Kudos to Cibeles and Madrid Fashion Week.

How many ways can we say Ole! Barcelona fashion organizers at Pasarela Cibeles marked a milestone this past week by announcing that it will no longer allow uber-skinny models to grace their catwalks after 22 year old waif Luisel Ramos dropped dead this past summer from heart failure due to starvation. Any model whose BMI (Body Mass Index) weighs in below 'healthy' (18 on the BMI) will be barred from perpetuating first world hunger at all Cibeles collections. Madrid Fashion Week quickly reciprocated and there is pressure from British Culture Minister Tessa Jowell to encourage London, Paris, Milan, and New York to follow 'suit'. A word of advice to all runway models: Eat!
http://www.cibeles.ifema.es/ferias/cibeles/default_i.html

More TIFF flicks

Chilling to Miles Davis and updating and uploading...

Paris Je T'aime
The last film of the festival was parfait. Its own mini-festival all rolled up into one, Paris Je T'aime is comprised of 21 shorts all named for different hoods around the City of Lights. Wes Craven, Joel and Ethan Coen, Walter Salles, Isabel Coixet, Alexander Payne, Gus Van Sant and many more each convey a thin slice, of mostly bourgeois Parisian life. Highlights include Catalina Sandino Moreno as a nanny singing over the crib of her petit maitre and Alexander Payne as Oscar Wilde at his tombstone in Pere LaChaise. Solid performances by Gena Rowlands, Fanny Ardant, Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, Nick Nolte, Willem Dafoe, Natalie Portman etc. Loses one star on account of Canadian Vincenzo Natali's crappy vampire scene with Elijah Wood. ****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=224

Kabul Express
The Elgin met Bollywood royalty as hundreds of South Asians lined Yonge St. to catch a glimpse of Hindi heartthrobs John Abraham and Arshad Warsi. Directed by Kabir Khan and filmed on location in Afghanistan, this road-flick about two Indian journalists who (along with their Pashtu driver) chase the Taliban shortly after September 11, 2001. Shy of Mullah Omar or Osama Bin Laden, they get more than they bargained in interview material. Given the severity of the subject matter, this film is not at all what I thought it would be. Khan touches the tremendous sadness and humour with expert ebb and flow. Loosely based on Khan's experiences with his friend Rajan Kapoor in Kabul, the cast and crew endured real-life clashes and kidnappings from the Taliban that earned the director 60 armed Afghani guards and cost the life of one of his crew members. Shot in Hindi, English, and Urdu Kabul Express is guaranteed to touch.****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=167

Golden Door
Emanuele Crialese's story of the toil and filth of Sicilian immigrants at the turn of the last century brought me back to my roots. Sorry folks, The Godfathers and Cinema Paradisos of this world DO NOT convey the filth and misery that brought scores of my people to the New World the way Crialese does it here. With the exception of a few symbolic phrases in English, the picture is filmed entirely in Sicilian. Bravo Emanuele! I'd love to know where he dug up his talent. Charlotte Gainsbourg does a commendable job as the desirable Signorina Beatrice and Vincenzo Amato's Salvatore will break your heart. ****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=132


Snow Cake
British filmmaker Marc Evans salutes Wawa, Ontario in this story about lonely ex-con Alex,(Alan Rickman) who picks up hitchhiker Vivienne (Emily Hampshire) en route to Wawa. When their car is smashed to smithereens by a careless truck driver, Alex visits Vivienne's autistic snow-eating mother Linda (Sigourney Weaver) to deliver the trinkets Viv had purchased for her at the last pitstop. Alex stays to help plan Vivienne's funeral on account of Linda's garbage paranoia and as well as his fondness for Maggie (Carrie Ann Moss) Linda's sexy neighbour. Nice try Sigourney but having worked with a number of subjects on the Austism spectrum, Weaver is unconvincing. And although I agree that there needs to be another film to dispel the skewed Rain Man and I am Sam precedents, save this one for video. ***
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=280





p.s. We would have liked to have seen Rickman but he too busy with a play in the motherland to bother with a premier in some colonial backwater of the kingdom. This shot I got of her is very very dark on account of the camera I had to borrow from work given that Antonio 'forgot' our Pentax somewhere between the windmills of La Mancha and Pearson International Airport.


Radiant City
We were expecting a documentary on life in the Calgary suburbs. What we got was a botch job of 'real life people who live in the suburbs' hired by directors Gary Burns and Jim Brown to play out a bogus narrative loaded with cliches (ie. Littleton types who play with rifles) and annoying community theatre antics. Puh-leeze! We skipped out on the Q&A because it was pointless. I know a few folks who could stand to learn a few lessons from Radiant City including the 13th invisible commandment when signing the deed on a 'value driven' property in the burbs. 'Thou shalt purchase one vehicle per adult.' **
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=245

The Fountain

Hugh Jackman is very sexy. Rachel Weisz is stunning in her new mama's glow but try as he might her paramour Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Pi) could not make this fountain spout. Ugh. If I saw one more star explode I thought I would lose my mind! Part historical fiction set in the Spanish Inquisition (Weisz plays Queen Isabella to Jackman's conquistador) part modern day (Weisz=cancer patient, Jackman=surgeon) part science fiction (a bald and yogic Jackman lives on a star in a bubble with a baobab). Aronofsky's cinematic nod to Ste. Exupery and the Inquisition gives Ellen Burstyn star billing (she's in it for 5 minutes) and fails over and over. **
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=126

