRY: Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/15/sweet-country-review-brutal-australian-western-tiff) by Peter Bradshaw – "Brutal Australian western soars with Biblical starkness." - 5 OUT OF 5 STARS - "The latest film from Warwick Thornton possesses both shocking cruelty and haunting beauty with its tragic tale of tensions in the outback." Mentioning Thornton's "superb debut with Samson And Delilah in 2009, Bradshaw describes his new as a "brutally powerful outback western populated by "'blackfellas' whose serfdom to the 'whitefellas' creates a society of paranoia and violence" that's a colonialism "nearer slavery than Jim Crow."
It’s a stark, shocking movie, superbly shot by Thornton who is both cinematographer and director: a film which feels at one level like a provocative exploitation picture such as Straw Dogs or Wake In Fright, and at another level like a classic studio western, with something of The Searchers or Red River. Thornton's Samson and Delilah indeed was touching and memorable and this will be one to look for, I'm sure.

MANHUNT: review by Bradshaw – "John Woo rolls back the years with big pharma bullet-barrage" - 4 OUT OF 5 STARS. "The godfather of balletic bloodshed is back to his pre-Hollywood best with this Japan-set action thriller about a lawyer on the run from his shady former boss," "based on the Japanese pulp novel Hot Pursuit by Juko Nishimura." This sounds like thoroughly enjoyable pulp in the style of Woo's original classic actioners.

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo enjoys the relative calm of the last two days of TFF 2017.
I do miss my friends, but man oh man is TIFF more pleasant to navigate in its last few days, after ~80% of press/industry has gone home.

Félicité (Gomis): 70. Was digging the Dardennes-ish desperate quest narrative, then the movie itself has a fascinating nervous breakdown.
A rare dovetailing: Metacritic's rating of this Kinshasha-set film by Parisian-born Alain Gomis film also is 70%.
He adds, though:
It did frustrate me a bit by offering at least four potentially great endings and continuing beyond them. Kinda shrugged at actual ending.

/Western/ (Grisebach): still 54. Understood more dialogue (e.g. "We're back! Only took 70 years"), but the arid, academic feel persisted.

Plonger (Laurent): 42. Opens with a lengthy falling-in-love montage and never really exits shorthand mode thereafter. Disappointing. A film by French actress Mélanie Laurent (Breathe as a director, which D'Angelo loved; Inglourious Basterds and 40 credits as an actress including The Beat My Heart Skipped and Don't Worry, I'm Fine). Even the Imdb blurb of Plongersounds a bit lame: "A restless photographer leaves her family to "find herself" and takes up deep-sea diving."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

Peter Bradshaw (from yesterday, Sept. 15).

MANHUNT: review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/15/manhunt-review-john-woo-toronto-film-festival-tiff) by Bradshaw of theGuardian – John Woo rolls back the years with big pharma bullet-barrage" - 4 OUT OF 5 STARS - "The godfather of balletic bloodshed is back to his pre-Hollywood best with this Japan-set action thriller about a lawyer on the run from his shady former boss." This could be an example of a movie that offers nothing but reassurance that a veteran filmmaker can still do what he used to do, even if it feels a bit out of date, and that can give any fan pleasure, I reckon. I'd watch it in a hertbeat.

BREATHE: review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/15/breathe-review-andrew-garfield-andy-serkis-robin-cavendish-toronto-film-festival-tiff) – "Andrew Garfield fronts poignant biopic of wheelchair pioneer." - 3 OUT OF 5 STARS - "Andy Serkis’s directorial debut is a heartfelt retelling of the story of Robin Cavendish that highlights a vital chapter of history but airbrushes another." This might evoke comparisons with Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking starring Eddie Redmayne: it concerns a real person who was a dashing fellow who brokered tea in Kenya with a beautiful wife, then when struck down with polio was the first to use a wheelchair equipped with a respirator, instead of those "iron lung" things. Is Andrew Garfield only going to play saintly characters now? It's also motion-capture pioneer Serkis's directorial debut, but a very traditional effort, no experimentation. This feels like a chore to watch: too much nobility and goodness. What Bradshaw thinks was "airbrushed" is the brutality of British treatment of Mau Mau prisoners. As a dutiful fan of both Andys, I feel obligated to watch this, but not eager.

