Cinematical

CINEMATICAL'S 2008 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PREVIEW

TIFF 2008 is coming up fast; now that the full schedule's been announced, we thought we'd give you a preview of the films we're most excited about catching at this year's fest. With over 300 films to choose from, TIFF has something for everyone, but there's so much to choose from, it can be hard to decide what you want to see.

Cinematical will be at Toronto from start to finish, and you'll be able to read all our coverage on our TIFF hub. Meanwhile, to aid you in your own TIFF planning, here are the ten films we're looking forward to most. To get started, just click on any of the images below to find out more about that film ...

Special thanks to the stellar folks who run the unofficial TIFF guide, TOFilmFest.ca, who once again bring you the best-organized guide to this massive festival ...

TITLE: Goodbye Solo
DIRECTED BY: Ramin Bahrani
STARS: Souleymane Sy Savane, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo, Lane 'Roc' Williams

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: William, an elderly man (West), hires Solo (Savane), a charming taxi driver, to drive him in two weeks to a mountaintop so he can jump to his death. Solo befriends William, and decides to try to stop him from ending his life.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Bahrani is one of the most exciting young directors working in indpendent film. His film Man Push Cart, played numerous fests and was picked by Roger Ebert as one of the films for his Overlooked Film Festival in 2005, and his 2007 film, Chop Shop, also played well on the fest circuit and was one of the best indie films of that year. With Goodbye Solo, Bahrani works once again with cinematographer Michael Simmonds, who did fantastic work on Bahrani's previous two films. This one is a must-see for indie film lovers at TIFF.

Back to the TIFF Preview page ...

TITLE: Nothing But the Truth
DIRECTED BY: Rod Lurie
STARS: Kate Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga, Alan Alda, David Schwimmer, Noah Wyle, Angela Bassett, Matt Dillon

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A political reporter (Beckinsale) writes a story about a government scandal, revealing the name of a covert CIA operative (Farmiga), and ends up behind bars when she refuses to divulge her source. The story parallels the real-life drama surrounding CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose status as a covert operative was outed after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times charging the Bush administration with manipulating intelligence information to justify a war with Iraq.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: A solid ensemble cast and a script written and directed by Lurie should keep this real-life drama firmly out of dreaded "movie of the week" territory. Alda, as the lawyer who fights to keep the reporter out of jail, should have plenty of opportunity for brow-knitting and dramatic courtroom scenes, and we can't wait to see Dillon's turn as the prosecutor who goes after Beckinsale -- his performance was the best thing about 2005's Factotum. We're loving seeing him reinvent his career as a solid indie actor.

Back to the TIFF Preview page ...

TITLE: Zack and Miri Make a Porno
DIRECTED BY: Kevin Smith
STARS: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Down on their luck, lifelong friends and roomies Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Banks) embark on a quest to make a fortune by shooting and starring in an amateur porn flick. But if they really go through with doing the deed on camera, will their friendship sustain?

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Kevin Smith may not hit it out of the park every time, but when he's on, his films are solidly funny. We can't wait to see how the combination of Smith and Rogen works on screen, and to see how Smith pulls off a film about the making of a porn film while still keeping in "R" territory (the film reportedly undwernt cuts to keep it out of the dreaded "NC-17" zone). Still, just the words "Seth Rogen as a porn star" in the same sentence make this one worth a view, and Smith as the director gives us hope that Zack and Miri will be a fun, quirky romp.

Back to the TIFF Preview page ...

TITLE: The Wrestler
DIRECTED BY: Darren Aronofsky
STARS: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A big-name pro wrestler back in the 1980s, Randy "The Ram" Robinson now bides his time with performances at high schools and community centers. A heart attack threatens early retirement, but Randy the lure of one more chance to get back in the ring with his biggest rival forces him to choose between his health and another shot at the spotlight.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Aronofsky just missed the mark with the ambitious but over-reaching The Fountain; his direction of that film, nonetheless, was intriguing enough to make this a film worth catching. Tomei has been one of our faves for years, turning in particularly solid performances in 2001's In the Bedroom and last year's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, and the prospect of her and Evan Rachel Wood in the same film would make this one worthwhile, even if we didn't want to see it just to see Rourke in long hair and wrestling outfits.

Back to TIFF Preview page ...

TITLE: I've Loved You So Long
DIRECTED BY: Phillipe Claudel
STARS: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Laurent Grevill, Serge Hazanavicius, Frederic Pierrot

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: After being estranged from her family by and act of violence for 15 years, Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) returns to move in with her younger sister, Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), her husband, father-in-law, and two young daughters.

