Toronto Film Fest, Day Nine
Sep. 19th, 2004 04:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedSecond last day of the fest, and I pretty much hit the wall.
Title: Breaking News
Director: Johnnie To
Country: Hong Kong
P's Rating: Recommended
Johnnie To returns to form with a cops & robbers story, with a twist. When a robbery attempt erupts in a gun battle and a hostage-taking, both the police and the crooks try to use the media and the internet to their advantage. Breaking News has all the energy of To's best films of the genre and is an entertaining ride, start to finish. It's also got a fun role for To regular, Lam Suet, as a single dad who ends up as a hostage with his bratty kids.
Title: The Year of the Yao
Director: James D. Stern &: Adam Del Deo
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Recommended
Yao Ming is the first Chinese player drafted by the NBA. The Year of the Yao follows the highly touted Yao in his first year as centre for the Houston Rockets. As much as basketball, the film is about Yao dealing with culture shock with the help of his rookie translator, Colin Pine. Yao and Pine both emerge as sweet guys, struggling to succeed in an environment that is foreign to them both. And the basketball sequences are too much fun to watch. Yao's got a no-look underhand lay-up that is a wonder to behold. (Yeah, I love hoops.)
Title: Primer
Director: Shane Carruth
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Okay
This low budget time travel tale had a lot of buzz. It follows two friends and business partners who, in the course of working on some unnamed computer technology, stumble onto a device that allows them to travel back in time. The dialogue can be clever--you've gotta love a line like "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since later this afternoon"--but it can also be so vague as to be incomprehensible. And it doesn't look great; the film has the yellowish cast that you get from a camcorder with lousy white balance. Ultimately, I found all the multiple time loops and paradoxes tiresome and tedious rather than fascinating.
Title: La Peau blanche
Director: Daniel Roby
Country: Canada
P's Rating: Recommended
After an encounter with a prostitute who nearly murders his friend Henri, university student Thierry becomes captivated with the red-headed Claire. But Claire has a secret, which may be connected to a string of murders as well as the attack on Henri. La Peau blanche is a nifty little thriller that has some nice moments and a great performance by Frédéric Pierre as Henri.
Title: Breaking News
Director: Johnnie To
Country: Hong Kong
P's Rating: Recommended
Johnnie To returns to form with a cops & robbers story, with a twist. When a robbery attempt erupts in a gun battle and a hostage-taking, both the police and the crooks try to use the media and the internet to their advantage. Breaking News has all the energy of To's best films of the genre and is an entertaining ride, start to finish. It's also got a fun role for To regular, Lam Suet, as a single dad who ends up as a hostage with his bratty kids.
Title: The Year of the Yao
Director: James D. Stern &: Adam Del Deo
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Recommended
Yao Ming is the first Chinese player drafted by the NBA. The Year of the Yao follows the highly touted Yao in his first year as centre for the Houston Rockets. As much as basketball, the film is about Yao dealing with culture shock with the help of his rookie translator, Colin Pine. Yao and Pine both emerge as sweet guys, struggling to succeed in an environment that is foreign to them both. And the basketball sequences are too much fun to watch. Yao's got a no-look underhand lay-up that is a wonder to behold. (Yeah, I love hoops.)
Title: Primer
Director: Shane Carruth
Country: U.S.
P's Rating: Okay
This low budget time travel tale had a lot of buzz. It follows two friends and business partners who, in the course of working on some unnamed computer technology, stumble onto a device that allows them to travel back in time. The dialogue can be clever--you've gotta love a line like "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since later this afternoon"--but it can also be so vague as to be incomprehensible. And it doesn't look great; the film has the yellowish cast that you get from a camcorder with lousy white balance. Ultimately, I found all the multiple time loops and paradoxes tiresome and tedious rather than fascinating.
Title: La Peau blanche
Director: Daniel Roby
Country: Canada
P's Rating: Recommended
After an encounter with a prostitute who nearly murders his friend Henri, university student Thierry becomes captivated with the red-headed Claire. But Claire has a secret, which may be connected to a string of murders as well as the attack on Henri. La Peau blanche is a nifty little thriller that has some nice moments and a great performance by Frédéric Pierre as Henri.
