Results 1 to 15 of 19

Thread: Toronto Film Festival Sept. 5- Sept 15, 2019

Hybrid View

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    D'Angelo day 6

    Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie, USA): 73
    D'Angelo saw and loved the new Safdie brothers film too, giving it his highest TFF '19 score so far, a 73 and writing, "Watching it felt a bit like watching Philippe Petit walk the wire between the Twin Towers: exhilarating and nerve-wracking in roughly equal measure. I was pleasantly surprised by Sandler’s paternal gentleness in The Meyerowitz Stories, but it’s hard to imagine him ever topping this majestically self-absorbed performance."
    Lee explains: [Sandler] "plays fast-talking jewelry dealer Howard Ratner, a man who spends his days frantically trying to make money while being followed by the men he owes money to, an exhausting lifestyle he can’t seem to escape.
    This sounds all too like the Safdie brothers; but if Sandler can imbue it with humanistic warmth, that would make all the difference.

    Wasp Network (Olivier Assayas, Belgium/Brazil/Spain/France): 43. D'Angelo almost cut it when he learned Assayas was gong to recut it. It's about Cuban spies, but boring. Imagine Carlos without Carlos, says D'Angelo. Yes, Edgar Ramirez is on hand, but playing "a dullard this time." "Whatever attracted Assayas to this particular story never found its way onscreen."

    To the Ends of the Earth (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan/Qatar/Uzbekistan): 56

    "Kurosawa does Coppola—Sofia, that is, removing Bill Murray’s character from Lost in Translation and making it about a young Japanese woman adrift in Uzbekistan. Fascinating change of pace..."

    The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan, China): 38

    He "rather liked both [Yinan's previous films] Night Train and Black Coal, Thin Ice" but found this "extravagantly empty" and "hated" it. Though "plenty of 'stuff' 'happens'—it's quite a busy film, in fact, replete with lengthy flashbacks and conflicting vendettas" nonetheless D'Angelo felt none carried "emotional weight" "and precious little of it offers much in the way of superficial pleasure, either." So there. I hope I like it better.

    He also walked out after 47 mins. on a film about sudden deafness with 12-step overtones:
    Sound of Metal (Darius Marder, USA): W/O)
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 05-22-2020 at 10:30 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    Oscar bait? Or not?

    Harriet (Kasi Lemmons) 4/5 stars from Peter Bradshaw: "Cynthia Erivo is sublime as legendary slave rebel [Harriot Tubman]" "the Spartacus of the American South." This is " somewhere between a slave-escape drama, an action thriller, a western and even an unexpected kind of superhero film." It " tremendously charismatic and muscular performance from Erivo, who may well be in the frame for awards." But Owen Gleiberman in Variety found it "more dutiful than inspired."
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-11-2019 at 09:09 AM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    More from Toronto


    STEEVE COOGAN IN GREED

    Greed (Michael Winterbottom) gets 3/5 stars from Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian. It's a satire ("mocumentary") starring Steve Coogan as a "high-street fashion tycoon" that "presents a hideous carnival of obscene wealth, vanity and moral squalor." Sounds fun, though he says it hardly challenges Coogan's skill in this "shallow, if entertaining, role." Coogan looks very entertaining as this privileged egocentric creep. CLIP.

    American Son (Kenny Leon), from a play by Christopher Demos-Brown and adapted by him (often a mistake) is a 1/5 star disaster, according to Bradshaw. It concerns racism shown when a black mother vs. her ex, a white FBI officer father, speak to a cop at a police station about their missing 18-year-old biracial son. But, says Bradshaw, the dialogue is "cardboard" and stagey and nothing convinces.

