Ironically, I turned in two tickets to Useless on Monday. It did look interesting, but I had my eye on a few others.

Celebrities I'd like to bump into (is that a euphimism?).....let me mull on that. OK, how about Laura Linney? She's my age, is great in almost every flic she's in, reasonably well fed, and darned attractive.

The game I like to play at this point is, to guess which film will be the best and the worst from among my picks. I'm thinking that Silent Resident may be the best, based on the plot summary, the simple picture, and the fact that it's German, and not French. The one with the greatest potential for failure is clearly Man From London, the review of which proclaims its mood of a "vacuum in which no joy may enter", and celebrates "long periods of silence and stasis". The dark horse is The Banishment, whose director last film won the Golden Lion in Venice in 2003...mind you, it's a relationship film that runs 2 1/2 hours.

Goodbye skinny ebert

After reading an article in The Star regarding Roger Ebert's battle with cancer and his return to active "festival duty" at TIFF, I have finally been persuaded that my former psuedonym was in very poor taste.

So in honour of Piers Handling and his arch nemesis Noah Cowan I am now "festival co-director #3"

Nice to meet all of you (again)

So Tired, Tired of Waiting....

no reviews yet, obviously but interesting reading from the Venice festival about films that will be playing at TIFF. apparently, derek, you've chosen a masterpiece in 'Useless'. will look forward to hearing your impressions, especially now that i've raised your expectations.

couldn't resist a visit to the online box office this morning. added 'King of the Hill' on Friday September 14th at 9:15pm to my list and 'Silent Resident' on Thursday September 13th to Sarah's list. $20/per ticket w/ a $4.75 handling fee per order is not bad, at least relative to what they are charging for VSR and Gala tix.

still two days till my first film so i'll pose another question to the group:

are there any celebrities you'd like to bump into this week?

i'm hoping keira knightley will ask me to take her out for a proper meal or at the very least that she will flirt with me shamelessly. since i'm not seeing 'atonement', i'm guessing the chances of this happening are quite remote. if i were seeing 'atonement', my chances would be...well...quite remote. still, she's very pretty, albeit slim, which i think is my point.

Daniel's Picks

Boy A - Sept 8
Barcelona (A Map) - Sept 9
Lars & The Real Girl - Sept 10
XXY - Sept 13
Son of Rambow - Sept 14

Sarah's Picks

Nothing is Private - Saturday September 8

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and Princess of Nebraska - Sunday September 9

No Country For Old Men - Monday September 10

The Past - Wednesday September 12

And Along Come Tourists - Wednesday September 12

Silent Resident -Thursday 13th

Chaotic Ana - Friday September 14

Shadows - Saturday September 15

Brian's picks:

Friday 7th - Man From London
Saturday 8th - The Banishment
Sunday 9th - With Your Permission
Monday 10th - No Country for Geezers; Chrysalis
Wednesday 12th - It's a Free World; La Vielle Maitresse; The Savages
Thursday 13th - Silent Resident
Saturday 15th - Angel

Derek's list:

September 7 - Ne Touchez Pas la Hache, Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge
September 8 - Useless
September 9 - Boy A, Secret Sunshine
September 10 - No Country for Old Men, It's a Free World...

Kyle's List

Okay, the final list:

Friday September 7th - The Man from London
Saturday September 8th - Happiness
Sunday September 9th - La Zona

Monday September 10th - No Country for Old Men, M

Wednesday September 12th - Married Life, Mad Detective
Thursday September 13th - A Gentle Breeze in the Village
Saturday September 15th - Shadows

Very odd that I don't have any French films this year. Guess my first review will be here on either Friday night or Saturday morning. Until then, you can amuse yourselves looking at trailers at the TIFF screening room site.

skinny ebert: teacher's pet

I had absolutely NOTHING to do this Friday night so I came up with TEN films you really don't want to see.

I haven't looked at the other posts - so forgive me if I've snagged a few of your picks

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, THE ENIGMA: a couple spend their vacation trying to prove that Colombus was Portugese and not Italian. Oh ya, and the director is 98 years old. AND it meets Kyle's Portugese criteria

DR. PLONK: "a tribute to silent film, filmed on expired black & white film with a hand-cranked camera". I think it would be fun to bring your ipod and create your own soundtrack. Not sure how to remedy the expired film though

DEATH IN THE LAND OF ENCARTOS: 540 minutes long......if I didn't have to wash my hair....

YOU, THE LIVING: "a plot synopsis is impossible..." I'd say a viewing is impossible as well.

MISTER LONELY: a Michael Jackson impersonator, nuns throwing themselves from a plane and the creator of Julien Donkey Boy. Guess I'm getting my Harmony Korine fix after all.

LOVE SONGS: a French musical - I just can't do it

NIGHTWATCHING: a movie based on a Rembrandt painting??!! Wasn't the DaVinci Code bad enough?

FOREVER NEVER ANYWHERE: four men are trapped in a car after an accident. Not recommended for those who like anything to happen in their movies

SURFWISE - a documentary abour a whole family of surfers. Like wow! That's incredible!

DAINIPPONJIN - the protagonist is "transformed into a stocky giant several storeys high, sporting tight purple briefs, tattoos and an Eraserhead-style hairdo". There's a reason this one is playing at midnight

5 queasy pieces

1. Manoel de Oliveira has a film at the festival. Egads the man is 98. I saw his film "A Talking Picture" a few years back and it was truly awful. Someone has actually let him make 4 films since then. Mandatory retirement anyone?

