Robin D. Laws's Blog, page 27

TIFF16: Korean Noir Is Like Regular Noir, But Dark

Festival survival tip: somewhere in the middle, find a day to sleep in. Hence my mere three movie day on the second Thursday of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Asura: The City of Madness (South Korea, Sung-soo Kim, 4) Crooked cop gets squeezed between the maniacal mayor he serves and the ruthless special prosecutor intent on bringing him down. With its elaborate plotting, universal corruption, darker-than-noir worldview, and brutal violence, this is what James Ellroy would write if he suddenly turned Korean.

Actors were in attendance and as always it is delightful to bask in the excitement as members of the local Korean community react to the close proximity of their giant movie stars.

Never Ever (France, Benoit Jacquot, 4) After the film director husband she has only briefly known commits suicide, a performance artist holes up in their home and begins to take on his mannerisms. Quietly absorbing chamber piece about the way grieving is like living with a ghost. Based on Don Delillo’s The Body Artist.

The director and leading lady/screenwriter introduced the screening. The film rolled, revealing the first shot: a director and his leading lady introducing a screening.

Harmonium (Japan, Koji Fukada, 4) Man harboring a shameful secret invites an old friend (Tadanobu Asano) to live and work with him, without telling his wife that the man just got out of prison. Told in a low-key style that unsettlingly belies the extremity of its melodramatic subject matter.

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16: Inuit Searchers Remake

Two possibilities may pertain. Either I have been successful in backloading my schedule, so all the treats are yet to come. Or it is a slightly down year, at least for the titles that arrive without distribution—the ones I tend to pick. However, it isn’t 1988, the Year All the Sure Bets Disappointed. It might not even be 2007, The Year No One Had a Third Act. However, Wednesday the 14th is all unknown quantities or known risks, so things are about to get more suspenseful before the final solid days kick in. Let’s find out as we look at the movies I looked at on Wednesday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Indivisible (Italy, Edoardo de Angelis, 3.5) 18 year old conjoined twins whose parents parade them around as low-rent pop singers discover that they can be safely separated after all. Visually compelling neo-neorealism, with affecting star performances from leads Angela and Marianna Fortuna.

The big industry news this year is that a couple of key sales agents, most notably Fortissimo, have filed for bankruptcy. Sales agents form the layer between the filmmakers and distributors worldwide. They shepherd films into festivals like TIFF. With DVD sales giving way to streaming the chief chunk of their revenue has begun to evaporate. Streaming platforms like Netflix want to strike worldwide deals, which producers can do on their own without sales agents, who specialized in handling multiple territories. In the end this winds up, I think, with more access to films like those shown at TIFF, but in home theaters, not in art houses--which are also in trouble. In any cultural industry, hobby gaming included, the way products get sold to people affects what gets made. Streaming is a boon for film fans who don’t live near art houses. But what happens when no one does, because they don’t exist any more?

Or maybe Chinese investors will figure it out. Colossal, the Anne Hathaway kaiju flick reviewed earlier, got picked up for a lot of money by a putatively mysterious new Chinese company hoping to become a big player in North American film distribution.

Maliglutit (Searchers) (Canada, Zacharias Kunuk, 4) When outlaws kidnap his wife and daughter and kill his other male relatives, a hunter and his son muster their sled dogs for high Arctic pursuit. Transposes the very basic outlines of the John Ford classic to Inuit culture for a spare tale of crime, punishment  and endurance against a backdrop of unforgiving beauty.

Since the much-remade and homaged original was a Western, simple logic informs us that Maliglutit is a Northern. Because of its narrative economy and superior photography,  I like this even better than the director’s justly celebrated Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.

And just as you should know better than to mess with a family protected by John Wayne, this film reminds us that you should not mess with a family protected by a loon spirit.

The War Show (Denmark/Syria, Andreas Dalsgaard and Obaidah Zytoon, 4) Documentary follows young Syrian idealists from its Arab Spring protest movement to the devolution into various, successively worse stages of civil war. Keeps a human perspective on a conflict whose horror and intractability challenges one’s ability to engage.

The film shows how Syria follows a pattern also seen in Egypt: the region’s autocratic regimes view Islamists only as rivals, and democracy activists as the true enemy. Thus they abet the former and work to destroy the former.