    Mrs Fletcher (Nicole Holofcener. Introduction to a new HBO series which Benjamin Lee gives 4/5 stars to. It is an adaptation of a novel by Tom Perotta, whose work has tended to adapt very well (Little Children, Election, The Leftovers). This concerns a mother who faces empty nest syndrome and her popular high school jock son who goes off to college. Perotta worked closely with director Nicole Holofcener for the adaptation, which Lee considers a plus.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-12-2019 at 06:38 PM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    D'Angelo TFF '19 day 7


    BINOCHE, HAWKE, DENEUVE IN KOREEDA'S TRUTH

    He was not enthused about this set and said the NYFF selection committee "went a bit loco" in his view (the NYFF includes Saturday Fiction and Fire Will Come). Ratings and excerpts of his reviews for yesterday.

    Saturday Fiction (Lou Ye, China): 42
    Had assumed—quite happily, I confess—that Lou was basically over, as it’s been a full decade (and five features) since he last showed up in Cannes Competition or NYFF. For some reason, though, Kent Jones & Co. got excited about this laborious espionage thriller, which somehow squanders both Gong Li and monochrome... [Remember ScreenDaily said it was "confused" and Variety called it "muddled." D'Angelo says you only know who the bad guys are when the guns come out. It's those they're being pointed at.]

    The Truth (Kore-eda Hirokazu, France/Japan): 53
    Very much of a piece with Kore-eda’s recent work, though the comparative lack of cultural specificity makes it feel a bit generic. Deneuve’s diva, it retroactively occurs to me, presents something of a challenge for a Japanese filmmaker (though Kore-eda conceived this story himself)—such preening is considered far more gauche in Japan than elsewhere... [but] brittle mother-daughter dynamic suits Deneuve and Binoche quite well, and The Truth works best as an emotionally direct two-hander, ŕ la Marriage Story but with two people who can never split up. Didn’t really need the usual intrusive tinkly score ...or Ethan Hawke just hanging around looking pleasantly surprised to be in a Kore-eda joint. [David Erlich reviewed a bit more favorably in Indiewire.]

    I Was at Home, but… (Angela Schanelec, Germany/Serbia): 40
    ...In theory, I can appreciate this sort of syntactic, allusive approach, which is more or less what Haneke does in Code Unknown. But I genuinely don’t know the code, in this case, ... maybe I’m just too much the rationalist for this mode of filmmaking. Though I really dug the similarly amorphous Kékszakállú, so who knows.

    Fire Will Come (Oliver Laxe, Spain/France/Luxembourg): 41
    Begins operatically (almost literally—Laxe uses the same haunting Vivaldi cue that recurs throughout Dogville...with monumental shots of trees being felled in a mist-shrouded forest; ends by fulfilling the title’s prediction, briefly metamorphosing into a documentary about containment measures. There’s just not enough going on in between, as we await the inevitable conflagration. I’d thought Laxe might be slowly building to the point where his ex-arsonist protag finally snaps...
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-12-2019 at 06:34 PM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    What Toronto will mean to us.


    SCARLETT JOHANSSON, ROMAN GRIFFON DAVIS IN JOJO RABBIT

    TTFF '19 IS OVER. Topics to discuss include Fiona Apple in Hustlers, tour de force scenes by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story, the new take on a comic book and franchise character by Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, other new takes and comebacks in Jojo Rabbit, Renée Zellweger in Judy, Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems, Wesley Snipes in Dolemite Is My Name. Snipes and Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (about Mr. Rogers) will be Oscar possibilities. Other Oscar topics are shaping up.

    Word is that Cynthia Erivo as Harriot Taubman in Harriot and Kristen Stewart as the ill-starred 1960s film star Jean Seberg in Seberg (Benedict Andrews), though neither film is reportedly great, could both be Oscar nominees.

    Two of TFF '19's big premieres are in theaters near you this week: Hustlers (oscar buzz for JLo), The Goldfinch from the Donna Tartt Novel starring Ansel Elgort, but not getting good reviews (Metascores, Hustlers,79, The Goldfinch,[/I] 41). The NYTimes critic-picked Ms Purple, though I found it unconvincing. The Sound of Silence has Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones; the child soldier drama Monos.

    This week’s documentaries out (in New York) include America about a Mexican family; Cracked Up, about comedian Darrell Hammond; and Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in three Movements about a deaf family with a shared love of Beethoven.

