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.
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no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 06:11 am (UTC)I am sending one of my friends (bluegerl) along to your post because she shares your obsession with Sean and Viggo. I agree on Sean but not Viggo quite so much - prefer Depp.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 01:09 pm (UTC)I love Sean, but I think I love Viggo more. He's certainly pickier about his projects. Plus, he shows up in Toronto quite a bit, a result of his friendship/working relationship with David Cronenberg. The two of them did a conversation last year at Lightbox, the film fest headquarters, and it was a brilliant exchange between two dedicated artists.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 01:44 pm (UTC)And Bean has actually been picking projects where he doesn't get killed of late. He's got an ongoing series, Legend, where he lives (and also does the Worst American Accents Ever) and he survived Jupiter Ascending. It also looks like he's going to be Senior Science Dude in The Martian, and hence unlikely to snuff it. *g*
Viggo is probably even more my type than Sean, though. I like my actors lean and rangy, with unusual looks. (See also Willem Dafoe, Christopher Walken and William Fichtner.) And his intelligence and intellectual curiosity doesn't hurt either.
Sounds like your friend would have some fascinating stories to share.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 06:10 pm (UTC)I'm with you on the rugged types. Daniel Craig, yes please! And I appreciated Martin Shaw long before I came to love Lewis Collins as well. Big scruffy blokes with swords is how I frequently describe my tastes, though it's meandered a bit of late. Mark Owen could in no way be described as a big scruffy bloke with a sword. Though I have been very excited to see that he can in fact now grow a proper beard. *g*
You must have told me you grew up near Sting before, but let me say for possibly the second time that that's cool. I'm a huge fan of The Police. Their last '80s tour was the first big proper concert I went to, and I caught them twice on their reunion tour a few years ago.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-17 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 03:52 am (UTC)I've also got a soft spot for waifs and strays, so that must explain the Mark Owen thing. Although I also like the grit he shows on rare occasions. (The I'd Wait for Life video has a random bunch of shots in it that seem to add up to some sort of heist, and one of them his Mark getting knocked down in a deserted field and grimly getting back to his feet. I love that shot to bits.) And gloss is also not my favourite thing.
I've not posted about it, but I've seen the new UNCLE movie twice. The new Illya is not like the original model, but he's a fascinating character in his own right. I'd recommend it. It's stylish and reasonably smartly written, and all the leads, Solo included *g*, are fab.