Wulu (Senegal, Daouda Coulibaly, 3) Level-headed smuggler rises from courier to kingpin during the advent of large scale drug trafficking in 2000s West Africa. Senegalese counterpart to Narcos or Blow serves up some interesting region-specific detail before an ending so sudden and arbitrary that one suspects the filmmakers had to bail before completing principal photography.

Without Name (Ireland, Lorcan Finnegan, 2) Philandering surveyor succumbs to hallucinogenic madness in a remote wooded area. Stylish, but has so little story development that it would be overlong as the weak 20 minute middle segment of a horror anthology flick.

When the director referred to this in his introductory remarks, as a “slow burn” I thought, uh-oh. When used to refer to a TIFF horror film as a “slow burn” it generally translates to: “arty but lacks a third act.” Or in this case “lacks a second and a third act.”

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16: Munrodovar

There are no sure things at the Toronto International Film Festival, but let’s start Tuesday with a couple of sure things.

After the Storm (Japan, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, 4) Perpetually broke failing novelist sidelines as a private investigator and tries to be a better son and father and ex-husband. Well, kinda tries. Wry, beautifully portrayed family drama.

Julieta (Spain, Pedro Almodovar, 4) Woman recalls the tragic events that led her daughter to mysteriously break off all contact with her. Fuses three Alice Munro stories into a melodrama drenched in passion, menace, and color--qualities that no one but Almodovar would find in her material.

Santa & Andres (Cuba, Carlos Lechuga, 2) Village woman assigned to act as temporary minder to gay dissident writer develops a soft spot for him. Poky, underdeveloped political drama.

In the Radiant City (US, Rachel Lambert, 3.5) Man shut out by his family after testifying against his then-juvenile brother in a murder case returns twenty years later, when the sentence comes up for review. Though the script of this hard-drinking Americana piece hooks a bigger fish than it can quite land, the visual sense, scene building and work with actors marks the director as a name to watch.

Yourself and Yours (South Korea, Hong Sang-soo, 2.5) Artist wrecks his relationship with his fiancée by accusing her of lying about her drinking--a situation that arises either out of mistaken identity, or shifting identity. Lacks the layer of comedy and/or melancholy that usually lifts Hong’s very similar films above mere formal gamesmanship.

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16: Daguerreotype Ghosts and Fetal Psychokiller Syndrome

Hey it took till Monday at the Toronto International Film Festival to hit my first five-movie day. Must be pacing myself or something.

Daguerreotype (France/Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 4) Young man’s new job as assistant to a truculent photographer who makes large-format daguerreotype portraits of his winsome daughter draws him into a household of ghosts and subjective realities. Kurosawa seamlessly translates his trademark decay and subtle unease to a French cast and setting.

Kurosawa prefers to shoot on found locations, the grungier and more industrial the better. Places anyone else’s production designer would deem too gnarly to photograph lend verisimilitude to the supernatural or surreal sequences of his films. When I heard his new film was produced in France I was wondering how much he’d be able to ugly up the joint. Well, despite the challenges he does his best.

Tramps (US, Adam Leon, 3.5) Boy meets girl, boy screws up criminal bag drop with girl, boy and girl try to get bag back. Before Sunrise riff showcases charm of its two leads--Grace van Patten in particular has “future movie star” written all over her.

Happiest Day in Life of Olli Maki (Finland, Juho Kuosmanen, 4) Finns pin their hopes on a featherweight contender who is more interested in remaining a small town mensch in love with his girlfriend than coping with the pressure put on him by his ex-fighter manager. Reverses the emotional polarity of the boxing bio: here you’re rooting for the hero to escape the dread fate of championship glory.

Prevenge (UK, Alice Lowe, 3.5) Woman goes on revenge kill spree, egged on by the sinister voice of her unborn child. The premise is doing most of the work in this ultra-dark comedy of female rage, shot when the director/writer/lead was 7 ½ months pregnant.

Frantz (France, Francois Ozon, 4) After WWI a French soldier travels to Germany to seek out the family and fiancee of his German best friend, who died in the trenches—or is that the real story? Restrained period melodrama evokes the high style of studio Hollywood, with particular touches of William Wyler and Alfred Hitchcock.

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16: Spaghetti Western Tibetan Buddhist Heroquest

Clement weather descends on the city as the first Sunday of the Toronto International Film Festivals opens a fresh box of duds and treasures. Let’s see what I picked, shall we?

