If you don’t review a film right away someone will come along and post your thoughts. Sure enough the opening paragraph of Scott Foundas‘s Variety review of Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom expressed my exact feelings about this Weinstein Co. release. It’s a “classic” biopic in the sense that it feels like it was made 30 or 40 years ago. It’s basically the life of Nelson Mandela by way of the sensibility of Richard Attenborough‘s Gandhi (’82). That makes it a reverential but generally mediocre film about a great man and a great saga, but one that is saved or at the very least enobled by Idris Elba‘s stirring, highly charismatic performance as Mandela — the first breakthrough performance that the 41 year-old Elba has given on the big screen or anywhere else for that matters.
August Do-or-Die
It’s been almost six years since Tracy Letts‘ August: Osage County opened big-time on Broadway and five and a half years since it won a bagful of Tony Awards. And it’s been a good three-plus years since the film version began to be developed. And now the climax — the 12.25.13 Weinstein Co. release will be shown today (late this afternoon at a p & i screening, early this evening at Roy Thomson Hall) and the verdicts will be flying fast and furious by…oh, a little after 7 pm eastern?
The buzz around town is guarded. Almost every press person I’ve spoken to about it has offered a variation of the following: “Hopefully, yeah, sure…looking forward. An obvious Oscar nomination possibility for Meryl Streep…okay, maybe Streep but Harvey can’t play the ‘she’s due’ card any more. But almost certainly one for Julia Roberts, right? Or maybe not. Who knows? But translating a successful stage play definitely isn’t easy, especially when you cut roughly an hour out of the play’s over-three-hour running time, and John Wells directing …I don’t know, man. Remember The Company Men?”
Code Talk
I’ve just come back from buying stuff at one of those all-purpose pharmacies and markets. I sauntered up to the counter and put my stuff down. The 20something checkout guy said “hey” and I muttered “how are ya?” and then…
Checkout guy: Would you like a bag?
Me: Yes. (Quizzical expression, slight smile.) I mean…well, have you ever met anyone buying two or more items who doesn’t want a bag?
Checkout guy: Well, some people bring their own.
Me: Uh-huh. You’re talking in code then. What you’re asking is “do I want to buy a bag?”
Checkout guy: Right.
Me: Okay. (Pause.) I’m guessing a dinky plastic bag is worth nothing, maybe a tenth of a penny but you guys charge…what, a dime?
Checkout guy: Five cents.
Me: Local governments are charging stores a tax for plastic bags for pollution reasons so the stores are passing the cost along. I get it. Back in West Hollywood I bought two large cloth bags for grocery shopping. But I almost never take them with me because I tend to drop into Gelson’s or Pavillions on impulse so I wind up paying for paper bags almost every time. Stores have been providing free bags for decades, over a century. No more.
I Can’t Breathe
After a slow morning I caught three Toronto Film Festival films this afternoon — Justin Chadwick‘s Mandela: Long Road to Freedom at noon, John Carney‘s Can A Song Save Your Life? at around 2:15 or 2:30 and then Stephen Frears‘ Philomena at 4:30 pm. I had issues with all three (a lot of people did), although Philomena is clearly the best of the three. And then I shuffled back to the pad and took a 45-minute nap. And now I need to attend an 8:30 pm Gravity party (i.e. more Alfonso Cuaron) followed by a screening of Ron Howard‘s Rush (my second viewing) at Roy Thomson Hall followed by a Rush party starting at around 11:30 pm. I haven’t been able to file a damn thing. Tomorrow morning, I’m thinking.
Man of The Hour
I had to hang around the Dallas Buyers’ Club party until 1:15 am in order to snap Jared Leto, who is unquestionably the big breakout “everybody’s talkin'” guy of the Toronto Film Festival and an all-but-guaranteed Best Supporting Actor nominee. Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson was disagreeing with me (and virtually the rest of the world) about this prediction, and so we agreed to get into a back-and-forth about it. She’s dead wrong. Deadline‘s Pete Hammond said that Leto’s touching performance as Matthew McConaughey‘s cross-dressing drug-distribution partner is analagous to Chris Sarandon‘s performance as Leon in Dog Day Afternoon.
Dallas Buyers Club costar and likely Oscar contender Jared Leto last night at Cibo on King Street, where the after-party was held.
Ordeal of Revelry
I’m not complaining about having been invited to five parties tonight. It’s lovely to be asked, and it always feels soothing to greet and be greeted and not drink alcohol, etc. But as I sit on my stool at a Starbucks on Queen and John Streets I guess I am sort of whining about it, whiny little bitch that I am. Four or five parties in the space of four and a half hours will wear you down. But I really want to say hello to all my industry pallies at the Sony Classics party uptown, and then at the Fox Searchlight and IFC Films and Metalhead parties down in this neck of the woods, and finally at the Dallas Buyers Club party which starts at midnight. All hail Matthew McConaughey and especially Jared Leto!
