Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another batch... got Soderbergh's BUBBLE, Hark's SEVEN SWORDS and a bunch more for you. It seems this reviewer had to skimp out on the ending of THE QUIET in order to have enough buffer time to make their next movie. Unfortunate, since he seemed to really be taken with the movie (Austin made, I have to add). Enjoy this batch!
TIFF Report 2.
Saturday:
Well this was an interesting day. I knew I had a problem. Today I had 3 movies to see. Unfortunately I only had 2 hours and 15 minutes between the last 2.
Now part of what make the Toronto film festival so special is that the public has access to all the movies, in fact most of the theater is the general public. There is a few ways to get tickets 1) Buy a package of 10 or 30, or a pass. Or 2) buy the left over single tickets. With option 2, it feels like they is hardly any open screenings. With option 1 (Which is what I did) you end up paying at the end of July, and pick the movies a week before the festival for an advance draw. It is a very fair system, you say what you want first pick, with a second pick and they put your picks in boxes (I was 23). There is a draw to see where they start going through the boxes, so if there are 40 boxes and they draw box 25. They will process box 25-40 and then 1-24, so I wouldn’t get many of my choices. I’m not sure where they started this year, and I did get most of my choices except for a few cool ones. So the back up pick I had (The Quiet) came through, which is my problem.
I have had a rule about always giving 3 hours between movies. This is important because they have these movies all over the downtown core of Toronto, and you never know what will happen. For example, I have see in the last 7 years around 70-80 movies… and maybe 3 have started on time. When I say on time I mean within 10 minutes of when it is to start. But of course when you have a 90 min. movie starting half hour late, you know you have a huge problem. So God help me I walked out of a really good movie.
Capote
Other then knowing Truman Capote’s name I really knew nothing about his story. At the opening of the story Capote (Played by the great Philip Seymour Hoffman) has come off the success of writing Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and is looking for his next book. From a simple article we are drawn in the process of the writing of the true crime novel “In cold blood”. Capote enlist the aid of Nelle Harper Lee (The also great Katherine Keener) at various points in this movie is referred to as writing that children’s book, and they mangle the title a every time. The book she wrote would be “To kill a mockingbird”, and she operates in this as Truman’s assistant/bodyguard. The investigation into the murder of a family, leads Truman to see everything from the victims eyes. Then in a fairly shocking turn, we see from the eyes of the accused killers.
****
The Quiet
This is the movie that will haunt me for a long while, until I can see how it ends. I will say that it stars Camilla Belle as a deaf and mute high school girl who has very recently been orphaned after loosing her father, and is “very lucky” to have such a wonderful God Parents to live with according to a social worker. The fact that Belle’s character does not talk and simply reacts or doesn’t reveals more about who Dot is then if she spent the whole movie in counseling. Other then the fact that Elisha Cuthbert (24, Popular Mechanics for kids) is shockingly good in this movie, and the other name actress in is Edie Falco (when is she ever bad?).
The movie is very disturbing, enthralling, and compelling. I can’t rate it, but I will say it is not for everyone.
The Corpse bride
My friends got to see Johnny Depp, so everyone was happy going in.
The Corpse bride stars Johnny Depp as Victor Van Dort who is engaged to Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), but due to one of the greater misunderstandings marries the Corpse Bride (Helen Bonham Carter). This is a Tim Burton movie, so if you hate Burton then you will not like this movie. It’s great, it fun, a charming little story. The style is so fluid that it does not distract you from what is going on; to me it is the Burton house style.
*****
Sunday:
Seven Swords
This is a movie with a large ensemble cast; the only one I really could say the general public may know is Donnie Yen (Sky from Hero, Iron Monkey, and Snowman from Blade 2). All I can say is this is a flawed movie, at 2 hour and 30 minutes it is half hour too long. But, worse then that is there is a point, which makes no sense what so ever… It feels like some one cut out 5 to 10 minutes.
The basic the story is that the Emperor has outlawed martial arts, and placed a bounty on the heads of all martial artists. Whole villages are being massacred, at 300 pieces of silver a head of every man, woman and child. Seven swordsmen are needed to save the day.
This is not Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or Hero or The House of flying daggers. Not that it has to be, it does have a lot of really cool fights, but the storytelling lets the movie down. I’m hoping there is another edit or two to be made.
***
Bubble
Steven Soderbergh directs Bubble, which for most (myself included) is enough reason to see the movie. In fact it the only reason to see it, as he uses an amateur cast. The cast never rings a false note telling as story set in a small town, in a small factory. The name Soderbergh advised in the Q and A refers to a very fragile relationship at the opening of the movie. All I can say is not knowing to much about what is going to happen will reward the viewing of this movie. Hey it’s Soderbergh, it’s only a matter of how good it will be,
****
- JediShaft