Planetarium (France, Rebecca Zlotowski,2.5) In late 30s France, American sisters (Natalie Portman, Lily-Rose Depp) who perform as mediums join a studio head’s effort to film ghostly presences. Glossy period drama shows that when your script fails to create a strong drive for its protagonist, it is a paper bag that not even Natalie Portman can act her way out of.

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (US, Dash Shaw, 3.5) Uncool kids struggle to survive when a quake causes their entire high school to...well you get the idea. Animated feature drawn to look like the doodles in the back of a misanthropic teen’s geometry notebook. Voice talent includes Jason Schwartzman, Maya Rudolph, Reggie Watts, Lena Dunham and Susan Sarandon.

Guilty Men (Colombia, Iván D. Gaona, 4) When a political deal leads to the national demobilization of paramilitaries, the Farmers charged with delivering extortion money to one local group is left holding a dangerous bag. Slow burn contemporary Western with a trenchant Latin American twist.

Soul on a String (China, Zhang Yang, 5) Outlaw resurrected by lama must transport a sacred stone to a holy site. Tibetan heroquest draws on Ford and Leone as it drops the viewer into one staggeringly beautiful vista after another.

Capsule review boilerplate:Ratings are out of 5.  I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16: Kaiju Problems

Rained on, broiled, steamed, chilled, ketchup-spattered...I must be at the Toronto film fest, and these must be the films I saw on September 10th.

Colossal (Canada, Nacho Vigalondo, 4) After returning to her hometown to regroup, a hard-drinking ex-journalist (Anne Hathaway) discovers a link between her actions and the kaiju attacking Seoul, half a world away. Vigalondo delivers another delightful genre smush-up with this character-driven comedy/drama/monster piece. With Tim Blake Nelson and Jason Sudeikis, who gets to do a turn we haven't seen from him before.

The Red Turtle (France / Belgium / Japan,  Michael Dudok de Wit, 3.5) Island castaway lashes out at sea turtle that thwarts his raft escape plans, only to see it transform into a woman. Wordless animated feature visually references Herge and Moebius, shows that in a world of mortality, beauty and sadness are just two sides of the same experience. From Studio Ghibli.

Just Not Married (Nigeria, Uduak-Obong Patrick, 2) Ambitious student with ex-con brother and mom who needs medicine hatches scheme to get through police checkpoints with stolen cars by posing dressing himself and an accomplice as a just married bride and groom. There's a big desire on the part of fest programmers and cinema fans for the rough-and-ready Nollywood scene to yield titles that stand with the best of the developing world. Judging from this entry in this year’s TIFF spotlight on Lagos, we’re kinda rushing them.

The Oath (Iceland, Baltasar Kormákur, 4) When his daughter’s drug dealer boyfriend threatens his family, a driven cardiologist (Kormákur) demonstrates a very surgical set of skills. Spurns the exploitation roots of the vigilante genre, placing its realistic action in a moral universe where transgressions incur consequences.

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

TIFF16 First Friday: Saint Jane

 Capsule reviews and commentary from films seen Friday Sept 9th at the Toronto International Film Festival:

Citizen Jane: Battle For the City (US, Matt Tyrnauer, 4.5) Documentary recounts the David and Goliath throwdown between writer Jane Jacobs’ vision of a vibrant, street focused city took on Robert Moses’ modernist urban renewalism and its mania for towering housing projects and downtown expressways. Magisterially presents a web of information and ideas as a gripping conflict with real emotional stakes.

This jumps into the “Robin is disportionately moved by a documentary” slot inaugurated last year by Hitchcock/Truffaut. To contextualize this: if you are terrified of spiders, I am too, except cross out “spiders” and write “Toronto’s deliberately botched march to high-density condo development.” So what Arachnophobia was to you, this film is to me.

Toronto lets no city outdo its reverence for Jane Jacobs, After the events depicted in this film she moved here and led a fight against a colossally misconceived expressway proposal that would have cut the downtown in two. On her passing she transmigrated to the celestial spheres to become our patron saint of liveable urbanism. So a sequel might be titled Citizen Jane: the Spadina Reckoning.

This world premiere screening unspooled* not only in the neighborhood Jacobs lived in and saved, but in her local movie house. Though what she might make of its transformation from scrappy rep house The Bloor to high-falutin’, sightline-obstructed Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema might best be left to the imagination. Or we can ask her when a ritual summoning brings her back to smite John Tory and teaches today's activists the importance of putting on a good show.

