Our postcard dispatches form the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival for Friday, September 5.
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Force Majeure
Dear TIFF,
This is what I come here to see.
Force Majeure made waves at Cannes, and deserves a much bigger audience than the Swedish family drama will probably find. Tense and hilarious, Ruben Östlund has crafted a damn-near perfect exploration of modern masculinity and heterosexual relationships. The film is laser-focused on the very filmic principle that action reveals character, and entertainingly explores how a single instinct can overpower our entire understanding of a another human being. If only the film had stuck to its guns and ended one scene earlier to maintain the principle indictment, I would have fallen for the film whole-heatedly.
Sincerely,
Christopher
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Sunshine Superman
Dear TIFF,
I'm so so so sorry. I don't know what happened to me. Well, yes I do. I was rushing into the screening - pulled pork sandwich dripping in-hand - because I didn't want to miss a moment. Good thing, too, because the visual treats in Sunshine Superman come fast and early. You couldn't ask for a more visual subject than a documentary about the first BASE jumpers. Especially one that follows Carl, and accomplished director of (free-fall) photography.
So as I sat there being consumed by the story, I also had to wolf down some lunch. Quickly, too, so I could capture some quotes from these odd balls in the late 70s who parachuted off cliffs and buildings. And as the story reached it's ominous ending, I couldn't dare leave. Which is why, in the film's most dramatic and extended silent pause, I accidentally let one rip. Hard.
It's not in my head. People turned around three rows away.
So yes, I'm coming clean. If someone complains that the screening stunk, it wasn't the film. It was me.
Really sorry.
Sincerely,
Christopher
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Goodbye to Language 3D
Dear TIFF,
If you're gonna play a new Jean-Luc Godard film, darn tootin' I'm gonna sit through it.
At age 83, The master French provocateur has not slowed down nor sanded the edges off of his aggressively experimental cinema. I quite willingly embarked on the 70 minute masochism that is Goodbye to Language 3D. The mischief this time includes an assaultive sound design that punched new holes in my ears and splitting the dual camera system required for native 3D to create double exposure images that effectively raped my retinas. Not to mention the philosophical debates between a naked man and woman while they were expelling a case of the runs (which at least meant the fart sounds were coming from within the film, for once ). There were also some gem lines of spastic voiceover dialogue, saying how "Images are the murder of the present", and how "soon everyone will need an interpreter to understand the words coming out of their own mouth". Only Godard could make these statements ring so true.
Sincerely,
Christopher
Air St. Vincent
Dear TIFF,
Bill Murray has a few big fans at Dear Cast and Crew. Just last week, we had a 10-review marathon series dedicated to Ghostbusters. But today, you guys and the City of Toronto one-upped us by declaring it Bill Murray Day, screening some of his classic films and culminating in the premiere of St. Vincent. All this saintly canonizing was all just a warm-up, it seems, to preparing us for the film itself.
St. Vincent follows a familiar story between a doe-eyed boy and curmudgeon old man (like Bad Santa, Bad Grandpa, Denis the Menace, etc). But it’s hard to fault a film that had me laughing multiple times before the opening credits were done. It was smart for the festival to capitalize on this assured debut by writer/director Theordore Melfi, who leverages Murray’s natural appeal without letting him rest on the usual charms—and it just might earn the comedy legend some Oscar love. The film itself doesn’t elevate much past the feel-good material, but remains enjoyable throughout due to a strong supporting cast in Naomi Watts, Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd (not to mention delightful newcomer Jaeden Lieberher).
But of course, it’s really all about Murray. As it should be.
Sincerely,
Christopher
