TIFF 2015, Post the Second
Sep. 19th, 2015 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedTIFF draws to a close tomorrow, and it's been a busy few days. I've either been running from work to a screening or to pick up Ros for an activity because the Sweetie is off to a screening. And this morning, Ros and I were off to do our Taekwando black belt training session at 6:45 a.m. (Ros is at the stage where she's expected to to these twice a month. I've got to do every single one from now until June.) So. Very. Tired. But have seen some brilliant films, so it's all good.
The Wave was one of the films I was looking forward to most. A Norwegian tsunami film! What's not to like? And it ended up being brilliant. It's smart--the lead character is a geologist and a lot of the plot depends on him being good at his job--has a great female co-lead--the lead's wife is a great character in her own right and doesn't wait around for her husband to save her and her son--and is just an overall really well-crafted film. It also doesn't hurt that the lead is played by the sort of lean, fox-faced actor I generally fall for completely.
Here's the trailer that sold me on seeing it.
I only ended up seeing The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble because the film I originally had in the time slot, High-Rise with Tom Hiddleston, got cancelled. It ended up being a brilliant choice. It follows the development of the Silk Road Ensemble, a very multicultural music group that was initiated by Ma. Ma is extremely engaging on camera, he's smart and funny and passionate about the importance of culture, art and artists, but he's not even the most interesting subject of the film. All of the Silk Road musicians featured have fascinating and often heartbreaking lives. (Two of the artists are Syrian, and there's a great sequence where they visit a refugee camp in Jordan to teach music to the children there.) The film got the only spontaneous standing ovation I've seen so far at the festival.
I couldn't find an embeddable trailer, but this article has a clip from the film and a description of the main musicians the film follows.
Northern Soul is a coming of age story set in Lancashire in the seventies. It follows a young bloke who's bullied at school and lacking direction. When his parents force him to go to a youth club disco he discovers American soul through a would-be DJ he befriends. The film completely nails the seventies setting, and it's got a great energy and a killer soundtrack. It also has a great cameo from Steven Coogan as the Worst Teacher Ever. It's a bit of a shaggy dog story, but highly enjoyable.
ETA: Almost forgot to add how much this film gave me Take That echoes. (Yeah, I know, I'm obsessed. *g*) It's set in the same general area, so the accents are pretty similar. You also see a sign to Stoke at one point, and the main club everyone goes to is in Wigan, which I'm pretty sure I remember TT played in the early days. And the scrawny young men populating the film do an early take on breakdancing that very much brought to mind Howard and Jason and their stories of starting out dancing in the local clubs. There's one shot of a bunch of boys dancing on a piece of lino in an derelict lot, which is exactly how Jason's described starting out.
Here's the trailer:
A Tale of Three Cities follows the story of Jackie Chan's parents as they survive WW II and eventually make their way to Hong Kong, but the filmmakers said they intended it to celebrate the lives of all that generation. It's an epic historical film, and well-made, though it didn't entirely blow me away. It does, however, star the always fantastic Lau Ching Wan, one of my very favourite HK stars and always worth watching.
Here's the trailer:
Colonia is a slightly weird one. It stars Emma Watson and Daniel Bruhl as a young couple who get caught in the military coup in Chile. Bruhl is a young German activist who came to Chile to help Allende's supporters and is disappeared by the military after the coup. Watson is his flight attendant girlfriend who goes to extreme length to try and free him. The film takes an odd turn when Bruhl is shipped to Colonia Dignidad, a religious cult set up by a German religious fanatic who tortures political prisoners on the side while ruling his followers with an iron fist. The cult story seems almost unbelievable, except that it apparently really existed. There are pictures of the actual place and its leader over the end credits. It's not a bad film,and the performances are all good, but in the end, I didn't really take to it. I felt like I'd signed on for a political thriller and got a religious cult film, which kept giving me a sort of cognitive dissonance.
In other news, while the Sweetie was out at his own screenings tonight, I managed to talk Ros into watching the first episode of Gilmore Girls. (I was trying to stave off yet another episode of Lego Friends on Netflix.) She quite enjoyed it, but I'd forgotten quite how much Lorelai talks about getting pregnant when she was sixteen.
The Wave was one of the films I was looking forward to most. A Norwegian tsunami film! What's not to like? And it ended up being brilliant. It's smart--the lead character is a geologist and a lot of the plot depends on him being good at his job--has a great female co-lead--the lead's wife is a great character in her own right and doesn't wait around for her husband to save her and her son--and is just an overall really well-crafted film. It also doesn't hurt that the lead is played by the sort of lean, fox-faced actor I generally fall for completely.
Here's the trailer that sold me on seeing it.
