Chlotrudis news

Sadly, Friday finally came, and with it our last day of films. We extended our trip two days precisely so we could see a certain film on Friday night. Before that, however, we saw the Short Cuts 3 program, one of several collections of Canadian short films screened by the festival. This collection entitled, “The Making Of…” was of particular interest to us because is featured two shorts by none other than Don McKellar. His pair of films, “Phone Call from Imaginary Girlfriend: Ankara” and “Phone Call from Imaginary Girlfriend: Instabul” were commissioned by a cell phone company in Canada, and shot on cell phone. They are oddly funny and moving at the same time, something Don is adept at capturing. The rest of the shorts were mostly unsatisfying, with only two others being worthy of the Chlotrudis Short Film Festival: “Troll Concerto” and “At the Quinte Hotel.” We followed up the shorts with a quick trip to the Japan Foundation Toronto for their exhibition, Monstrous Visions: Horror and Destruction in Japanese Films. This exhibit of Japanese anime, horror and monster movie posters was a draw because it naturally featured posters of Godzilla and Mothra! Our afternoon film was from Russia and was called BED STORIES.

It was all a build-up to the evening screening of Tsai Ming-Liang’s THE WAYWARD CLOUD, of course, and we were rewarded not only with a personal appearance by the director, but by lead actor Lee Kang-sheng as well! Ned had sent a warning to me through Russ the night before that the film took a surprising turn toward the ending making Ned very angry. I wasn’t terribly concerned: this was Tsai Ming-Liang we were talking about. Still, I have to admit, days later, the ending of THE WAYWARD CLOUD is still haunting me unplesantly. It’s a strong film, powerfully done, with many of Tsai’s hallmarks: scant dialogue, static cameras, absurd humor, gorgeous musical numbers. It is also about a porn star and has several fairly explicit sex scenes. Most surprising is the shocking switch in tone from light-hearted and fun to ugly and disturbing. Like Michael Haneke’s CACHE, this film has me pondering the motivations of the director to present the story the way he did, although that doesn’t take away from my appreciation for it. After the film I considered asking Tsai about his decision during the Q&A, but once again, as with THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE, the audience hurled imbecilic questions at Lee Kang-sheng about what it was like to play the explicit scenes, etc. It was rather surreal to see Lee Kang-sheng standing up there on stage as he looked exactly as he does on screen in his many Tsai Ming-Liang films.

We wrapped the festival with something different, a rock and roll concert! More on that later today.

What a delight to have all our tickets for Thursday and Friday’s films. That means no one had to get up at the crack of dawn to go to the box office! That was particularly important on Thursday because we had tickets for a midnight show of Takashi Miike’s THE GREAT YOKAI WAR. In preparation, Scot and I spent the morning asleep. I didn’t stir until nearly 11:30 a.m., a testament to the long hours I had been keeping the preceding days.

Our first film wasn’t until 3:00 p.m., and I was having trouble mustering much excitement for it. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be one of the high points of the festival for me! Mark Dornford-May’s U-CARMEN EKHAYELITSHA was a stunning, modern, South African retelling of Bizet’s “Carmen.” Dornford-May had already directed the Dimpho Di Kopane lyric theatre company in a stage version of “Carmen,” but his realization on screen truly captures the incredible power of opera. Lead actress Pauline Malefane embodies the Carmen character so completely, vocally, visually, and through her acting, that I can’t imagine a better person to play her. The sheer emotion her singing evoked in me had me close to tears. It was delightful to see her with the director to introduce the film, but I would have had a much finer appreciation for her presence had I known what she was capable of!

Of course, for sheer entertainment value, the high point of the festival came at Thursday night, 8:30 p.m. Several Chlotrudis members had already been privvy to the joys of Nobuhiro Yamashita’s LINDA LINDA LINDA. What could be better than four Asian high school girls in uniform with electric guitars? Set in Japan, the film stars Korean actress Bae Doona, so good in TAKE CARE OF MY CAT, in a hilarious role that had me breathless with laughter. And if I can’t get that catchy tune out of my head, I honestly won’t be all that upset. Indie music fans take note, James Iha wrote the score.

