Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Part of the allure of Toronto is that they have a fantastic midnight movie line-up every year, and it seems like one of this year’s highlights must be the debut of George Romero’s latest zombie film. I’m practically frantic to see NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN at this point, but at least I know that one’s going to be in theaters soon. With DIARY OF THE DEAD, I’m not sure how long I’ve got to wait, so this review is going to have to hold me over until I can lay eyes on it for myself:

Hey Fellas! Magoo here

Well it was another fun filled day at TIFF for me, most of which was spent in lines and pondering "why the hell are there hundereds of people lined up accross the street for over 5 hours just to catch the back of Brangelina as they walk into the theater?"

First movie I saw was the Coen's NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, I spent around 3 hours in the rush line waiting to see this one. A quick summary would go a little something like this... Josh Brolin comes accross a bunch of murdered bodies out in the desert, finds a briefcase with two million dollars, nabs it, hits the road and is chased by a psychotic hitman the rest of the movie. Prety simple eh? Well it's a HELL of a lot more interesting than that.

For the majority of the movie we see the movie from Brolin's perspective, it's a cat and mouse sorta thing where the hitman is always just one step behind him. They meet up at one point and there is one of the most thrilling and tense shootout/hide and seek games I've seen in film, extremely well done. There is some serious edge of your seat stuff in this one. Long stetches of slow methodical scenes lead up to some awesome violent outbursts which really kick ya in the balls. The other narrative (and arguably the main narrative) is about Tommy Lee Jones' charactor who is on the trail of Brolin. He is at the end of his career as Sherrif and really wants to end this one clean so he can retire feeling like he has achieved something.

The hitman who is after him is one hell of a character. He has a fucked up moral code he lives by and is quite brutal in his murders. There is one great scene where he flips a coin and asks a gas station owner to call it, the gamble is the mans life, no if ands or buts about it, he's gotta call it and if he calls wrong he gets a bullet in the head. Another cool lil' thing I liked was this dudes rather unconventional use of a canister of CO2. He uses it to bust off locks which is prety cool but not as cool as when he calmly places it against a mans head and blows a fucking hole in it with the shear pressure of it. Also one of the end scenes when he meets up with Brolin's wife is prety sinister.

Now we come to the ending... SPOILER'S GALORE HERE!!! My buddy who I saw this with said up until the last 15 minutes it was probably one of the best movies he has seen all year, but the ending made him think it was total bollocks. I wont get too much into what happens but here are my thoughts on it. When Tommy Lee Jones shows up at the hotel and sees Brolin's dead body he feels exactly what the audience fells, disapointment. The last time we saw Brolin he was about to have a couple of beers with some random chick he met by the pool, now he is laying in a pool of blood. Jones' was too late, he failed, he is disapointed and so is the audience. The whole movie up til this point is tense and action filled, now we are sitting there in the audience going "what? what the fuck happened? gah!!!" I think this was tactic was used on purpose by the director. Jones really wanted to get this one right, to close the case and have everything wrapped up nicely. He failed and he is extremely disapointed with himself. He retires and is left with that feeling that his last signment was a failure. The rest of the movie the narrative is shifted to Jones' character who feels like he didn't do what he was sent out to do. He knows he is getting to old and can't do the job any more. This is really "No Country For Old Men"

So fuck yal who thought the ending was a cop-out or that it was disapointing, that's the friggin point! It was one sweet movie and for sure one of the best Coen Bros. films to date.

Alright the next 3 hours was spent debating with my buddy about whether or not "No Country For Old" men was disapointing or not, we had tons of time to kill because we where in line to see GEORGE A. ROMERO'S DIARY OF THE DEAD!

