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Anton Sirius previews Toronto!!! Expect Coverage Soon!!!
Hey folks, Harry here - and as I do before every Toronto Film Festival for basically the last decade or so, I'm introducing Anton Sirius and his preview of the greater glory of that small Canadian film festival that just tends to whup most everyone else's asses... But I am also here to tell you that Copernicus will be back covering Toronto - as is Cartuna (our animator / but what he really wants to do is write reviews )... But also to say, even though we have 3 folks on the ground at Toronto's fest - the reason we do a pretty great job each year covering this is because of folks like you. Year after year, significantly cool films from countries all over the planet, tiny films, big films... all manners of films play and we want to hear about as many as possible. So if you have the inclination, we'd love to hear from you throughout the fest - Send your reviews to the Harry at AintItCool.Com email address and all the AICN editors will get it and we'll be able to get it posted faster. And now... here's ANTON SIRIUS... Our man toughing the frozen tundra without being mounted by mounties...
Greetings, starkinder! With the Toronto International Film Festival just a couple of days away I thought I’d give you a peek at some of the films I have on my radar. In little apparent order, here’s what coming.
The Midnight Madness lineup:
Opening Night features Jennifer's Body, written by Diablo Cody of Juno fame. Megan Fox is a cheerleader who is possessed by a demon and eats people. 'Nuff said.
Panique au Village seems to be some sort of Belgian riff on Toy Story.
Rick Jacobson, best known for directing a bunch of Xena episodes, has made what appears to be a Russ Meyer film for the 21st century, Bitch Slap. By a strange coincidence Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor and Kevin Sorbo all make cameos or supporting appearances.
The Spierig brothers, who brought their first film Undead to Midnight a few years ago, return with Daybreakers -- a film with a much bigger cast, but a premise (vampires rule the earth!) just as silly.
Romero's back again, with his latest zombie opus Survival of the Dead.
We’re getting some little Aussie thing called The Loved Ones, which Colin the Midnight Madness programmer describes as "a wild mash-up of Pretty in Pink and Misery".
Tony Jaa directs Ong Bak 2. If you need any more than that to sell you on the flick, you are beyond salvation.
The original Spanish team behind [REC] returns for a sequel, imaginatively titled [REC] 2.
Someone has the balls to try and turn Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane into a movie, and they've assembled a hell of a cast to do it: James Purefoy (Mark Antony from Rome) as Kane, Max von Sydow as his father, Alice Krige, Pete Postlethewaite, and Rachel Hurd-Wood.
And the Closing Night flick is Symbol, from Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (who brought Dainipponjin to Midnight a couple of years ago). I literally have no idea what it's about.
The rest:
Vengeance - Johnnie To directing a reformed-hitman-revenge flick is cool enough, but the reformed hitman in question is played by... Johnny Hallyday. Sweet!
Valhalla Rising – Mads “The Best Actor in Europe” Mikkelsen, re-unites with Pusher trilogy director Nicolas Winding Refn for some sort of crazy-ass Viking fantasy epic. If I'm not in the audience for the first festival screening of this it means I've up and died, and believe you me God will get an earful for yanking me off this earth before I got a chance to watch it.
Life During Wartime - new Todd Solondz!
Enter the Void - new Gaspar Noe!
Hipsters - this looks to be some sort of Russian Dennis Potter riff and could be interesting, although I'm usually suspicious of Russian flicks.
Werner Herzog has inexplicably made a sequel to (and/or re-make of... it's hard to tell) Bad Lieutenant, this one set in New Orleans and with Nic Cage instead of Harvey Keitel. There is a very good chance that this will be the funniest movie of the entire festival.
Capitalism: A Love Story - Michael Moore's latest, because Moore always brings his movies to TIFF. This one's about capitalism. Boo capitalism!
A Serious Man - the new film from the Coens gets its world premiere. Shockingly, it's a period comedy, which would be a radical change of pace for the Coens. Yes, that was sarcasm.
Whip It - Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with a roller derby comedy starring Ellen Page.
Micmacs - new Jeunet!
Up In the Air - new Jason Reitman!
The Hole - new Joe Dante? Really?
Dil Bole Hadippa! - Bollywood cross-dressing cricket comedy. That’s so crazy it just might work.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - Gilliam! Ledger! Depplawfarrell! Lily “The Most Beautiful Woman on the Planet” Cole!
The Road - Viggo “The Best Actor in Hollywood” Mortensen stars in the Cormac McCarthy adaptation, directed by Proposition director John Hillcoat, which strikes me as a brilliant hire to try and make a somewhat unfilmable book screen-worthy.
Agora - Alejandro Amenabar returns after a five year break, and Rachel Weisz plays an Egyptian astronomer trying to save the Library at Alexandria from rampaging hordes of Christians, or something like that. I'm sure the metaphoric possibilities will be endless.
The Men Who Stare At Goats - Ewan McGregor and George Clooney make fun of conspiracy theories, and/or theorists.
Antichrist - new von Trier! God help us all. This one looks like his version of a horror film.
