Toronto Int'l Film Fest '14 Preview

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 02 September 2014 14:50

Written by Eric Lurio

The opening press conference of the 2014 Toronto Film Festival (Sept. 4th - 14th) was almost exactly what one would have expected. There was the food (coffee, juice and bagels). Then we went into the theater at the Bell Light Box on King Street in downtown Toronto where we heard sponsors being thanked and saw some trailers for movies that had been selected for the primary screenings.

There were the usual inane questions as to how many of the reporter’s countries films had been selected and so on. All pretty mundane stuff to be sure. Then someone asked about why they decided to only have “world premieres” during the first two weeks of the festival.

That got me interested. It seems that the people at TIFF had decided to declare a semantic war on the competition. This was a major zig in the festival’s modus operandi. After all, Toronto had made its reputation as “The festival of festivals” taking the best from everywhere and presenting it anew. What was this all about?

It’s the semantics that got me. Apparently, there were lots and lots of “North American” or “Canadian premieres” which meant that the films had been shown in runs or festivals in one of the other continents or down in the ‘States. No one has any problems with that. But apparently, some producers and directors had been touting their films as “World” premieres when they had actually been shown in Telluride or Bangkok or someplace equally obscure or foreign.

Apparently, TIFF decided that if anyone besides themselves and a few producers or friends had seen it before they’d put the film in the back of the line where people would be tired and may have already gone home.

Does this mean that if a film has had a “test screening” some place that it can’t have a real World Premier? Probably not, but the new policy does indeed diss a bunch of worthy foreign films that might deserve an early gala and the opportunities that come with it. It seems kind of petty.

Anyway. The early line up seems pretty good, and if we get credentials we’ll get into more detail of what’s coming up and what isn’t. In the meantime, we’ll let Toronto embarrass itself with the antics of its Mayor.

But I have digressed. The whole purpose of this event was for CEO and Director of the Toronto International Film Festival Piers Handling and Artistic Director Cameron Bailey to announce the first round of titles premiering in the Galas and Special Presentations programs of the 39th Toronto International Film Festival®, you know, to introduce some of the movies as the Oscar bait.
 
Since the 13 Galas and 46 Special Presentations weren’t all booked yet an initial lineup was announced, which includes 37 world premieres from directors including Noah Baumbach, Susanne Bier, David Dobkin, Philippe Falardeau, Mia Hansen-Løve, Ning Hao, François Ozon, Christian Petzold, Lone Scherfig and Chris Rock.
“Toronto can anticipate another remarkable lineup of films,” said Handling. “Cinema’s collective and transformative experience lives at the heart of our Festival — a sentiment that inspires the global dialogue rippling throughout the selections revealed today.”

“We can't wait to present the new films from some of cinema's brightest talents,” added Bailey. “This year we'll welcome filmmakers from France, Germany, China, the UK, the US and more to red carpets in Toronto.”

And with that, they showed us the “sizzle reel” a bunch of trailers giving us previews of coming attractions:

• Black and White
  Mike Binder
  USA World Premiere
  Black and White is the story of a widowed grandfather who is left to raise his bi-racial granddaughter, and the fight with the kid’s other living grandparent over custudy. Starring Academy Award-winners Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer, as well as Anthony Mackie, Jennifer Ehle, Gillian Jacobs, Bill Burr, Andre Holland and Jillian Estell.

• The Equalizer
  Antoine Fuqua
  USA World Premiere
  In this big-screen adaptation of the cult ’80s TV show, McCall is an ex spy who spends his retirement fighting for truth, justice and the American way….for a fee. Starring Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, David Harbour, Bill Pullman and Melissa Leo.

• Foxcatcher
  Bennett Miller
  USA Canadian Premiere
  Based on true events, this film tells the dark and fascinating story of the unlikely and ultimately tragic relationship between an eccentric multi-millionaire and two champion wrestlers. Starring Anthony Michael Hall, Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Vanessa Redgrave, Mark Ruffalo and Sienna Miller.

Among the obvious Oscar contenders are these films that played in other festivals, which will be shown later include:

Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner starring Timothy Spall as the inventor of Impressionism half a century early
Wild by Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallee with Reese Witherspoon as a recovering heroine addict on a 1100 mile solo hike after her destructive behavior lead to the break up of her marriage.
The Judge with Robert Downey, Jr. and Robert Duvall, which is all about chewing the scenery. It all looked interesting, but then again, it was supposed to.
And there’s David Cronenberg's Maps To The Stars.