We finished the night with something unexpected, a Takashi Miike film marketed to kids in Japan. If I saw THE GREAT YOKAI WAR when I was a kid, I definitely would have had a nightmare or three! Gotta say, I don’t think kids and Miike make a good fit. I would have enjoyed this film more without the children’s film conventions, but the freaky images were certainly a lot of fun.

Stay tuned for the report on our last day!

I fell behind during the last few days of the festival, but I will do my best to catch up in the next day or so. Wednesday’s high point was catching Atom Egoyan’s WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, a film by my favorite director that has been plagued since its screening at Cannes by the ratings board here in North America. It has received an NC-17 rating for some explicit thrusting during a threesome involving two men and a woman. The film is based on a murder mystery novel by Rupert Holmes (of “The Piña Colada Song” fame), and revolves around a 1950’s comedy duo a la Lewis and Martin, here played by Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. This was clearly meant to be Egoyan’s breakout film only to be hampered by the ratings issue. It was my pleasure to see Atom in person for the first time, and was thrilled to find him as intelligent, articulate, and personable as I’d hoped. He discussed his most recent bout with the Ratings Board after cutting to try to receive an “R” rating. When he went to the final hearing, there were two additional people there. When he asked who they were, he was told that there was nothing to worry about, they were just members of the clergy. Atom commented sarcastically that he was told that it had nothing to do with the homosexuality in the film. Ha! Such a double-standard in the movies. Atom’s latest film has been receiving widely different reactions from critics, but I’m pleased to report that I loved it.

The day wrapped with another anticipated film, THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE, Mary Harron’s follow-up to AMERICAN PSYCHO. The screenplay was once-again co-written by Harron and Guinevere Turner (for which they won a Chlotrudis Award for best adapted screenplay). Turner was originally slated to play Page, but the film was made with Gretchen Mol in the starring role, the reason for which I have never found. In the photo on the left, Mary Harron answers questions along with three producers (Christine Vachon being one) and Gretchen Mol. The film itself is a little disappointing; perfectly well-done, but it turns out that Page’s life wasn’t all that interesting other than the fact that she posed for pictures in bondage gear. THere was little dramatic arc to propel the film forward. The Q&A was somewhat painful, with some buffoons asking ridiculous questions of Mol clearly fishing for some revelation about playing such a sex-themed characters.

There’s a lost day in here somewhere, so I will try to play a little catch-up this morning. Tuesday was a mediocre film day. I saw three films, and the first two were solid “3-out-of-5’s”. At least the final film of the day managed to eke out a 4 rating. That film was Robin Neinstein’s SOUVENIR OF CANADA. Based on a non-fiction work of the same title by Douglas Coupland, this film seeks to explain, or highlight all the things that make Canada uniquely Canadian? Could there be a better film for me, the uncloseted Canadaphile? While the film turned out to be more of an essay about Douglas Coupland and his projects, with a substantial amount of Canadiana thrown in, it was still very skillfully done in a bright, upbeat tone. Pictured left are filmmaker Robin Neinstein and a couple of the films producers.

The face of the Chlotrudis group started to change slightly on Tuesday. Marilyn and Amanda had already left on Sunday evening, and Emily & Greg departed on Monday. Mary left today after joining me and Scot for lunch at Zelda’s. Jane Ford joined us rather unexpectedly for a one-day stint overnight on Tuesday. It’s been so much fun seeing all the various Chlotrudis members enjoying the grand dame of Film Festivals here in Toronto! I will try to post about Wednesday soon, but I’ve got to get ready for a long Thursday.

