Cool - thanks Kyle. Hey, I like the look of it. I may have to use it as my wallpaper (the real kind, not the screen saver.)
I'm off to see the highly touted "Human Touch" tonight so I'll let you know.
I have two media beefs which may make good blog fodder:
(1) Enduring Love is a novel not a short story. I love the fact that the Globe is obviously simply cribbing notes from the film festival guide (where they originally mis-classified the book as a short story) in its "hot pick" review. Great journalism - these guys really know their stuff.
(2) it irritates me that periodicals all pick the movies to see at this stage. There are 328 films being shown for Chrissake, why do we have to distill it down to a top ten before the festival? To make us (a) feel smug that we chose one of the "hot" films by chance ("yeah, I'm a real veteran of the TIFF, I can always tell from those one-pagers what will be brilliant", "I chose 5 out of the best (before the festival started) ten, how about you?") or (b) disappointed that nobody (i.e. media geniuses who crib notes form the festival guide) thinks the movie will be any good ("gee, it sounded good on paper, but the Globe doesn't mention it, maybe I'll trade it for one of the "hot" movies that I didn't like the sound of").
OK I'm done. Reviews to follow.
1 comment:
I agree re: posting of the films though I admit I'm one of those saps who feels validated when they mention his film choices. I’m a sucker for those mini-reviews and eat them up like little pieces of chocolate. I’m not sure why they choose the films they do, why some are appear simply for the sake of being trashed, and what purpose their recommendations serve at this point anyway. Let’s be honest, almost all the films that are recommended are, at this point, sold out and I’d imagine that the small percentage of devoted, self-styled cineastes who are willing to put in the time in the rush lines can probably count themselves among the ticket holders already.
How was the new Godard film? Was the slow pacing of ‘Persona’ adequate preparation for what I assume to be another unhurried non-narrative cinematic foray for Jean-Luc? Two points if you can incorporate the phrase, ‘a dazzling pastiche of imagery’ in your review.
I prepped for the fest this week by watching a 1966 Czech film called ‘Closely Watched Trains’, a Kundera-like story set in the dying days of WWII. It reminded me in some ways of Lars Von Triers’ ‘Europa’ and I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t a big influence for him. I’ve also reserved a book on contemporary Japanese cinema from the library, so I have something to read in line in between, um, Japanese films.
See you in line!
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