WHY WE'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT: Always a solid actress worth watching, Thomas is already getting end-of-season awards buzz for her performance in this French-language film. The intriguing trailer promises a intelligent, suspenseful film with a focus on character and relationships, and Thomas's performance looks to be outstanding.

Back to the TIFF Preview page ...

Yesterday, Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere put up the poster for the new comedy My Best Friend's Girl, starring Kate Hudson, Dane Cook, Jason Biggs and Alec Baldwin. The poster (which premiered online earlier this summer) is boring in the extreme, making the film look like your typical snoozerific rom-com, and the digital altering on the photo makes everyone involved look rather ... freakish.

My first reaction on seeing the poster was, "Boy, somebody's screwing up the marketing on this film," quickly followed by "Hey, I don't remember Dane Cook's complexion looking quite so dewy-fresh ... "

I've seen the red-band trailer, which is actually pretty funny, if you can overlook the more misogynistic elements (or at least, in my own case, overcome the feminist tendency to be immediately annoyed by blow-job jokes) , and the film being marketed in that trailer and the film being promoted on this poster are not the same film. Not that it looks like something I'd choose to see over a good indie flick, but if I wanted a lightweight comedy film, and I'd already seen Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express, and couldn't find anything else to do here in Seattle on a nice day, I'd maybe see this.

NOTE: This post discusses Twilight, the movie, and the Twilight book series (particularly the latest book, Breaking Dawn), and is SPOILER HEAVY. If you've not read the books and don't want to read spoilers, do NOT read this post until you've read them. It's also longer than my usual column, as I had a lot of ground to cover, so if you hate reading long pieces, skip it. Thanks.

You're probably aware, even if you're not into books about vampires and clumsy, average teenage girls falling in love with one, that there's a popular book series called the Twilight Saga, and the first book in the series, Twilight, is being adapted for the big screen by director Catherine Hardwicke. What you may not be aware of is the little undercurrent of female writers decrying the series as inherently anti-feminist.

The Twilight series grew in popularity, mostly off the radar of the feminist set, until it got so popular that the feminists started to take notice -- and offense. I first became aware of this anti-feminist backlash when Meg Cabot, author of The Princess Diaries (among other girly books) responded on her blog to readers writing her to ask what she thought of the series, thusly: " I didn't take my husband's last NAME when we got married. Do you honestly think I'd like a story about a girl considering changing SPECIES for a guy? No offense to any of you, but as a feminist, I just can't go there... "

I found Cabot's take interesting because I'm a feminist myself, who also didn't take my husband's last name when we got married, but I don't happen to find the series inherently anti-feminist. Nonetheless, since the release of the fourth book in the series, Breaking Dawn, on August 2, the feminist mutterings have started to escalate to a dull roar.

First we had Sarah Silverman singing about f*cking Matt Damon, then Jimmy Kimmel had his turn with Damon's BFF, Ben Affleck. Now we have something even better: octogenarian actress and Academy Award-winner Cloris Leachman (who still looks damn good, thank you very much) getting all raunchy at a Comedy Central roast for Bob "Full House" Saget, threatening to get it on with "pretty boy" John Stamos on a "filthy bean bag chair" while using her Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a strap-on. There's a mental picture that'll take weeks to get out of your brain cells.

Maybe it's just the hilarity of seeing the stately Leachman talking about going after Stamos -- or perhaps even Jon Lovitz -- and then segueing seamlessly into a bit about performing a "reach-around" on Jack Benny that makes this so funny. I can't imagine it would have the same impact being said by, say, Tilda Swinton or Cate Blanchett. Anyhow, Leachman was way funnier than all the lame jokes about Saget having sex with the Olsen twins. She's still got it -- now, if only Tarantino would cast her in something as an ass-kicking, foul-mouthed granny ...

Bill Lobdell, longtime writer and editor for the Tribune-owned LA Times and its subsidiaries, has an excellent, insightful piece up on his new blog titled "42 Things I Know," outlining why exactly he left his cushy corporate job and what's wrong over at the LA Times. Much of what Lobdell has to say is pretty much what those of us who work in new media have been saying for a long time now: that print media (in particular, the overfed layers of managers who spend most of their days having meetings about meetings so they can plan more meetings, thereby justifying their spendy salary-and-benefits packages) don't know what the hell they're doing when it comes to the real world in the age of the Internet.

The most telling of Lobdell's "42 Things" are the following:

Newspapers were unbelievably slow in embracing the Internet, even though younger reporters have been pleading with their bosses for years to embrace the Web.

Amazingly, it took until 2005 for top editors at The Times to realize the Internet not only wasn't going away but might lead to the demise of newspaper.

Prior to that, the Internet operation at The Times was used as a place to hide reporters and editors who had fallen out of favor.