Category: TIFF

The Fog Of War

The Fog Of War (USA, director Errol Morris): This was a very strong documentary focussing on the life of Robert McNamara, the Defence Secretary who served under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. McNamara, now 85 years of age, talks at length about his experiences and the lessons he has learned. His mind still razor-sharp, he admits that he made many mistakes in the “fog of war” and that he was responsible for many thousands of lives being lost. But he doesn’t really admit guilt. He talks about how he made the best decisions he could at the time, and how his advice often went unheeded. He and Johnson eventually disagreed so severely about policy on the Vietnam war that he either resigned or was fired. He says he can’t remember which it was, but that one of his friends always reminds him that of course, he was fired. I never got the feeling that he was trying to justify himself, and yet Morris is such a clever filmmaker that he leaves quite a bit of room to ask questions, even while painting a mostly sympathetic portrait of a very powerful man. A fascinating experience.

(9/10)

I Love Your Work

I Love Your Work (USA, director Adam Goldberg): Giovanni Ribisi is a movie star living what I hope is a caricature of a movie star’s life (although in Hollywood, there seems to be no such thing as a caricature). He’s becoming paranoid, seeing stalkers everywhere and suspecting his movie-star wife of infidelity (with Elvis Costello, no less). Then he meets a fan who seems so normal, and proceeds to screw up this man’s life, all the while descending into some sort of madness, and flashing back to a time in his life when he seemed to have normalcy and real love. This film is a bit of a mess, actually. Lots of flashbacks and movie stars portraying movie stars portraying movie stars. It got a bit too “meta” at times, and the narrative was muddled. There was also an ambiguity about the whole fame thing, which is not very new, and frankly, hard for an audience to sympathize with.

I love movies and hate the movie business. So, apparently, does Adam Goldberg. So how come I didn’t like this more?

(7/10)

P.S. I’ve always loved Goldberg. He’s always played sort of “sidekick” roles, first on the short-lived TV series Relativity, then on Friends.

P.P.S. Before the screening, I saw Giovanni Ribisi walking down the lineup filming the crowd with his camcorder. In addition to Ribisi and director Adam Goldberg, Franka Potente, Christina Ricci, and Shalom Harlow were also at the screening. Of course, after seeing the caustic way in which fans (and stars) are portrayed in the film, it would be just about impossible to say anything to any of them, even if you could get close.

Nói Albinói

Nói Albinói (Iceland/UK/Germany/Denmark, director Dagur Kári): Nói is an oddity in a land of oddities. He’s bright, but never in school, and his tiny remote town is boring him to death. All his attempts to escape seem to fail, and then a cruel twist of fate leaves him even more isolated than before. Clearly a bit autobiographical, this first feature contained some clever ’80s kitsch (Rubik’s Cube, MasterMind, ViewMaster) from the director’s own teen years. Though not particularly original, the film was well-made and filled with dark humour and some wonderful images (and not just of the “beautiful Iceland” variety, though it had those, too.) Nói shooting at huge icicles with a shotgun, and later, digging a grave in a snowstorm, were particularly arresting. I’d like to see what Dagur Kári will do next.

(7.5/10)

TIFF 2003: Final Schedule

Well, we spent from 9:30 until 2:00 today lining up to pick up our film tickets, and then submitting our second choices. I only got 9 of my 15 picks (Brooke got 10 of hers), so then we joined the second line to try to get tickets to whatever other films were available. Here is my revised schedule:

TIFF 2003: Early Picks

Last night, Paul and Brent came over to our place so that we could all make our choices for the Toronto International Film Festival which begins on September 4. This part of the process is always frantic. You have to mark your choices down in a printed schedule, which must be dropped off before 10am tomorrow. These schedules are placed into numbered boxes, and at 10am, one number is drawn out of a hat. This lucky box is the first to have its orders filled, and then the box whose number follows it, etc. Last year or the year before, we were in the box before the lucky box, meaning that our order was filled last. I think we got half of our choices. Regardless of how lucky you are, you almost never get all of your choices, which means last-minute scrambling to plug something into your schedule. It helps if it’s something you want to see, and of course it helps if there are tickets left by the time you’ve decided and then stood in line. So, it’s always an adventure.

Here are my preliminary picks. If I’m very lucky, I might get 13 or 14 of these:

Last night was such a blur that I’ve only just now realized how skewed my choices are toward American and British films, and documentaries. The good thing about not getting all your first choices is that some of your last-minute substitutions turn into the happy accidents that make that year’s festival memorable. So, no matter what happens, I’ll be seeing some great films in the next couple of weeks.