This is the first year that there’s been an iTunes app for the Toronto Film Festival, and it’s really great. (I’ve been challenged on this but I’m under the impression that a TIFF app was only available to Blackberry users in years past.) There’s even a press and industry screening section that you can access with a user name and password. No more relying on dead-tree materials. During previous festivals I’ve always managed to lose the p & i screening schedule so this is a load off.
Hollywood Elsewhere’s first Toronto Film Festival day includes an 11:30 am p & i screening of Bill Condon‘s The Fifth Estate…wait, cancelled! Okay, Child’s Pose instead. A possible revisiting of the great Blue Is The Warmest Color at 3 pm, Ragnar Bragason‘s Metalhead at 6 pm and, finally, an 8 pm screening of Shane Salerno‘s Salinger.
Like 99.7% of the world’s population I’m repulsed by the history and the metaphor of Adolf Hitler, but today — this morning — I feel a kinship. The subtitled rage about incorrect aspect ratios is right out of my own mouth. I’m assuming that the editor (i.e., Mirekhenry) was thinking of my innumerable 1.66 aspect ratio rants…thank you. (There’s even a brief mention of a grain “problem.”) It concerns the 8.26 Bluray of The Brides of Dracula, which, being a British 1960 release, was naturally released at 1.66 and not 2-point-fucking-oh. (Thanks to Joe Dante for the heads-up. Tip of the hat to Mirekhenry.)
Despite the obvious implications of this trailer, I need to catch David Frankel‘s One Chance when it screens at the Toronto Film Festival early next week. It’s one of those “I finally got my big break and everything was glorious after that” films, but people go for this kind of thing. James Corden as real-life opera singer Paul Potts, a seemingly average bloke who became “an overnight singing sensation,” etc. Billy Elliott re-jiggered with saga of a hapless, chubby opera singer. Costarring Julie Walters, Colm Meaney, Alexandra Roach, Mackenzie Crook. Pic opens in UK on 10.25, but when will The Weinstein Co. open it stateside?
In his 9.3 assessment of the growing influence of Telluride Film Festival and the gradual concurrent diminishment of the Toronto and Venice gatherings, Peter Debruge states that coverage of Telluride by Oscar-focused columnists like myself has been a game-changer. The obvious implication is that impassioned jottings by Hollywood Elsewhere, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet, Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil and Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan have become a highly significant factor in the awards race. Thank you. Noted.
Since Cannes my attitude toward Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska has been one of…uhm, muted respect. And that’s not a putdown. It’s certainly worth seeing (especially for Bruce Dern‘s performance, which he and his Paramount backers are doggedly calling a lead, and Phedon Papamichael‘s black-and-white photography). I figured Nebraska might get a Best Picture nomination (what the hell) but it’s not among the creme de la creme of Payne flicks so maybe not. But during Telluride I kept hearing how much people like it (along with Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day). And I began to imperceptibly slump and resign myself to the fact that we’re all stuck with it. Nebraska is going to snag a Best Picture nomination and go all the way to March.
In a two-day-old Variety piece called “Can Telluride Continue to Steal Venice and Toronto’s Thunder?,” Peter Debruge suggests that Nebraska is actually faring better than Labor Day as we speak. “Benefiting from a new score and some tiny nips and tucks since Cannes, where it met with mixed reviews, Nebraska hit the sweet spot with Telluride crowds,” he writes. “Three months ago, I wouldn’t have factored it into the Oscar race; now, it’s clearly a contender.”