When the film lacks archival audio for a quote from the high-handed Robert Moses, it turns to Vincent D’onofrio for a voice-over. I don’t know if director Matt Tyrnauer is a fan of the “Daredevil” TV show, but hearing D’onofrio step assume another urban renewalist antagonist role does add a certain piquancy.

The Empty Box (Mexico, Claudia Sainte-Luce, 4) Aspiring playwright) pieces together moments from the life of her distant father (Jimmy Jean-Louis) after he is stricken with dementia. Perfectly modulated drama, drawn from the experience of director/writer/lead actress Sainte-Luce, never strikes a note too hard.

The cast was present at the screening, include Jimmy Jean-Louis, whose nerdcentric credits include playing the Haitian on “Heroes.”

Pyromaniac (Norway,  Erik Skjoldbjærg, 4) Young volunteer fireman goes on an arson spree. True crime character study fosters a strong sense of authenticity as it looks at how isolating it can be to live in a small town where everyone knows everyone and you can never quite bring off a social interaction.

*Yeah yeah I know few films unspool these days. But “spat ones and zeroes” just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

#TIFF16: It Begins… Again

That time of year has come again. On the first Thursday after Labor Day, the Toronto International Film Festival launches with a narrow selection of evening screenings. Like every year the newly introduced elements in the festival’s system--this time bar code readers for theater  entry--reveal a gap between planning and execution. The much-needed up escalator in the Scotiabank Theater has broken down a week ahead of schedule, they’ve forgotten how much AC they need when the place is packed to the gills, cell phone screens are lighting up in mid-film and it doesn't matter because we’re here to celebrate the love of cinema. Or at least survive for the next movie-packed eleven days. As usual I’ll be serving up capsule reviews and stray observations from each day’s experience. So join me in glaring back at that seat-kicker and strap in for a bumpy ride.

Mad World (HK, Wong Chun. 3) Hospital releases bipolar man to the care of his estranged truck driver father, who struggles to keep up with  his needs. A showcase performance by stalwart Hong Kong actor Eric Tsang as the father adds dimension to this downbeat melodrama.

Heaven Will Wait (France, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, 4) Interwoven narratives show two French girls at different stages of being lured, via cult-style social media recruitment, to Syria to be given to ISIL soldiers—one being indoctrinated, the other, deprogrammed. Fragmented storytelling techniques lend texture to what might otherwise be a standard-issue social problem film.

Capsule review boilerplate: Ratings are out of 5. I’ll be collecting these reviews in order of preference in a master post the Monday after the fest. Films shown on the festival circuit will appear in theaters, disc and/or streaming over the next year plus. If you’ve heard of a film showing at TIFF, I’m probably waiting to see it during its upcoming conventional release, instead favoring choices that don’t have distribution and might not reappear.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: It’s Pronounced “Executive”

In the latest episode of our triple-ENnie-winning podcast, Ken and I talk 3-act structure, Markus Wolf, Ars Magica GUMSHOE with Jeff Tidball, and Stranger Things.

Game Freelancer Escapes Sinister Chrono-Double, but Pelgrane Peeps Remain Affected

Oh no! In an attempt to mark the pre-order for TimeWatch, their new GUMSHOE game of temporal interference, Pelgrane Press inadvertently opened up a hole in reality allowing their evil counterparts from the darkest histories to come through.

These vile miscreants hail from an alternate timeline in which the entire run of the TimeWatch RPG was washed overboard during shipping. This catastrophe sent Simon and Cat over the edge into bottomless rage and nihilism, and Pelgrane Press became the most evil games company in the world. Now, the ruthless Evil Pelgrane works to undermine our timeline and ensure that their terrifying future comes to pass!

Only you can knit together the timelines by going to the above link and voting for either Evil Pelgrane, in which case the upcoming TimeWatch Resource Book will include a Time Crime heist against a Spanish treasure ship, or Good Pelgrane, instead endowing it with an adventure seed and illustration featuring TimeWatch members battling robot pirates.

Why only just now I fought off my own time counterpart, vanquishing him forever. (Pictured above.) Thank goodness, because my annual journey to the Toronto International Film Festival starts tomorrow, and it would be weird to be posting my capsule reviews under an evil profile pic. Plus there’s no way I’m letting a lizard person purloin my festival tickets!

Other Pelgranes, however, still remain woefully affected, as can be seen from their use of the hashtag #evilPelgrane.

Only you can save them!