Catch a Fire

Catch a Fire
Austrailian director Philip Noyce's(Clear and Present Danger, Dead Calm) cast Derek Luke in this solid adaptation of the life of Patrick Chamusso, an a-political coal worker in 1980's South Africa. Tim Robbins plays despicable anti-terrorist agent Nic Vos who accuses Chamusso of bombing the refinery. If Chamusso was not a 'terrorist' at the beginning of the film, the torture of his wife (Bonnie Henna) and friends makes him one. He joins the resistance movement and is jailed on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela only to be released when apartheid fell and all political prisoners were freed. The real life Chamusso received a standing ovation from the balcony. Solid performances by Derek Luke and Bonnie Henna. Filmed in Jo-burg. ****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=71

Les Etoiles!

Emma Thompson, Will Farrell, and director Marc Forster at the World Premiere of Stranger than Fiction.

Stranger than Fiction

Stranger than Fiction
Will Farrell does a spectacular job as comic/tragic IRS agent Harold Crick who is the protagonist in Karen Eiffel's (Emma Thompson) new novel. Harold hears the voice of Eiffel's narrator chronicle the mundane details of his non-descript life until the day Eiffel announces his untimely death. Lucky for Harold, Eiffel is experiencing writer's block and with the help of publishing assistant, Penny (Queen Latifah). Once he has deduced that he is not schizophrenic Harold seeks the advice of literature professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman) who guides him through the conventions of comedy and tragedy thereby igniting Harold's passion for his tax-evading client baker Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Swiss director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) and Dustin Hoffman (he shook my hand and complimented me on my hair) are as adorable as their movie. *****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=285

TIFF 2006 Comes to an End!

Waaaaaaa. And so, as the cliche goes, all good things must come to an end, another festival has come and gone.

Brand Upon the Brain

Guy Maddin's shot at avante garde, leaves me out in the freeeeezing cold. Sorry Piers, I fail to see where this man continues to monopolize prime screening times in the 'beautiful and historic Elgin Theatre'. But for the FOLEY team, whose sound effects saved this sinking Titanic, (ie. crushing celery sticks to simulate skull fractures during a lobotomy or devouring oranges for the fleshy sounds of Mother Vampire's bloodthirst) Brand Upon the Brain has a left an indellible strain upon this brain. *

http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=57

The Wind that Shakes the Barley

Still high on its Palme d'Or win at Cannes, Ken Loach's heartbreaking tale of the early beginnings of the IRA in 1920's Ireland. Move over Jonathn Rys-Myers, newcomer Cillian Murphy is my new Irish crush and Oscar buzzes in his stellar performance as Damian Donovan, a doctor who leaves behind a promising career in a London hospital to join his brother Patrick and other boyhood friends in their Republican cause. Overwhelming, enfuriatingly, tragic, I sobbed through to the end. The highlight of this year's festival. *****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=344

TIFF Marathon Has Begun!

Welcome to the first day of my blog. Inspired by my dear friend haikugirl, I thought I would mark Monday September 11th 2006, with a synopsis of my 9th year at the Toronto International Film Festival and thinking of my fellow film lovers on this tragic day. Today was an outstanding day in the life of one overworked school teacher. I started the day at 7.35am in my dentist's chair and then sprinted to Ryerson to meet my filmfest pal Pavlina where we chatted with some charming American folk.

All the King´s Men
Solid performance by Sean Penn, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law, and Mark (be still my beating heart) Ruffalo. The rest of the supporting cast (James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet) were weak and forgot their accents (Deep South Louisiana) about midway through the picture. ***
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=17

For Your Consideration
A howl and a hoot by Christopher Guest and an ensemble of talent composed of Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, Fred Willard that spoofs Hollywood and tarnishes the tinsel in their town. O'Hara's botox face steals the show! The entire cast was there after the film for a rare Qand A. *****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=125

10 Items or Less
After a quickie Thai lunch at Salad King with our festival posee (Joe, Chris, Anne, Sean) in from D.C. we sprinted to 10 Items or Less starring a surprisingly tall Morgan Freeman and Sevilla stunner Paz Vega. Managed to shake Morgan´s hand on his entrance and was close enough to Paz to 1) tell her she looked 'muy guapa' following her press questioning by Canal+ 2) ask her if she is Andaluza while the credits rolled and 3) get her to sign my programme while Antonio bestowed his Felicidades. ****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=2


The Namesake
At 6pm, my fourth film of the day, Mary Margaret and I were touched by the lovely Mira Nair (Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, Salaam Bomba, Vanity Fair). Filmed in Calcutta and New York it was a tad too long for me (ie. jogging segments through the streets of Calcutta were gratuitous and did nothing for plot development) and Kal Penn delivered most of his lines deadpan. Nonetheless stunning images of India and a must see for all children of immigrants. ****
http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2006/films_schedules/films_description.asp?id=204