Monday was a good day for celebrities. After seeing a pair of good movies, (SORRY, HATERS and Michael Haneke’s CACHE) I joined Chris for the splashy screening of Bart Freundlich’s TRUST THE MAN. This star-studded film was rather disappointing considering how much I enjoyed Freundlich’s first feature, THE MYTH OF FINGERPRINTS, but we did enjoy a good bit of celebrity sighting. In addition to Freudlich, the cast was in attendance and I was thrilled to finally see Julianne Moore in the flesh! She was, of course, incredibly beautiful. Also there were David Duchovny, Maggie Gyllenhaal (and her date, brother Jake), Billy Crudup and Ellen Barkin. Pretty exciting. Too bad the film didn’t match.

From there we caught the much-anticipated new film from Daniel MacIvor, A WHOLE NEW THING, which he stars in and co-wrote. Director Amnon Buchbinder introduced the film and brought the cast on stage, including Daniel, Aaron Webber, Hugh Thompson and Kathryn McLellan. Also present were producers Camelia Frieberg and Kelly Bray. The film was beautifully written (natch) with terrific performances from young lead Webber, Daniel, Rebecca Jenkins, Robert Jay and Callum Keith Rennie). It was also exciting to spy Don McKellar and Tracy Wright in the audience during the Q&A.

After the screening, Daniel greeted us and invited us to the film’s special party at The Super Market in Kensington. We jumped on that idea… a party of Canadian film people? But first, we met Mary and Diane at Flow, one of the very trendy late night Festival haunts for a drink and a nibble. Immediately upon entering the restaurant, Beth spied Freddy Rodriguez, who plays Federico on “Six Feet Under.” Of course we were right next to the Four Seasons, so no surprise there. Later Scot and I were out for a cigarette break when we met the enthusiastic Jess who informed us that “Requiem” Phoenix was also here. I deduced that she must mean Joaquim, and she confirmed that. Still, Requiem Phoenix has a nice ring to it.

Anyway, we hopped into a cab and headed down to the Kensington Market area of Toronto, which is where “Twitch City” was filmed. There we found the party starting to wind down, but we still got a chance to chat with Daniel. Don McKellar was also there, as were the director and a couple of cast members from WHOLE NEW THING. I was also able to say hello and thank Camelia Frieber for the all the help she has provided with our screening of WILBY WONDERFUL earlier this year. We dragged ourselves back to the B&B to wrap up a fun and tiring evening.

Whenever Diane comes to Toronto, we like to celebrate her birthday which falls on September 10. After a cursory search of some good place to enjoy a Sunday brunch, we ended up back at Sassafraz. Most places were inconvenient location-wise, or closed on Sundays! We took Diane to Sassafraz for her birthday in 2001, and hated to make a return engagement, but at least they do a nice brunch. Of course, not even at Diane’s brunch can we escape the Film Festival as witnessed by this photo of Diane and Chris poring over the film schedule before ordering. As I mentioned the brunch at Sassafraz is delicious, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. I have to make special note of this delectable desert that Diane and Scot ordered. Everything on that plate is edible, including the little candy star.

More festival antics ensued at Sassafraz as Scot and Diane take a moment to recreate a scene from the ubiquitous TIFF promo that screens before every film. This year’s is particularly bad, and I often wonder if the people responsible for selecting the promo stop to think that many people will be seeing this brief clip a couple dozen times in a short span of time?

From Diane’s brunch, we forged out on our day of film, which culminated for four of us with the second of the highly anticipated Canadian films, this one being Sean Garrity’s LUCID. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite live up to our expectations. Pictured right is Sean Garrity, the film’s director and the cast. We did enjoy our first celebrity sighting as Paul Gross (WILBY WONDERFUL, “Slings & Arrows”) and his wife Martha Burns (“Slings & Arrows”) watched the film in the row in front of us.

You know the film festival has kicked into high gear when Marilyn comes to town. Phil’s mom arrived with her friends Pat (left) and Midge (Phil’s high school drama teacher) in tow to see her son’s jaw-dropping starring performance in CAPOTE. We all agreed that CAPOTE is a terrific film, with a complex, well-crafted screenplay, and performances that can’t be beat, particularly from Hoffman and his co-star Catherine Keener (as Harper Lee.)

