What Toronto Was
Okay -- I blew my Toronto Film Festival experience by not seeing Borat. If there's a consensus among the various columnists, it's that more people connected in a dynamic, jolting, oh-my-gosh way with Sacha Baron Cohen's deranged put-on comedy (20th Century Fox, 11.3) than with any other Toronto Film Festival attraction. Fine... whatever. It guess it's something to look forward to seeing when I get back to L.A.
Toronto is the festival that presides over the death and downgrading of imperfect films. All The King's Men died here. Bobby was all but pummelled to death. Stranger than Fiction pretty much died. For Your Consideration, Infamous and The Fountain (a film I really and truly liked) all died here. Breaking and Entering found respect and muted enthusiasm, but that's all.
Babel and Volver solidifed their already commanding positions. Venus did fairly well, but Peter O'Toole did better. Catch a Fire tried for traction and found some, but I'm not sure if it was enough. Little Children did moderately well, although it became clear that some had recoiled due to the second-act "ick" factor. And Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth gained.
My biggest Toronto favorite (apart from the films I loved but had already seen in Cannes) was Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others. And I'm hugely pissed that I couldn't manage to see Paul Verhoeven's Black Book his return to Dutch filmmaking by way of a World War II melodrama, as well as Patrice Leconte's My Best Friend, which Variety's Robert Koehler brought to my attention two or three days ago. I nodded and said thanks and wrote a note to myself...and didn't see it.
The Last King of Scotland didn't ignite, but Forrest Whittaker's performance as Idi Amin did...sort of. Penelope Cruz has played the role of her life in Volver, and to my mind she became an all-but-certain Best Actress nominee out of her TIFF exposure. Kate Winslet caught a Best Actress wave with her Little Children performance, and costars Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earl Haley popped through in more general terms.
I'l try and add to this piece later on, as well as get into the mezzo-mezzo's that I didn't feel very much about one way or the other.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 15, 2006 at 12:34 PM
comment #1
Kristopher Tapley
says ...
Where is this notion that "Volver" is a Best Picture contender coming from?? Hardly. A foreign language film has to be pretty special to get Best Pic placement, as history has shown us.
Posted by Kristopher Tapley
at September 15, 2006 12:40 PM
comment #2
RoyBatty
says ...
Considering that there have been something like half a dozen posts on HE that BOBBY didn't exactly catch fire, yet you managed to miss the one film that everyone does end up talking about (BORAT) seems like a gaffe that is not covered by a "Fine...whatever."
Just a personal thing perhaps, but adding "whatever" to just about any statement always seems a cop-out that negates whatever thing the person is admitting to.
And considering that BORAT seems likely to raise alot of issues about what is funny and what should stay taboo (like racism, sexism and anti-Semitism) it's not like you missed Jimmy Fallon bore-fest.
Posted by RoyBatty
at September 15, 2006 1:40 PM
comment #3
insidah
says ...
Jeff, why are you delighting in the so called trashing of Bobby. The film came out, received some nice notices from the trades. The vitriol is a little much.
Posted by insidah
at September 15, 2006 2:17 PM
comment #4
corey3rd
says ...
Didn't Borat have the projector breakdown? Odds are that would have been the screening you would have made.
Posted by corey3rd
at September 15, 2006 2:20 PM
comment #5
Dixon Steele
says ...
Jeff,
Per your post and the films' reactions, has Toronto become hardened or is that just you? Seriously...
Also, Roy Batty is right, enough already with the "whatevers". That's fine, if you're Paris Hilton.
And while I haven't seen BORAT yet, I never quite understand how the charge of "anti-Semitism" is leveled at filmmakers (two, in this case, Cohen & Charles) who are obviously Jewish.
Posted by Dixon Steele
at September 15, 2006 2:47 PM
comment #6
tholl-yung
says ...
I can't tell if you guys are bored or stupid.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 15, 2006 3:03 PM
comment #7
tholl-yung
says ...
Except for Kris.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 15, 2006 3:04 PM
comment #8
tholl-yung
says ...
"Where is this notion that 'Volver' is a Best Picture contender coming from?? Hardly. A foreign language film has to be pretty special to get Best Pic placement, as history has shown us." Kris, did you listen to the O'Neil's interview of Wells?
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 15, 2006 4:01 PM
comment #9
Dixon Steele
says ...
T.H.,
We're bored. You're stupid.
No wonder you can't find work as an editor. What director in his right mind would put his film in your hands?
Posted by Dixon Steele
at September 15, 2006 5:20 PM
comment #10
tholl-yung
says ...
Dix, I walked away by choice.
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 15, 2006 5:25 PM
comment #11
Dixon Steele
says ...
Yeah, and so did Tom Cruise.
Posted by Dixon Steele
at September 15, 2006 5:44 PM
comment #12
tholl-yung
says ...
I'm in the Tom Cruise club now. What's your specialty here? Are you a film history buff or action or horror movie afficiado? What are you really knowledgable about?
Posted by tholl-yung
at September 15, 2006 6:00 PM
comment #13
transmogrifier
says ...
I get the feeling Wells now has a deep-seated antipathy towards BORAT. Nobody tells Jeff what he should have watched!
I look forward to the pan.
Posted by transmogrifier
at September 15, 2006 7:42 PM
comment #14
RoyBatty
says ...
transmogrifier - certainly have JW's penchant for iconclasm, knee-jerk reaction and/or just plain ol' reverse psychology nailed.
If there is one constant on HE is for Nicol D to put his two cents in on any post that brings up the liberal/conservative divide and for JW to react to things in a against-the-grain, fight-the-current manner.
Perhaps if word came out that George Lucas was remaking BORAT then you would see a rabid fan born...
Posted by RoyBatty
at September 16, 2006 11:18 AM
comment #15
Ju-osh
says ...
Y'all are forgetting two other key elements in a JW review: overrating his sons' reactions and his blinding giddiness when he thinks he's stumbled upon a film that has (in his words) "the x-factor".
Posted by Ju-osh
at September 16, 2006 1:12 PM
comment #16
Dixon Steele
says ...
Yeah, but Jeff LOVED The Fountain, which from all other reports is an incomprehensible mess.
To each his own, I guess...
Posted by Dixon Steele
at September 16, 2006 1:22 PM
comment #17
Mike Schaefer
says ...
Did anyone else read the awful TIFF roundup story in the new EW by Missy Schwartz and Adam Vary? They reported that Herzog's "Rescue Dawn" "...generated serious Academy Award talk." In what alternative universe?
Posted by Mike Schaefer
at September 17, 2006 12:44 PM
comment #18
InnerGeek
says ...
Yes Jeffrey - You screwed up big time by missing Borat. I can't imagine any other film this year could be as brilliantly, gut-bustingly funny. It's going to be talked about like crazy and you missed your precious chance to be one of the first to give his arrogant opinion. Oops!
Posted by InnerGeek
at September 18, 2006 6:46 PM