TIFF 2015, Post the First
Sep. 16th, 2015 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedI went straight from Ros' soccer tournament into TIFF. Which means running into stuff like this as I traipse around the entertainment district where most of the theatres are.
Unfortunately, I haven't run into any stars yet. I was especially gutted to find out after the fact that one of my faves, the Bean, was in town in support of The Martian. He's one of exactly two actors I would actually stalk on the red carpet. The other, Viggo Mortensen, I did track down a few years back and got his autograph. Ah, well. At least it led to fun photos like this. The Bean and Donald Glover in the same picture is sort of awesome.
I'm only seeing eleven films this year. I was originally supposed to be up to my eyeballs in training at work this week, so I only got eleven tickets. But then the project I was working on imploded, which meant I could take a few days off to see films rather than cramming them all into the evenings, and take it all at a more leisurely pace. Which is nice for a change.
I've seen four films so far, two British, two Chinese. The Chinese ones have been...interesting, but the British ones have both been amazing.
I couldn't resist Dark Horse. It's about a group of working class people in a small Welsh village who kicked in 10 quid a week each to breed a race horse, and ended up with a champion horse who competed in the Grand National. The members of the syndicate are all brilliant, especially Jan, the bar maid who came up with the mad scheme to breed a race horse and dragged everyone else along with her. It's heart-warming, but it's also got real grit, and it takes on the British class system in interesting ways. The syndicate members are all rough around the edges, but they force themselves into the very upper class world of British horse racing by not taking no for an answer.
Here, have a trailer.
Kilo Two Bravo may be relevant to some of your interests. It's about a group of British soldiers guarding a dam in Afghanistan who go on a recce to drive out some Taliban extorting local villagers and wind up caught in the middle of a mine field. It's not the usual sort of war movie. There's no big shoot out, no displays of machismo. There's just a bunch of blokes from the north of England and Scotland who get caught in a horrific situation and then have to figure out how to get out alive. It's unbelievably tense, darkly funny, and just fucking amazing. It's also based on a true story, and at the screening, along with the director, writer and one of the actors, the bloke who was the real medic was there. And he was just amazing.
The trailer gives a really good sense of the film.
Mountains May Depart is the latest from a Chinese director I quite like, Jia Zhang-Ke, but it's not his best. It follows a woman, Tao, and the two men she loves, in three separate time periods, 1999, 2014, and 2025. At it's best, the film is a quiet meditation on what you lose in the course of a life.
This clip is one of the better moments in the film, with Tao taking her son back to Shanghai, to stay with his father, her ex-husband.
But the film sort of loses it in the last sequence, focusing on Tao's now grown son and the Mandarin teacher he develops a relationship with, losing sight of Tao and the man she turned down to marry her son's father who are by far the most interesting characters. And it also irritated me by playing characters who are at most in their early fifties as doddering. Um, no.
Office is directed by Johnnie To, one of Hong Kong's most prolific and diverse directors. His action films tend to the amazing--his Drug War from a few years ago is fantastic--but his track record when he strays into other genres is spottier. This time he's made an office drama musical that's stylistically interesting, but narratively dull. He's filmed on black sound stages with sets made out of colourful steel girders and neon, with a big cast that breaks out into song and dance numbers at regular intervals, which is sort of fun. It also stars Chow Yun-Fat, who I always adore. On the downside, I didn't give a rat's ass about the story or the characters.
This trailer gives a good sense of the style of the film, which is the best reason to seek it out.
Unfortunately, I haven't run into any stars yet. I was especially gutted to find out after the fact that one of my faves, the Bean, was in town in support of The Martian. He's one of exactly two actors I would actually stalk on the red carpet. The other, Viggo Mortensen, I did track down a few years back and got his autograph. Ah, well. At least it led to fun photos like this. The Bean and Donald Glover in the same picture is sort of awesome.
I'm only seeing eleven films this year. I was originally supposed to be up to my eyeballs in training at work this week, so I only got eleven tickets. But then the project I was working on imploded, which meant I could take a few days off to see films rather than cramming them all into the evenings, and take it all at a more leisurely pace. Which is nice for a change.
I've seen four films so far, two British, two Chinese. The Chinese ones have been...interesting, but the British ones have both been amazing.
I couldn't resist Dark Horse. It's about a group of working class people in a small Welsh village who kicked in 10 quid a week each to breed a race horse, and ended up with a champion horse who competed in the Grand National. The members of the syndicate are all brilliant, especially Jan, the bar maid who came up with the mad scheme to breed a race horse and dragged everyone else along with her. It's heart-warming, but it's also got real grit, and it takes on the British class system in interesting ways. The syndicate members are all rough around the edges, but they force themselves into the very upper class world of British horse racing by not taking no for an answer.
Here, have a trailer.
Kilo Two Bravo may be relevant to some of your interests. It's about a group of British soldiers guarding a dam in Afghanistan who go on a recce to drive out some Taliban extorting local villagers and wind up caught in the middle of a mine field. It's not the usual sort of war movie. There's no big shoot out, no displays of machismo. There's just a bunch of blokes from the north of England and Scotland who get caught in a horrific situation and then have to figure out how to get out alive. It's unbelievably tense, darkly funny, and just fucking amazing. It's also based on a true story, and at the screening, along with the director, writer and one of the actors, the bloke who was the real medic was there. And he was just amazing.
The trailer gives a really good sense of the film.
Mountains May Depart is the latest from a Chinese director I quite like, Jia Zhang-Ke, but it's not his best. It follows a woman, Tao, and the two men she loves, in three separate time periods, 1999, 2014, and 2025. At it's best, the film is a quiet meditation on what you lose in the course of a life.
This clip is one of the better moments in the film, with Tao taking her son back to Shanghai, to stay with his father, her ex-husband.
But the film sort of loses it in the last sequence, focusing on Tao's now grown son and the Mandarin teacher he develops a relationship with, losing sight of Tao and the man she turned down to marry her son's father who are by far the most interesting characters. And it also irritated me by playing characters who are at most in their early fifties as doddering. Um, no.
Office is directed by Johnnie To, one of Hong Kong's most prolific and diverse directors. His action films tend to the amazing--his Drug War from a few years ago is fantastic--but his track record when he strays into other genres is spottier. This time he's made an office drama musical that's stylistically interesting, but narratively dull. He's filmed on black sound stages with sets made out of colourful steel girders and neon, with a big cast that breaks out into song and dance numbers at regular intervals, which is sort of fun. It also stars Chow Yun-Fat, who I always adore. On the downside, I didn't give a rat's ass about the story or the characters.
This trailer gives a good sense of the style of the film, which is the best reason to seek it out.
