My September unexpectedly freed up, and what better way to spend some free time than to catch five movies a day in one of the most attractive cities in North America? All accounts a bumper crop of festival goodies, most of which will be screening at the Toronto Int'l Film Festival. Alas, I won't be seeing too many of them, given (1) a short stay of four-and-a-half days; (2) the perverse programmers decided to schedule a bunch of cinephile must-sees at the same time-slot (on the 9 am-noon on September 9: the new Rivette, Rohmer, Roy Andersson, Kitano, and Pen-ek are all screening); and (3) I'm staying mostly away from major commercial releases. I'm aiming largely to catch movies that won't get a release, or at best, have one of those blink-and-it's-gone deals. I've been very bad about catching up to movies on one-week runs lately.It also means I won't be seeing (or won't aim to see) many of my most eagerly awaited movies of the year, which I hastily rank this way: (1) I'm Not There, Todd Haynes' pomo Dylan riff (with Cate Blanchett!); (2) There Will Be Blood, PTA's long-awaited new effort (with DDL!); (3) No Country for Old Men, Coens' reputed return to form; (4) Paranoid Park, another Gus paean to troubled youth and shot by Chris Doyle (I fully expect this to be my favorite movie of the year), (5) Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited, boasting a typically great cast, trailer, and one sheet, though the Venice reviews are mixed; (6) American Gangster (Crowe + Denzel > 90s version of De Niro + 90s version of Pacino); (7) Ang Lee's steamy Eileen Chang adaptation Lust, Caution (Tony Leung in Tony "the Lover" Leung mode! Hot Chinese ingenue doing full-frontal!); (8) Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding, with Nicole and Jack Black; (9) the acclaimed My Kid Can Paint That; and (10) lastly, what do McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford have in common? Westerns with long titles conjoining two names? Hope for more. Jesse James is billed as a spiritual descendant of those languorous, poetic masterpieces, though I'd settle for a slightly more focused The Proposition.
Eight of the ten cited above will be playing at TIFF. But I think I can wait.
For some reason, the TIFF gods didn't schedule either the new (supposedly terrible) Wong Kar-wai or the new (supposedly terrible) Olivier Assayas. Cannes' fave Actresses is also nowhere to be found. Yet for all the whining one can do, it's hard to complain about four days where new movies by Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, Guy Maddin, Bela Tarr, Hou Hsiao-hsien and the highly regarded Cannes bows Silent Light, Secret Sunshine and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days are all screening. With the exception of the latter, all of these face iffy prospects for commercial release.My schedule below is borne of both necessity (I couldn't score tix to Mourning Forest, Secret Sunshine, or Redacted) and choice (I want the flexibility of having some slots open to take advantage of festival buzz). With ticket prices at close to $20 a pop, I'm also wary of taking chances on less touted features.
Anyway, TIFFers, give me a holla if you happen to be at the same screening.
Friday - September 7, 2007
Same Day tix - The Mourning Forest - Scotiabank 4 - 12:00 pm
The Orphanage - Sb 1 - 10 pm
Slots open - (a) 5 pm - 7 pm (Nap)
(b) 9:30 pm - 12 am The Orphanage - Sb 1 (10 pm)
Control - Sb 2 (9:45)
Tentative Schedule
09:45 am - 12:00 pm Rivette - Sb 2
12:00 pm - 02:00 pm (Mourning Forest - Sb 4)
02:45 pm - 04:45 pm Hou Hsiao-hsien - Ryerson
08:00 pm - 09:30 pm Guy Maddin - Wintergarden (Visa Screening Room)
10:00 pm - 12:00 am [Slot (b)]
Saturday - September 8, 2007
Same Day tix - [Choices from (a), (b), and possibly (c)]
Slots open - (a)11 am - 3 pm - The Man from London - Sb 14 (12:30 -3)
My Kid Can Paint That - Sb 2 (12:15-2)
(b) 3 pm - 7 pm - Edge of Heaven - Sb4 (3:30 - 5:45)
Useless (Jia) - V-8 (4:30 - 6)
(c) 9:30 pm - 11 pm (Socialize - Poker?)
Happiness (Hur Jin-Ho) - Sb 1 (9:30)
Chrysalis - Sb 4 (9:45)
Tentative Schedule
09:00 am - 11:00 am Rohmer- Isabelle Bader Theater
12:00 pm - 03:00 pm [Slot (a)]
03:30 pm - 05:45 pm [Slot (b)]
07:00 pm - 09:00 pm Ploy (Pen-ek) - Sb 14
09:15 pm - 12:00 am [Slot (c)]
Sunday - September 9, 2007
Same Day tix - Secret Sunshine - Sb 1 - 11:45 am
Slot (a)
Slots open - (a) 9 am - 11:30 am - (Rush Secret Sunshine if no same day tix avail)
(Sleep in)
Lust, Caution - Sb 2 (9:15 -11:45)
XXY - Sb 4 2 (9:30-11:00)
(b) 5 pm - 9 pm - (City stroll/shop/surf net)
The World Unseen - Sb 3 (6-8 pm)
Barcelona (A Map) - Sb 4 (6:45-9)
Tentative Schedule
09:00 am - 11:30 pm [Slot (a)]
11:45 am - 02:15 pm (Secret Sunshine - Sb 1)
03:30 pm - 05:00 pm Les Chansons d’amour (Honore) - Sb 1
05:00 pm - 09:00 pm [Slot (b)]
09:15 pm - 11:00 pm Chaotic Ana- Ryerson
Monday - September 10, 2007
Same Day tix - 4 Months, 3 Days - Cumberland 1 - 10:00 am
Redacted- Varsity 8 - 6 pm
Slots open - (a) 9am - 12 pm - 4 Months, 3 Weeks... - Cumberland 1 (10 -12 pm)
In Bloom- Sb 2 (12:15-2)
(b) 12 pm - 2:30 pm - George Romero’s Book of the Dead - Sb3 (1:00 - 2:30)
Chrysalis- Sb 1 (12:30 - 2:00)
Happiness - Cumberland 3 (12:15 - 2:15)
Tentative Schedule
09:45 am - 12:00 pm [Slot (a)]
12:00 pm - 02:00 pm [Slot (b)]
02:30 pm - 05:00 pm Shunji Aoyama - Sb 4
06:00 pm - 07:30 pm (Redacted -V 8)
08:00 pm - 10:00 pm Ken Loach - Wintergarden (Elgin)
Tuesday - September 11, 2007
Same Day tix - Jellyfish - Cumb-1 - 2:30 pm or Man from Plains - V8 (2:15 pm)
Slots open - (a) 9 am - 12 pm [ten movies screening but nothing to see]
Night - Cumberland 1 (9 - 11)
Terra - Sb 10 (10 - 12)
Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame - Sb 4 (9-10:30)
Love Comes Lately - Sb 1 (9:15 - 11)
(Sleep in)
(b) 2:30 pm - 5 pm Jellyfish - Cumberland 1 (2:30 - 4:30 pm)
Man From Plains - V8 (2:15 - 4:15)
Tentative Schedule
09:45 am - 12:00 pm [Slot (a)]
12:15 pm - 02:15 pm Silent Light - Scotiabank 4
02:30 pm - 05:00 pm [Slot (b)]