DARK RIVER: Guardian review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/15/dark-river-review-clio-barnard-ruth-wilson-toronto-film-festival-tiff) (Bradshaw)- "Sparkling central duo lift Clio Barnard's social-realist farm yarn" - 3 OUT OF 5 STARS - "The Arbor and Selfish Giant director coaxes magnetic performances from Ruth Wilson and Mark Stanley in this tale of sibling resentment on a Yorkshire farm." - "Clio Barnard is the fiercely intelligent, visually inventive and innovative film-maker who gave us the brilliant docu-hybrid The Arbor and then The Selfish Giant, an inspired interpretation of Oscar Wilde set in Bradford. Her third feature, Dark River, is never anything other than acute and sensitive, with some very good actors giving well directed performances. But for all this movie’s qualities, it is a British social-realist picture in a well-understood idiom which perhaps doesn’t quite give us the shock of the new that her previous films delivered." Sounds like a letdown. Barnard's The Arbor (SFIFF 2011 - my review (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3054-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2011&p=26028#post26028)) was impressive, and I was drawn in and moved by The Selfish Giant (IFC Center - Filmleaf review (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3651-THE-SELFISH-GIANT-(Clio-Bernard-2013))). Maybe Bradshaw missed something here: Guy Lodge of Variety calls this film " A severe, stoic but internally screaming third feature."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Johann]

Fabulous coverage-by-proxy, Chris!

I dig Mike D'Angelo...he's a good man.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks. He is a good man, D'Angelo and I don't know why he's not writing full coverage for Cannes or Toronto, apparently didn't even go to Cannes and won't be going to the NYFF. There will be some followup reviews on Letterbox'd, that's all, I guess.

[Chris Knipp]

More D'Angelo, staying (he says) to "the bitter end."

Mademoiselle Paradis (Albert): 49. Can't decide whether to be about Paradis, about Mesmer (by way of Oliver Sacks), or about class.
...
Not that it couldn't theoretically be about all of those things at once, but in practice it just kinda lurches around among them.

Redoubtable (Hazanavicius): 40. More tepid than painful, though I winced at almost every cutesy allusion to Godard's own films.
...
Also, this is the most I've ever liked Louis Garrel. You can't auto-brood as Godard.

Radiance (Kawase): 39. This movie is Kawase's Twitter feed (or at least the stuff that @GuyLodge RTs) in ostensibly cinematic form.

Ending TIFF '17 with Fatih Akin's IN THE FADE. Though I wonder: Is it better to W/O than to FADE away?

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

This is D'Angelo's last TFF '17 tweet review:

In the Fade (Akin): 48. "Nazis. I hate these guys."

http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/plmn.jpg


In the FAde actually debuted at Cannes with a thriller comeback that may be more fun and watchable than D'Angelo's rating implies - or not. "- ‘In the Fade’ (‘Aus dem Nichts’): Film Review. ... Diane Kruger and Numan Acar in 'In the Fade.' ... Diane Kruger stars in Fatih Akin’s German-language courtroom and revenge drama about a deadly neo-Nazi hate crime." - Hollywood Reporter. (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/fade-review-1007992) (Deborah Young) Variety (http://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/in-the-fade-review-1202445763/) (Jay Weissberg): "First off: Fatih Akin’s 'The Cut' was an aberration, as we all suspected. The director celebrated for his edgy takes on intriguing characters more or less returns with 'In the Fade,' a well-constructed, at times moving story of a Hamburg woman seeking justice after the murder of her Kurdish husband and son by a couple of Neo-Nazis. 'More or less' because the excellent first quarter gives way to a relatively standard-issue though handsomely produced legal drama with several stock characters and a script that feels too guided by the presumed requirements of mainstream cinema. Diane Kruger’s powerhouse performance in her first German-language production goes a long way toward compensating for the narrative’s dip into overly crystalline waters..."


http://www.chrisknipp.com/links/tf2017.jpg

[Chris Knipp]

D'Angelo's faves.


Mike D'Angelo‏Verified account @gemko 54m54 minutes ago
More
And now my TIFF is ended.

Great: mother!, The Florida Project

Near-great: Brawl in Cell Block 99

👍🏻: Lean On Pete, Félicité, PROTOTYPE