Saturday evening we hooked up with Kish (center, with friend Glen and Chlotrudis Board Member Beth Curran), Ellen Page’s agent, for a delightful night of good Southern-style food and drink. Kish introduced us to a new Toronto restaurant called Big Momma’s Boys, recently opened by a friend of his. Kish is one of the sweetest and generous guys we’ve met; so counter to the typical stereotype of the Hollywood agent. Marilyn and her posse joined us for the festivities. Arriving in style with their car and driver, Gabriel, Marilyn quickly took court and regaled us with her wonderful stories, such as meeting Jack Nicholson at Cannes a few years ago. Scot and Midge hit it off very well discussing drama and theare, while Pat and Kish’s friend Paul gabbed about real estate. Two more of Kish’s friends, Alex, a filmmaker, and Glen, a dancer, joined us for the later part of the evening and let me tell you, it was a lot more fun than the rather sedate Sarah Silverman party we went to on Friday night. Of course, any party with Marilyn in attendance is bound to be lively.

One side note on a film from Friday. I must report that I was disappointed with Thom Fitzgerald’s epic 3 NEEDLES. I am a big fan of Fitzgerald’s work, and 3 NEEDLES is clearly and labor of love for him, spanning three continents and tackling the AIDS virus with all its politics, but I think he overreached on this one, spending a little too much time on sweeping African and Chinese vistas, while skimping on the personal story. We did get to see Thom introduce the film. Thom is pictured on the left with stars Sevigny, Shawn Ashmore, and Sook Yin Lee. The film also features Olympia Dukakis, Stockard Channing, and Sandra Oh.

More soon…

It’s so nice to see that year after year, the system we use to get our tickets is so reliable. For out-of-towners, one way to get tickets for Toronto is to buy them in advance through the lottery system. Some of our members do this, but I’ve never bothered due to the exorbitant cost. It’s true, upon arrival at the box office on Day One, a large percentage of the films we want to see are marked “rush only.” Those of you who know me know that I don’t “rush.” (Photos show the extremely helpful ticketboard. Shows marked in red are designated “Rush Only”.) However every morning when the box office opens, tickets for nearly every film are released for day of sale. .”)The hardship with this method is the necessity to be at the box office when it opens at 7 a.m., and even better, about 45 – 60 minutes before it opens! Fortunately, I love to get up early and hit the box office when I’m Toronto. It gives me such a feeling of satisfaction, and we almost always get the tickets we want.

Today our target was Thom Fitzgerald’s 3 NEEDLES. There is always some anxiety surrounding the Canadian films as they often sell out quickly, and 3 NEEDLES was not listed as a “best bet” on the festival website. However, there was no problem at all getting the three tickets we needed. I felt very satisfied to see our system working once again.

We caught a French film, DOUCHES FROIDES last night, and I was pretty underwhelmed. Things could only go up from there, and up they did go with the first film for today, SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC. I’ll be doing formal reviews at a later date, but Sarah’s edgy humor kept the audience laughing.

Tonight we are going to the first party of our TIFF career, in celebration of Sarah Silverman’s movie! We’ve never been invited to parties before, and this year we received two invites (we also received a invitation to THE SQUID & THE WHALE party). I still don’t know how we got on the list, but I suspect, at least for the Sarah Silverman party, Eric D’Arbeloff has something to do with it. He produced Sarah’s film (he also produced WALK ON WATER and LADIES IN LAVENDAR, in addition to Nicole Holofcener’s films) and we have had several e-mail correspodences over the years but have only met briefly. I may find out tonight and will have to thank him if that’s the case!

Chris has arrived in Toronto, and I will be meeting him in a few moments for SHANGHAI DREAMS, the latest film by the director of BEIJING BICYCLE. Meanwhile, Scot is seeing LIZA WITH A Z, with Liza Minnelli herself in person at the screening! How wild is that?

Okay, Chris just called, he’s in line! Gotta go. More later…