TIFF 2010, Day Three
Sep. 14th, 2010 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedI've got the night off from the film fest, so I can get caught up, a bit, on my reviews.
Title: The King's Speech
Director: Tom Holland
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Highly Recommended
This film has been getting a massive amount of buzz, and justifiably so. Colin Firth plays the future King George VI, and Geoffrey Rush is Lionel Logue, the Australian speech therapist who helped him deal with his stammer. The film is both witty and touching, and the two leads are outstanding. (For all that he's playing someone tortured by his affliction, Firth also manages to show the humour of the king.) The supporting cast, including Helena Bonham-Carter as a quite droll Queen Elizabeth, are also top notch.
Title: Boxing Gym
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Recommended
One of Wiseman's usual investigations of an institution, this time a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. It doesn't dwell on bouts or even sparring, but the real repetitive work that goes into training in any martial art. It's fascinating stuff, made even more fascinating by the wide range of boxers who end up at Lord's Gym, from young boys, to new mothers with their babies in tow, to a young soldier just about to ship out to Afghanistan.
Title: Armadillo
Director: Janus Metz
Country: Denmark
P's Rating: Pretty good
Another documentary, this one following a platoon of Danish soldiers deployed to Helmand province in Afghanistan. It's interesting in how it shows the boredom, terror and sheer chaos of warfare. The one major action that's shown ends disturbingly with one of the baby-faced soldiers gunning down an already wounded Taliban fighter, then the rest of the platoon dragging the bodies of the slain Taliban soldiers out of the ditch they were hiding in and indulging in macho posturing, no doubt born out of adrenaline and relief. Not for the faint of heart, and with the villagers unwilling to cooperate with the soldiers who are meant to be protecting them but sometimes kill them accidentally, it brings up uncomfortable questions about the Western mission in Afghanistan.
Title: The Trip
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Recommended
An entirely improvised comedy from the minds of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. They play alternate versions of themselves who set out on a week-long trip to fancy restaurants in the north of England so Coogan can write an Observer article about the experience. Mostly, it's an excuse for two very funny blokes to try to one up themselves as often as possible. Their duelling impressions of Michael Caine are worth the price of admission, and as a bonus, they repeated the performance live during the Q&A.
Title: The King's Speech
Director: Tom Holland
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Highly Recommended
This film has been getting a massive amount of buzz, and justifiably so. Colin Firth plays the future King George VI, and Geoffrey Rush is Lionel Logue, the Australian speech therapist who helped him deal with his stammer. The film is both witty and touching, and the two leads are outstanding. (For all that he's playing someone tortured by his affliction, Firth also manages to show the humour of the king.) The supporting cast, including Helena Bonham-Carter as a quite droll Queen Elizabeth, are also top notch.
Title: Boxing Gym
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Recommended
One of Wiseman's usual investigations of an institution, this time a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. It doesn't dwell on bouts or even sparring, but the real repetitive work that goes into training in any martial art. It's fascinating stuff, made even more fascinating by the wide range of boxers who end up at Lord's Gym, from young boys, to new mothers with their babies in tow, to a young soldier just about to ship out to Afghanistan.
Title: Armadillo
Director: Janus Metz
Country: Denmark
P's Rating: Pretty good
Another documentary, this one following a platoon of Danish soldiers deployed to Helmand province in Afghanistan. It's interesting in how it shows the boredom, terror and sheer chaos of warfare. The one major action that's shown ends disturbingly with one of the baby-faced soldiers gunning down an already wounded Taliban fighter, then the rest of the platoon dragging the bodies of the slain Taliban soldiers out of the ditch they were hiding in and indulging in macho posturing, no doubt born out of adrenaline and relief. Not for the faint of heart, and with the villagers unwilling to cooperate with the soldiers who are meant to be protecting them but sometimes kill them accidentally, it brings up uncomfortable questions about the Western mission in Afghanistan.
Title: The Trip
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Country: U.K.
P's Rating: Recommended
An entirely improvised comedy from the minds of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. They play alternate versions of themselves who set out on a week-long trip to fancy restaurants in the north of England so Coogan can write an Observer article about the experience. Mostly, it's an excuse for two very funny blokes to try to one up themselves as often as possible. Their duelling impressions of Michael Caine are worth the price of admission, and as a bonus, they repeated the performance live during the Q&A.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 03:40 am (UTC)*swoons*
Plz hold your hand up to the screen so that I can TOUCH YOU. You were in the same room with AIR MOLECULES that were bumping against COLIN FIRTH.