TIFF 2013: Day One
Sep. 6th, 2013 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedIn spite of being on day three of a stupid migraine, I managed to survive day one of the Toronto film fest, and had a grand time.
It didn't hurt that I ended up this close to Tom Hiddleston when I got out of my first screening at the same time he was getting out of his limo and hitting the red carpet. I'd show you my pic of him, but he's more of a fuzzy, Tom Hiddleston-shaped object in it. (I was running to get in line for his film and just got a quick snap with the iPhone.) But here's a good pic of him at the press conference for the film:
I have to say, in person he's even taller and skinnier that I'd expected. And he was even smarter and more articulate than I'd hoped during the Q&A.
On to the films.
Hiddleston was there for Jim Jarmusch's latest film, Only Lovers Left Alive.
He plays a reclusive centuries-old vampire rock star, Adam, husband to the even older and glammer Eve, played by Tilda Swinton. It's not a very plot heavy film, but it's gorgeous to look at and is a fascinating look at how various characters survive living centuries. Adam is all broody and near-suicidal, while Eve takes every day with grace and wonder. And it's unexpectedly funny in places. Adam and Eve have their world upset when Eve's sister, played by Mia Wasikowska as a perennial spoiled brat, shows up, proving that even vampires can have annoying in-laws. The cast is rounded out by the always wonderful John Hurt as Kit Marlowe, Anton Yelchin as a young rocker who acquires rare guitars for Adam, and Jeffrey Wright as the doctor who gets blood for Adam. It's not for everyone, but if slow, contemplative character studies are your thing, you'll love it.
My other film for the evening was Unbeatable, a Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Dante Lam.
This one is set in the world of MMA fights. Fai (the dude on the left in the poster) is a former boxer who escapes a bad debt in Hong Kong to Macau. He ends up taking a room in the flat of a single mom and her spunky daughter. Qi (the dude on the right) is a young man who's father lost everything in real estate in the mainland. He's working construction to make ends meet, and watching his father attempt to drink himself to death. Qi goes to train at the gym where Fai works, and ends up convincing the older man to train him for a big MMA tournament. There's lots of melodrama (the single mom lost her young son to an accident, and her daughter is trying to keep her on an even keel), and absolutely killer training sequences that made the movie for me. And the kid who plays the daughter is wonderful. It is perhaps just a titch too long, and at the end the melodrama is played up just a titch too far, but it's otherwise a really enjoyable film.
It didn't hurt that I ended up this close to Tom Hiddleston when I got out of my first screening at the same time he was getting out of his limo and hitting the red carpet. I'd show you my pic of him, but he's more of a fuzzy, Tom Hiddleston-shaped object in it. (I was running to get in line for his film and just got a quick snap with the iPhone.) But here's a good pic of him at the press conference for the film:
I have to say, in person he's even taller and skinnier that I'd expected. And he was even smarter and more articulate than I'd hoped during the Q&A.
On to the films.
Hiddleston was there for Jim Jarmusch's latest film, Only Lovers Left Alive.
He plays a reclusive centuries-old vampire rock star, Adam, husband to the even older and glammer Eve, played by Tilda Swinton. It's not a very plot heavy film, but it's gorgeous to look at and is a fascinating look at how various characters survive living centuries. Adam is all broody and near-suicidal, while Eve takes every day with grace and wonder. And it's unexpectedly funny in places. Adam and Eve have their world upset when Eve's sister, played by Mia Wasikowska as a perennial spoiled brat, shows up, proving that even vampires can have annoying in-laws. The cast is rounded out by the always wonderful John Hurt as Kit Marlowe, Anton Yelchin as a young rocker who acquires rare guitars for Adam, and Jeffrey Wright as the doctor who gets blood for Adam. It's not for everyone, but if slow, contemplative character studies are your thing, you'll love it.
My other film for the evening was Unbeatable, a Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Dante Lam.
This one is set in the world of MMA fights. Fai (the dude on the left in the poster) is a former boxer who escapes a bad debt in Hong Kong to Macau. He ends up taking a room in the flat of a single mom and her spunky daughter. Qi (the dude on the right) is a young man who's father lost everything in real estate in the mainland. He's working construction to make ends meet, and watching his father attempt to drink himself to death. Qi goes to train at the gym where Fai works, and ends up convincing the older man to train him for a big MMA tournament. There's lots of melodrama (the single mom lost her young son to an accident, and her daughter is trying to keep her on an even keel), and absolutely killer training sequences that made the movie for me. And the kid who plays the daughter is wonderful. It is perhaps just a titch too long, and at the end the melodrama is played up just a titch too far, but it's otherwise a really enjoyable film.
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Date: 2013-09-07 09:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-09 04:25 am (UTC)