Needly, Thorny, Prickly
I saw Nicole Holofcener‘s Enough Said a couple of hours ago. It’s another myopic, mild-mannered visit with the denizens of Holofcenerland — upscale, educated, liberal-minded 40- and 50-somethings who live west of the 405. It’s a bittersweet experience due to the presence of the late James Gandolfini, whom I’ve long felt a special kinship with (and whose funeral I attended last June in Manhattan), but otherwise it’s basically about how it’s a bad idea for a divorcee (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) to go out with an ex-husband (Gandolfini) of a client she’s getting to know (Catherine Keener) because one way or another the ex-wife is going to list every shortcoming of the ex-husband in spades, and that stuff is toxic, a kind of poison, and it’ll kill the relationship pretty quickly if you let it into your head so you shouldn’t. That’s basically what the film is saying.
No Time To Make The Case But…
It’s 3:35 pm Toronto time, and so far I’ve seen Peter Landesman‘s Parkland, which isn’t anywhere close to being as authentic and grounded as it needs to be (and I’m saying this as a fan of Landeasman’s script) and Jean-Marc Vallee‘s Dallas Buyers Club, which looks to me like a
Friday Night Hop-Around
Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words, a tartly ascerbic spelling-bee comedy aimed at the diminishing ranks of non-moronic moviegoers, went over extremely well at the Ryerson last night. It’s a kind of Rushmore-meets-Bad Santa piece about a pissed-off, close-cropped 40something guy (Bateman) who takes advantage of a loophole to compete against kids in the National Quill Spelling Bee competition, and in so doing bonds/warms up to/gets down with a reporter (Kathryn Hahn) and a 10 year-old Indian kid (Rohan Chand) as he seeks a kind of satisfaction that has nothing to do with winning the $50,000 first prize. Dry, subdued, bordering-on-perverse performances + Andrew Dodge‘s witty-ass, occasionally scatalogical screenplay resulted in much laughter with some in the audience wondering if the film goes “too far,” as one questioner inquired. Trust me, the “too far” stuff is one of the main reasons the film went over so well.
At Toronto’s Ryerson theatre last night following screening of Bad Words (l. ro r.) director-star Jason Bateman, costars Rohan Chand, Kathryn Hand.
Starvation, Kakhi Shorts, Glistening Sweat, Dysentery, Sadism, etc.
I’ve just been watching (i.e., have just escaped from) Jonathan Taplitzky‘s The Railway Man at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. I felt lost in the ether, but it costars Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine and Stellan Skarsgard. By far the most interesting portion is an extended World War II flashback sequence showing British POWs working on the Thai-Burma Railway under Japanese troops. It’s interesting because another camp of soldiers are doing the exact same thing under the command of Lt. Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness) down near the River Kwai, and because there’s also a certain British POW named Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers), later to become a Group Captain and serve at Burpleson Air Force Base under General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who’s also laying track. They’re all starving and suffering and sweating buckets and planning escapes and dying from malaria and bumming butts.
Diana Has Issues
“The campy guilty pleasure suggested by the Diana trailer proves a marketing mirage thanks to Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s sensitive direction of an overly earnest drama,” writes Variety‘s Charles Gant. “While mostly swerving past the pitfall of tastelessness, this sincerely intended account of the last two years of Princess Diana’s life risks an even more perilous roadblock: dullness. Still, the tony credentials, including lead thesp Naomi Watts’ two Oscar nods, provide a handy alibi for upscale audiences eager to have their fill of royal rumpus, but anxious that Diana might merely be trash TV on a bigger budget.
“While Hirschbiegel’s direction and a crack technical team class up the production, the same can’t always be said of Stephen Jeffreys’ script, which is belabored by clunky exposition and struggles to convincingly depict two real people actually in love. Watts’ at times deft impersonation of the doe-eyed beauty similarly never coheres into a full-fledged performance, or offers much insight into the enigma that lurks within.
“The decision to keep the rest of the royal family offscreen — only sons William (Laurence Belcher) and Harry (Harry Holland) are briefly glimpsed — may have intended to set the film apart from TV fare such as 1992’s Charles & Diana: A Palace Divided, or simply to keep the focus on the central relationship. But their conspicuous absence further undermines any sense of Diana as a rounded human being.”
Breathing Room
I missed the first five minutes of the 11:30 am screening of Roger Michell‘s Le Week-End, and I’m sorry but I bailed after an hour. I found it slow, meandering, uninvolving. Then I ducked into Ralph Fiennes‘ The Invisible Woman just to get a feel for Felicity Jones‘ performance as Kelly Ternan, the young woman who was Charles Dickens‘ secret (or certainly unacknowledged) lover for several years. She handles herself well enough — her performance is earnest and grounded — but despite Variety‘s Scott Foundas calling it “revelatory” I didn’t see any reason to do cartwheels in the foyer. I bailed after 30 minutes — sorry. Then I attended a public screening of Teller‘s Tim’s Vermeer, which I saw start to finish. It’s a delightful, fascinating, highly intelligent, inventive and spirit-lifting film for everyone — the Telluride praise was well earned. Then I slipped into Iram Haq‘s not-bad I Am Yours but I couldn’t stay — sorry. It’s now 5:30 pm. At 6pm I’ll be seeing Jonathan Teplitzsky‘s The Railway Man at Roy Thomson Hall, and then it’s a toss-up between a 9:30 pm screening of Peter Landesman‘s Parkland and Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words, a spelling-bee movie, at the Ryerson at 9:30 pm. I don’t know what to do. I’m leaning toward seeing the Bateman tomorrow instead…sorry, no offense.