2. Bad enough they let nonagenarians into the festival but Wayne Wang gets 2 films. I guess his troika of "Maid in Manhattan", "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "Last Holiday" earned him those two coveted spots.

3. Is Gary Burns at the festival?

4. "The Jane Austen Book Club". Perhaps my favourite author. Can we leave her alone now.

5. Speaking of books, "The Stone Angel". Was there a more excruciating fortnight in my life than the 2 weeks in grade 10 we spent with Mr. Thwaites toiling through this novel.

films you don't want to see

since we're all more or less screwed, with derek obviously taking the crown (prefer to mix rather than extend the metaphor), and face the prospect of picking through the scraps and hoping to find a gem, perhaps a fun blog exercise would be to post the 5 possible worst case scenarios. in other words, to name the 5 films that you'd least want to see.

generally speaking, though i love their cuisine and wine respectively, the films of thailand and portugal tend to suck the big one so those are maybe a good places to start. visions and vanguard should offer some ripe pickings as well. see y'all monday.

I obviously showed up 15 minutes too early. Box 63 of all things. If I had only waited until my lunch hour I would have aced this thing.

Box 66 of 75

well, shit. i'm in box 50, which means that they'll be processing 59 boxes before getting to mine (box 50). ah well! wasn't doing anything on monday anyway.

brian, since you're in just as bad/worse shape as me, perhaps we can make plans to meet up early and one of us can get a spot in the resub line. derek, daniel, hope you fared better.

tricky times these fest days be

seems as though blogger.com prioritizes the blog list based on recent posts so the position of metabeats and the filmfestiblog will change from time to time. while pithy comments on film are always welcome here, posts about music at the filmfest blog may just confuse all the visitors to the site, who may be directed here from either the official tiff site or tiffreviews (essential daily reading) where we are listed. in short, stuart get your head out of your ass.

Stu, wrong blog.

Kyle et al, HELP! I need a lesson on using the book to fill out my order. Are we supposed to highlight using two colours (one for first and one for second choice) the way we did a few years ago? Please drop me a line at home or post an explanation tomorrow morning if you get this message. Merci.

well I think the best bet is this fantastic edgy jazz guy Kenny G, he plays a mean flute, and then a close second would be Zamphir....



someone had to do it brian, so why not me....

The real winner of the Parker Posey Award is....

Joan Chen, who apparently is in like, 10 films, including a documentary, which is pretty impressive. Kudos to Sarah for pointing that out.

Here's the longlist, with first pic/second pic:

Young People Fucking/Jar City - Thursday night
The Man From London/need to find a second pick - Friday night 6ish
Control/Secret Sunshine - Friday 9ish
The Edge of Heaven/need to find a second pick - Saturday 4ish
Nothing is Private/King of the Hill - evening, possibly taking my parents to it
Nightwatching/La Zona or The World Unseen - Sunday late aft
M/The Voyeurs - Monday evening

Unsure of:
Deficit
Margot at the Wedding

Open to suggestions/comments of the "What the *#$%& are you thinking?" or "I highly recommend you choose...." variety.

Harmony Korine

So, will I see the Harmony Korine film this year? Probably - I AM a masochist. Plus, the Q&A with an obviously high Korine (drinking a slurpee, no less) was well worth sitting through the movie.

I continue to be amazed that the festival directors are actually able to write coherent synopses of his films.

question

My 1st question after my brief look at the book last night and after reading Kyle's post yesterday is.......will Kyle and Daniel give in again and see the Harmony Korine movie?

2007 Film Festival/Festiblog Underway

The programme books are here! The programme books are here!

After a relatively rapidfire 45-minute skimming of its contents, some initial thoughts and questions:

-The cover is pretty boring (expect similarly breathtaking analyses here in days to come).

-Best film title has to be "Young People Fucking", with an honourable mention going to "Run Fat Boy Run". Still don't think that either holds a torch to the Best Film Fest title of all time: "Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors"

-Most contradictory or just pretentious film title goes to "A Jihad for Love" and "My Brother is an Only Child"

-Most incongruous French/English title translation: Ne Touchez Pas La Hache/The Dutchess of Langeais. Runner-up: Dans La Vie/Two Ladies

-Looks like it's Ellen Page vs. Evan Rachel Wood for the coveted Parker Posey Award, awarded each year to the young female actress who seemingly appears in every other film at the fest

-Do I see the documentary "Joy Division" or the biopic "Control", based on the Deborah Curtis book "Touching From a Distance", which I enjoyed reading a few years back? Or should I just re-rent "24 Hour Party People" and skip to the part where the drummer sits on the roof of his apartment and bangs out the opening to 'She's Lost Control'?

-How is it possible that Renee Harlin is still allowed to make films? I realize I ask this question almost every year (sometimes substituting the name "Abel Ferrara") but man....

Overall, the quality of films seem really strong. It's going to be difficult to narrowing down my choices to 10.

Hoping to get a solid hour or two with the book tonight. Think I've already identified a handful that look interesting including "M", "The Man from London", "My Kid Could Paint That", "Nightwatching", and "Deficit". If there are any flaws in these choices, I invite you to unleash your sardonnic wrath upon me.

Similarly, please do share/post your long lists as I won't be able to attend the usual Thursday evening last minute picking party, due to an unforeseen change to my schedule. Happy reading!