There was pure electricity in the air! This was seriously one of my favourite TIFF experiences. Sitting in the theater before hand you could feel something amazing in the air, I'd say at least 40 people in the audience where members of the cast and crew (as it was shot in Toronto alot of them where there). They hadn't seen the movie yet and you could just feel the excitment off of them. Then George was introduced, I have never seen so many people jump to their feet to give someone a standing ovation like this. The man is very well respected and at that moment it kicked in that we were about to watch a new George A. Romero movie and not one that was over seen by some major studio, but one he financed 100% independently. After a bit of an introduction the movie was under way.

The movie starts with a news crew outside an apartment building where several people have been shot. This is 100% raw uncut footage, we are seeing what they are seeing. As they are filming the dead bodies being put into stretchers one of em starts twitching. Us in the audience knows what’s about to happen, but the people at the scene don't have a god damned idea. This is the first day of the zombie outbreak, no one knows what is going on. Sure enough the bodies come back to life and start causing shit. This opening scene was so brilliantly done that the audience gave it a huge round of applause after it was done.

The rest of the movie is shown through the eyes of several cameras. Mostly by one dude, a documentary film makers who was out in the woods with his classmates filming a mummy movie. We also see footage from security cameras, cell phones, web cames etc. This is NOT Blair Witch with zombies!!! The movie plays out as a narrative film, what we are seeing is all the footage edited together by a surviving member of the crew.

The hand held film work makes this movie down right terrifying at some points. The movie scared me.... movies don't scare me anymore! There are tons of jumps and shocks that make the audience yelp. I was sitting next to a chick who screamed each time something surprising happened, which in turn shocked me and made me remember why I love going to the theater to see movie instead of downloading it (a pox on all you downloaders!) Aside from the shocks there are some really tense sequences where you are on the edge of your seat. Not since when I saw the original "Night of the Living Dead" as a young lad have I ever been scared by a Zombie movie. You really feel as if you are right there, experiencing what is happening first hand.

How can you kill a zombie and make it fresh and interesting? There have been 100 zombie movies, it's all been done right? Hell no! Romero kills of zombies in some really interesting ways in this one. A jar of flesh eating acid smashed over the head of one of the living impaired stands out.

The Amish Dude!!! This guy was great! And he goes out in an awesome way to boot.

Another thing that must be addressed is the social commentary. It wouldn't be a Romero zombie movie without some underlying look at humans and how we live our lives and do our thing. The information age is clearly the target here. In this day and age as soon as something happens it is uploaded online or blogged about within a couple of hours. Everyone has a camera and everyone has access to YouTube, so we the people are the new media. News censorship is also a target here, footage of the initial zombie attack is edited by the news stations but the stuff uploaded by regular citizens is the real deal, we see what the major corporate media empires don't want us too. As with the rest of the Romero zombie movies the underlying message isn't shoved down our throats, it is merely something in the background that makes us go "yeah, that is true!"

The movie ending with a roaring standing ovation, the audience was behind it all the way. George looked like the happiest bastard on earth, his fans loved his movie. The Q+A actually had some decent stuff in it (about time people ask interesting questions instead of "what was filming the movie like?" ala Argento's screening on Thursday). One really interesting question was about the use of race relations in "Night" and also a small segment in "Diary". He basically said it is an issue that is always underlying and that will never change. He mentioned about the Katrina aftermath when news stations reported about black families "looting" when they where looking for supplies to live off of. He talked about the civil rights movment back in the 60's and how although leaps and bounds have happened since then, that it is still an underlying situation. He told a really interesting story about how when "Night" was finished being edited, they loaded it into a car and where on their way to New York City to drop it off when on the radio they heard about Martin Luther King Jr. being assassinated. Not sure if that lil' tid bit of info has been mentioned anywhere before but it was a prety cool story nonetheless.

"George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead" was friggin awesome! Wayyyyyyyy better than "Land of the Dead" and totally comparable to his original trilogy. When this one hits theaters GO SEE IT!!! Don't download it, don't wait for DVD, get yer ass in the theaters and watch it.

Well that's all for now. I still got tickets for a few others so I'll send em in as I see em.

~mrmagoojesse~