Mr. Nobody - A noodly bit of French sci-fi starring Jared Leto that could be interesting.
Under the Mountain - Black Sheep director Jonathan King returns with an adaptation of the Kiwi kid's classic.
I’m sure there will also be a bunch of tiny unheralded flicks that catch my attention too (I didn’t even mention Chris Rock’s documentary about hair, for instance) but those 30 will do for starters.
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PHIBES?????
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WTF? The ones you listed at the top were shit. The ones you dismissed as "the rest" sound infinitely better. The Road, Up in the Air, A Serious Man, Bad Lieutenant, Parnassus, Antichrist etc.
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Shit, are they showing the series or did the mke a movie outof that!? Seriously, that's some crazy, super cheap stop motion silliness (And I mean that as a compliment!), made with plastic figures that you can find in every little toy store!
Got no idea if you can find episodes of it on YouTube, but you should check it out. I got the series on DVD and still laugh my ass off! -
Some pretty good fights, but except for the elephant scenes nothing groundbreaking or even more original, than the stuff you see from others than Tony Jaa.
And to make things worse, the movie ends all of a sudden in a situation, that promised to be the most interesting part! -
Sep 08, 2009 11:21:43 AM CDT
One more reason to be in Toronto! (I just love that city!)
by derlanghaarige
Look at that great line up! New stuff from the Coens, Jeunet, Dante, [Rec]2, Bad Lieutnant 2(?), Parnassus, OHMYGODMYHEADISABOUTTOEXPLODE!!!
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once I get out of school and find a job. Seems much more fun than boring Edmonton.
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Every year at TIFF they often end up screening a lot of huge movies that get a regular theatrical release very soon after. But the Midnight Madness program feels way more like an "exclusive" event. It's a total nerd-fest and it's a helluva lot more fun than going to a regular TIFF screening. That said, nothing at this year's MM really grabs me, though I am excited to see Daybreakers. We're heading to all 10 MM films this year! Anybody else?
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It is the same as the series.... looks awesome. That along with Symbol are the midnight highlights for me, otherwise it seems a bit too obvious/easy.
There's some really great stuff on top of what Anton mentioned... Herzog's Lynch produced film starring Michael Shannon "My Son, My Son, What Have ye Done", Isabella Rossellinni's "Green Porno" screening/talk, plus Air Doll, White Material, White Ribbon (Haneke!), Fish Tank, Slovenian Girl, Derniers Jours du monde... mostly the best thing is catching the ones that you have no clue about and being blown away. -
That should have been "Panique Au Village" aka "Town Called Panic" (preview at TwitchFilm http://tinyurl.com/koe2ml)
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Fairuza Balk returns to us,Lily fucking Cole. Megan who again??? Oh the lady from the robot movies? Ellen Page in a mini skirt kicking ass at 40 miles an hour I DONT CARE IF ITS DIRECTED BY DREW BARRYMORE!
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It's fucking summer, Harry.
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Excited to see that. Not as excited about the inevitable Hollywood remake. Also psyched for A Prophet, which had great word out of Cannes. Seeing Up In The Air, The Invention of Lying, Youth in Revolt, 25 Carat, Good Hair, Capitalism: A Love Story and a bunch more stuff.
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also you should make room for "A Serious Man" Garbageman.
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Is it that time of year again, when AICN thaws out Anton Sirius of his cryogenic statis? Seriously, because the Toronto Film Fest is the only time this guy ever reports for this site.
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Can't wait to leave on Saturday. My 2nd favorite event of the year, right after Lollapalooza.
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If there's anything worth my interest that doesn't charge me up the ass for a ticket I'll check it out and send in a review.
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If there's anything worth my interest that doesn't charge me up the ass for a ticket I'll check it out and send in a review.
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MM lineup in Toronto kicks ass every year. I saw a 'Work in Progress" print of Hostel there awhile back with a Q&A with Eli Roth, the 2 badass Slovak chicks, and Oli, the Icelandic/Norweigian/whatever Scandinavian country, guy. It was freakin hilarious!!!
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Sep 08, 2009 4:04:17 PM CDT
Midnight Madness lineup is pretty one-dimensional this year
by garbageman33
Seriously, it's all zombies and/or vampires. At least, for the days I'm there (Jennifer's Body, the new George Romero zombie flick, Daybreakers). I'd be way more excited for Symbol, A Town Called Panic, even Solomon Kane. Alas, it's all undead when I'm there.
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I hear Art Snob jumped ship over AICN's indifference to covering any of the recent TIFF announcements (esp. the Midnight Madness lineup). But he's got a cool website at www.tofilmfest.ca/artsnob, and will be twittering from the fest as art_snob. It sounds like he's lucked into some cool stuff.
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I am working with the sales and industry team this year and the Greek film Dogtooth is getting all the buzz from those who have seen 80% of the flicks in the TIFF lineup.
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C'mon dude.. its like 75 degrees in Toronto today... save the tundra jokes for Jan/Feb when its actually true..
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