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