    Of course Mike D'Angelo's 2019 Toronto viewings and thumbnails and usual precise numerical ratings will add solid notes to refer to above and beyond the mainstream entertainment and awards-obsessions. Thanks for the Patreon reviews - but regrets that he doesn't have a gig as a correspondent and get to write those great daily roundups from the festival (and Cannes)..
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-13-2019 at 08:22 PM.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    Yesterday at Toronto with the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, who finds three pretty good ones.


    NORTON IN MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN

    Motherless Brooklyn (Edward Norton) 3/5 stars, "respectable if heavy going" - Peter Bradshaw. This " adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s bestselling novel about a New York private detective with Tourette syndrome" which is "as loving as it is laborious, maybe" writes Bradshaw: Norton produced, wrote the adaptation, directs, and stars. At the coming New York Film Festival (Sept. 27-Oct. 13) it will be the Closing Night Film. shown Oct. 11. Metascore 62%. It's got Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe and period New York and looks like it might be fun.

    The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles) 3/5 stars (Bradshaw) "nthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce find some tremendous actorly form in this humorous, indulgent, lop-sidedly sentimental “Pope-off” which becomes a Pontiff bromance written by Anthony McCarten and directed by Fernando Meirelles." Sounds very complicated to me, you might need to be a bureaucracy-conscious Catholic to like it.

    Lucy in the Sky (Noah Hawley) again 3/5 stars from Bradshaw. " Noah Hawley’s intriguing film, based on a true story, is about the effects on those who go to space of coming back to Earth’s quotidian reality" focused on a woman of NASA played by Natalie Portman. Bradshaw liked it, but not many other critics did. The Metascore of 37 makes it look like a clinker.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-13-2019 at 07:42 PM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    CA/NY
    Posts
    16,511
    More, and final, D'Angelo TFF '19 reviews.


    VIRGINIE EFIRA IN SIBYL

    He saw Motherless Brooklyn too and gave it a 60. Substituted it at the last minute for Soderbergh's The Laundromat "which hasn’t been very warmly received[Metascore 56%] and will be readily available on Netflix soon whereas this he'd have to "shell out $10-12 to see at home." He thinks liking it so much is partly a function of organizing his festival viewing around "challenging art films," so something mainstream and enjoyable (relatively) comes as a relief. But he had a good time and was impressed with Norton's technique, though hearing the film violated the novel in various ways.

    The Personal History of David Copperfield (Armando Iannucci, UK): 35. He feels Dickens has too much plot, and felt it was being "projectile-vomited" at him "for two solid hours."
    I was exhausted after roughly 15 minutes, and stared glassy-eyed at the rest, springing to life only when Peter Capaldi and Hugh Laurie occupy the screen simultaneously and my brain needed to expend extra effort in order to keep track of which one is which.
    [But the Guardian review gave it 4/5 stars and the Metascore is 73.]

    The Moneychanger (Federico Veiroj, Argentina/Germany/Uruguay): 48. He found the exposition neglected the money-laundering complexities of the main character and treated the viewers like idiots. "Granted, the film is primarily a character study, not a procedural, but Daniel Hendler never makes this worm interesting enough that we become invested in seeing him turn. Only Dolores Fonzi, as the moneychanger’s scarily pragmatic spouse, provides any real charge."

    [The trailer looks both bolder and more conventional than Veiroj's previous films.]

    Sibyl (Justine Triet, Belgium/France): 63 [I'm so glad he liked this so much: Amerivcans have not seemed to particularly "get" Triet's previous films.] "Stupendously diected from the very first shot." Triet "shoots like an editor and repeatedly took my breath away with simple cuts..E ven the "ruthlessly configured" "expository flashbacks" satisfied him. Some plot elements went totally astray for him, but Virginie Efira "looks like a potential breakout" and "Triet’s so blatantly gifted that I’ll follow her anywhere for a while." He has not seen her previous ones. We'll see if he sees them and how he reacts.
    Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-13-2019 at 10:53 PM.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •