Toronto Film Fest, the final day
Sep. 14th, 2003 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedCanadian silent, allusive Chinese historical drama and Australian zombie/horror/sci fi/comedy...
Title: Something New
Director: Nell Shipman & Bert Van Tuyle
Country: U.S. (1920)
P's Rating: Okay
Nell Shipman was a Canadian actress and director of the silent period. Several of her films were screened at the fest in a minor retrospective, so I reckoned I had to take a look at one of them at least. Something New was filmed primarily as a promotional film for the Maxwell Motor Company, so the car becomes a main character. The story is slight: Mexican bandits, of the most stereotypical sort, kidnap Nell, so her engineer boyfriend drives his trusty Maxwell through insanely rough terrain to rescue her. When he's injured, she has to drive back, as well as take out the bandits. Shipman is definitely an interesting presence, but really, this could have been a much shorter film. Though initially impressive, the driving scenes soon become repetitive.
Title: Purple Butterfly
Director: Lou Ye
Country: China
P's Rating: Recommended
Set in Manchuria and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of China of the 1930s, Purple Butterfly is a dense film that asks its audience to pay attention but offers ample reward for doing so. Following two parallel love stories of Chinese women in love with Japanese men, the story exists in the shadowy world of the anti-Japanese resistance and Japanese secret service. Lovely, though definitely demands at least a second viewing.
Title: Undead
Director: Peter & Michael Spierig
Country: Australia
P's Rating: Recommended
Owing at huge debt to Peter Jackson's Brain Dead and Bad Taste, the Spierig twins' Undead is a enormously entertaining film produced on an astonishingly miniscule budget. (The digital effects were done on one brother's 600 MHz laptop, and they mostly look just great.) Mixing zombie film conventions with comedy and an unexpected sci fi twist, the film will keep you both laughing and gasping all the way through.
Last night's midnight screening at the fest was the last ever screening that will be held at the Uptown theatre in downtown Toronto. The theatre is the last movie palace to be left in Toronto. Not only did I misspend a large portion of my youth there, but so did my mum, seeing movies there on visits to the city in the 1930s and 40s. It's lately suffered from neglect, but is still a grand old structure, with a huge screen, a full stage, art deco-inspired architectural details and a great sound system. I'll mourn its passing and will never forgive the condo development that will be taking its place on Yonge street. At least I'll have the memories, as well as some photos. Along with hundreds of other cinema fans, I brought a camera to the last screening and filled a full roll of film. The stage was literally swarmed with people before and after the screening doing the same thing.
Title: Something New
Director: Nell Shipman & Bert Van Tuyle
Country: U.S. (1920)
P's Rating: Okay
Nell Shipman was a Canadian actress and director of the silent period. Several of her films were screened at the fest in a minor retrospective, so I reckoned I had to take a look at one of them at least. Something New was filmed primarily as a promotional film for the Maxwell Motor Company, so the car becomes a main character. The story is slight: Mexican bandits, of the most stereotypical sort, kidnap Nell, so her engineer boyfriend drives his trusty Maxwell through insanely rough terrain to rescue her. When he's injured, she has to drive back, as well as take out the bandits. Shipman is definitely an interesting presence, but really, this could have been a much shorter film. Though initially impressive, the driving scenes soon become repetitive.
Title: Purple Butterfly
Director: Lou Ye
Country: China
P's Rating: Recommended
Set in Manchuria and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of China of the 1930s, Purple Butterfly is a dense film that asks its audience to pay attention but offers ample reward for doing so. Following two parallel love stories of Chinese women in love with Japanese men, the story exists in the shadowy world of the anti-Japanese resistance and Japanese secret service. Lovely, though definitely demands at least a second viewing.
Title: Undead
Director: Peter & Michael Spierig
Country: Australia
P's Rating: Recommended
Owing at huge debt to Peter Jackson's Brain Dead and Bad Taste, the Spierig twins' Undead is a enormously entertaining film produced on an astonishingly miniscule budget. (The digital effects were done on one brother's 600 MHz laptop, and they mostly look just great.) Mixing zombie film conventions with comedy and an unexpected sci fi twist, the film will keep you both laughing and gasping all the way through.
Last night's midnight screening at the fest was the last ever screening that will be held at the Uptown theatre in downtown Toronto. The theatre is the last movie palace to be left in Toronto. Not only did I misspend a large portion of my youth there, but so did my mum, seeing movies there on visits to the city in the 1930s and 40s. It's lately suffered from neglect, but is still a grand old structure, with a huge screen, a full stage, art deco-inspired architectural details and a great sound system. I'll mourn its passing and will never forgive the condo development that will be taking its place on Yonge street. At least I'll have the memories, as well as some photos. Along with hundreds of other cinema fans, I brought a camera to the last screening and filled a full roll of film. The stage was literally swarmed with people before and after the screening doing the same thing.