I only ended up seeing The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble because the film I originally had in the time slot, High-Rise with Tom Hiddleston, got cancelled. It ended up being a brilliant choice. It follows the development of the Silk Road Ensemble, a very multicultural music group that was initiated by Ma. Ma is extremely engaging on camera, he's smart and funny and passionate about the importance of culture, art and artists, but he's not even the most interesting subject of the film. All of the Silk Road musicians featured have fascinating and often heartbreaking lives. (Two of the artists are Syrian, and there's a great sequence where they visit a refugee camp in Jordan to teach music to the children there.) The film got the only spontaneous standing ovation I've seen so far at the festival.
I couldn't find an embeddable trailer, but this article has a clip from the film and a description of the main musicians the film follows.
Northern Soul is a coming of age story set in Lancashire in the seventies. It follows a young bloke who's bullied at school and lacking direction. When his parents force him to go to a youth club disco he discovers American soul through a would-be DJ he befriends. The film completely nails the seventies setting, and it's got a great energy and a killer soundtrack. It also has a great cameo from Steven Coogan as the Worst Teacher Ever. It's a bit of a shaggy dog story, but highly enjoyable.
ETA: Almost forgot to add how much this film gave me Take That echoes. (Yeah, I know, I'm obsessed. *g*) It's set in the same general area, so the accents are pretty similar. You also see a sign to Stoke at one point, and the main club everyone goes to is in Wigan, which I'm pretty sure I remember TT played in the early days. And the scrawny young men populating the film do an early take on breakdancing that very much brought to mind Howard and Jason and their stories of starting out dancing in the local clubs. There's one shot of a bunch of boys dancing on a piece of lino in an derelict lot, which is exactly how Jason's described starting out.
Here's the trailer:
A Tale of Three Cities follows the story of Jackie Chan's parents as they survive WW II and eventually make their way to Hong Kong, but the filmmakers said they intended it to celebrate the lives of all that generation. It's an epic historical film, and well-made, though it didn't entirely blow me away. It does, however, star the always fantastic Lau Ching Wan, one of my very favourite HK stars and always worth watching.
Here's the trailer:
Colonia is a slightly weird one. It stars Emma Watson and Daniel Bruhl as a young couple who get caught in the military coup in Chile. Bruhl is a young German activist who came to Chile to help Allende's supporters and is disappeared by the military after the coup. Watson is his flight attendant girlfriend who goes to extreme length to try and free him. The film takes an odd turn when Bruhl is shipped to Colonia Dignidad, a religious cult set up by a German religious fanatic who tortures political prisoners on the side while ruling his followers with an iron fist. The cult story seems almost unbelievable, except that it apparently really existed. There are pictures of the actual place and its leader over the end credits. It's not a bad film,and the performances are all good, but in the end, I didn't really take to it. I felt like I'd signed on for a political thriller and got a religious cult film, which kept giving me a sort of cognitive dissonance.
In other news, while the Sweetie was out at his own screenings tonight, I managed to talk Ros into watching the first episode of Gilmore Girls. (I was trying to stave off yet another episode of Lego Friends on Netflix.) She quite enjoyed it, but I'd forgotten quite how much Lorelai talks about getting pregnant when she was sixteen.
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no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 08:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 01:25 pm (UTC)I am so impressed by your commitment to Taekwando - particularly with the earliness of the hour!
no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 03:17 am (UTC)If I didn't enjoy the TKD is would probably be hard to impossible to do. But I do quite enjoy it. As for the early hour, Ros sort of turned me into a morning person of a sort, so it's not quite as painful as it might have been. But I have to say that when she's older and out of the house, I seriously plan on flexing my hours later rather than earlier so I can sleep in a tad more. *g*
no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 03:18 am (UTC)Interestingly, the filmmaker of Northern Soul said she originally was considering doing a documentary but was afraid it would mostly consist of 40 and 50 somethings flipping through record bins at collector shows. Clearly, she did not know your brother and his lot. *g*
no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 11:28 am (UTC)He sent me home with his copy of David Nowell's Too Darn Soulful the last time I was home in England but I haven't read it yet.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 01:46 pm (UTC)And she's apparently written her own book on the subject, which I discovered when I went to look up the Nowell book. Both look fascinating. May have to pick one up for the Sweetie. He's got quite the collection of books on the histories of various musical movements.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 01:58 pm (UTC)It probably helps that the English have always been big Motown and soul fans anyway, explaining how many young singers we've produced who still sound like they could be Motown artists.
Also, Northern Soul has a long association with drug use and that's always going to attract a younger crowd.
I haven't read the Nowell book yet and I was never into Northern Soul but my brother thought it was a great insider's book.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-20 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-21 03:21 am (UTC)