For more information, go to: http://www.tiff.net/

Toronto International Film Festival
Septermber 4 - 14, 2014

Venues include:

Steve & Rashmi Gupta Box Office
TIFF Bell Lightbox
Reitman Square, 350 King Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 1J2, Canada

Princess of Wales Theatre
300 King St West
Toronto, ON M5V 1J2, Canada

Roy Thomson Hall
60 Simcoe St.
Toronto, ON M5J 2H5, Canada

50 Years of Filth: John Waters at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 27 August 2014 22:15

Written by Renzo Adler

His films are legendary, his visage iconic, and his taste for filth is unbound, and now John Waters is getting a retrospective at Lincoln Center. September 5 - 14, The Film Society of Lincoln Center in NYC becomes a cathedral to comic crudeness with 50 Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take? Never before has there been so comprehensive a look at the career of the Baltimore cinema savant, with rare prints of Waters’ earliest short films being shown along with Serial Mom, Pink Flamingos, Cecil B. Demented, and more. Waters will also be in attendance and doing Q&A sessions for much of the festival. The Early Shorts of John Waters segment of the fest is also free and open to the public.

Along with Waters’ own body of work, there will also be a series of films called John Waters Presents: “Movies I’m Jealous I Didn’t Make.” Eight films from the likes of David Cronenberg and Mai Zetterling that make even John Waters green with envy for their ludicrously tragic displays of darkness and perversity. Films being shown include:

Crash (David Cronenberg)
Night Games (Mai Zetterling)
Final Destination (James Wong)
Killer Joe (William Friedkin)
Before I Forget (Jacques Nolot)

Few filmmakers dare to tread the kind of ground Waters does with gleeful exuberance. Waters makes sex, murder, and depravity into a technicolor playground and helped turn midnight into a perfectly acceptable time to go see a movie.

To learn more, go to: http://www.filmlinc.com/

50 Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?
September 5 - 14, 2014

The Film Society of Lincoln Center
144 W 65th St.
New York, NY 10023

FSLC Honors James Brown

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 21 August 2014 02:01

Written by Jacob Angstreich

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's retrospective, James Brown: The Hardest Working Man in Show Business is devoted to the film work of the great musician and performer and running from August 29th to September 1st 2014. The retrospective provides an exciting opportunity to see the rarely screened, early 1970s gangster drama, Black Caesar, starring Fred Williamson, in a pristine 35mm. 

Included in the retrospective is the 1965 Frankie Avalon vehicle, Ski Partywith James Brown doing a spectacular number while being accompanied with a curiously invisible backing band. Also included is Jeffrey Levy-Hinte’s 2008 documentary Soul Power. Set against the backdrop of the music festival Zaire '74, Brown's music bookends the film's undercurrent of political turmoil.

Black Caesar was the first blaxploitation film directed by the fascinating Larry Cohen, one of the last, truly great directors to emerge from the Hollywood system. Although he has always been located somewhere on the margins of American commercial filmmaking. Cohen's work has been singled out for praise by some of the most eminent Anglophone auteurists, such as Dave Kehr, Fred Camper, Robin Wood, and Tom Gunning.

Cohen's somewhat wild, morally ambiguous screenplay has, expectedly, an abundance of interesting ideas as well as much of the radical content that made the director a darling of Marxist critics such as the inestimable Wood. Although Black Caesar is considerably cruder stylistically than the director's most satisfying works, it nonetheless possesses much of Cohen's characteristic anarchic energy and visual chaos, while maintaining a high level of emotional intensity throughout its length, recalling the bold sensibility of Sam Fuller whose films Cohen admires.

If Black Caesar doesn't ultimately rank with some of Cohen's most aesthetically noteworthy efforts — such as It's Alive!, God Told Me To, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover, or Special Effects — it is, at the very least, an intriguing curiosity, replete with instances of the director's compelling deployment of New York locations and carried by Williamson's confident and charismatic, star performance.

For more information, go to: www.filmlinc.com and follow @filmlinc on Twitter.

James Brown: The Hardest Working Man in Show Business
Aug 29 - Sept 1, 2013

Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023