TIFF 2011
I’ll be at the Toronto International Film Festival over the next eleven days, watching around 30 movies from the more than 300 that are being shown.
Every review of a movie being shown at the festival will be linked to a TIFF2011 category.
Sep 8
Bridesmaids (2011)
Directed by: Paul Feig
Nice-but-unsuccessful (in love and work) Annie (Kristen Wiig) is asked by best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) to be her maid of honor. Along with Lillian’s moneyed fiancé comes a new candidate for the role of best friend, über-wealthy Helen (Rose Byrne), and the scene is set for some major jockeying for position. Throw in some other quirky girl-friends, and you’ve got the ingredients for – well, a total mess, really. Read more
Sep 7
Super 8 (2011)
Directed by: J. J. Abrams
I know he’s only the producer, but Super 8 finds us in classic Spielberg territory: 1970s small-town America. In an efficient scene-setting, we learn that Joe (Joel Courtney) has just lost his mom to an industrial accident, and his deputy-sheriff dad (Kyle Chandler) blames no-goodnik Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard). Four months later, Joe is one of five kids making a zombie movie using the eponymous home movie kit. Trouble is, one of the other kids is Alice (Elle Fanning), daughter of Louis. Each of the dysfunctional dads (the one a self-hating drunk, the other a cold, angry shell, unable to hug his son) is opposed to the two kids being near each other – but when a mysterious train crashes outside the town, their irritation gets swamped by some bad-ass alien trouble. Read more
The Guard (2011)
Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Garda Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) pounds a lonely beat on the west coast of Ireland. This may be just as well, because Boyle is not a poster child for the Irish Tourist Board. When he’s not pocketing drugs taken from road-crash victims, he’s organising threesomes with prostitutes, although he’s as kind to them as he is to his terminally ill ma (Fionnula Flanagan). The arrival of an FBI agent (Don Cheadle, who also produced) looking for a rumoured drug shipment, plus the three heavies who are expecting to take delivery of the drugs, sets the scene for a very funny buddy action movie. Read more
Page Eight (2011)
Directed by: David Hare
Written and directed by David Hare, Page Eight is a TV movie that aspires to cinematic release (it’s being shown at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, despite having already gone out on terrestrial TV in Britain). Read more
Modesty Blaise (1966)
Directed by: Joseph Losey
Joseph Losey made several films with Dirk Bogarde during the 1960s. Modesty Blaise must be the worst. It might well mark the career low point for everyone who found themselves involved in the production. Read more
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011)
Directed by: Rupert Wyatt
Rebooting the series from the late 60s, Rupert Wyatt’s movie is very well done. Scientist Will (James Franco) is seeking a cure for Alzheimer’s for his bio-tech employer, but also for his afflicted father, played by John Lithgow. Will takes home a baby chimp when its mother is destroyed after a trial of a promising viral drug seems to have gone wrong. But the drug works, and young Caesar grows up to be smarter than his human family. The drug seems to work on humans, too, initially giving Will’s dad more than just respite from the illness. However, he later develops a resistance to the drug, his dementia returns, and when he gets into a fight with a neighbour whose car he has trashed, Caesar intervenes violently. Locked away in a brutally-run simian centre, Caesar goes through fear and depression and then finally anger, and begins to organise his fellow captives. Read more
Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Ah, the American West. Is there any richer, more fertile setting for creating myths? This is the super-compost of the movie world, the stem-cell material of cinema. Surely anything can be planted here and grown into something spectacular. Read more
