Atom Egoyan's superb melodrama-thriller Chloe seems to have accrued enough critical steam and word-of-mouth to be a front-runner for distribution out of Toronto. Its lesbian love scene between Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried won't hurt matters, though it certainly didn't help keep the all-around lovely actress in the her seat for Sunday's packed premiere. Joined by her director in a chat today with Movieline and other festival press, Moore didn't specifically address that element of her nerves, but at least her alternate reasoning was a good one.
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Hometown boy Atom Egoyan hasn't world premiered one of his film in Toronto in 25 years, back when his debut Next of Kin launched one of Canadian cinema's most illustrious (if spotty) careers in 1984. So it's fitting and truly refreshing that his return home Sunday for Chloe also represented a return to form -- an engrossing, suspenseful, brilliantly acted melodrama loaded with surprises and risks. And that's not even counting the part where Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried wind up in bed.
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For filmmakers as preoccupied as they are with the starchy social fabric of 20th-century America, it's really kind of amazing that Joel and Ethan Coen hadn't addressed Jewish culture before A Serious Man. They came sort of close with Barton Fink, circumscribing their writer's-block psychodrama with the subtext of a New York Jew rendered impotent against his megalomaniac Hollywood tribesmen -- itself a flash of semi-autobiography, a quality rare to Coen brothers films, yet revived for Serious Man. Not that they'd ever admit to any connection -- at least not while discussing it with Movieline earlier today.
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"Michael Caine. Is. Harry Brown." So announced a modest set of opening credits last night in Toronto, where Caine's vigilante drama premiered at the Elgin Theater. It was the last bit of breathing room the audience would receive for 95 minutes, assuming it could catch up at all from the film's shocking prologue -- director Daniel Barber's forceful submersion into the violence and urban despair faced by the film's lonely avenger. "It's not about a vigilante, really," Caine said in his introductory remarks. "Because a vigilante is someone who does something out of character as a victim -- a victim of our society who is forced to do something. So he's not really a vigilante. He's just trying to protect himself because nobody else will. And that's the message of this film and the reason I did it."
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If you thought Yoko Ono couldn't get any scarier, well, I'm sorry: Zombie Yoko haunted the streets of Toronto with the brains-craving, bed-inning John Lennon himself as part of today's Toronto Zombie Walk. The annual event added a special fest component this year to correspond with the premiere of George A. Romero's latest undead opus Survival of the Dead, which debuted last night as part of TIFF's Midnight Madness section. And they were just the horrible beginning.
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A Movieline tipster in Toronto passed along word today of a misbegotten outdoor reading of Push -- the celebrated source of the equally celebrated Precious, which is screening this week at the festival. It turns out that the fest's popular Kid's Zone is located in Yonge-Dundas Square, the same public space where novelist Saphhire and filmmaker/host Lee Daniels (pictured) worked more than a little blue for a packed crowd lingering after face-painting, games and other family diversions. Our tipster writes: "They were probably unaware that they were in for every kind of profanity -- motherfucker, ho, cunt, bitch, spic, etc. -- along with the theme of abuse and incest." In typically polite Canadian fashion, a quiet exodus of parents and bewildered kids ensued.
While promoting The Informant! today in Toronto, Steven Soderbergh casually announced he had finished his documentary about the late writer and monologist Spalding Gray. Not that it didn't take a while: "Because I've never really made a documentary before and I didn't want it to be like other documentaries [...], there was a lot of trial and error about what form it should take, and now I'm really happy with it." Soderbergh went on to say the film compiles footage of Gray as a sort of "new monologue in a way," adding that he's taking the film to the Slamdance Film Festival for a premiere next January. Why wait? Bust it out in Canada! Willem Dafoe might appreciate the competition. [First Showing]
A few of today's news and developments of note from the Toronto International Film Festival:
· After its underwhelming debut Thursday night, Creation received a second, more controversial round of Toronto publicity when a major fest sponsor singled out star Jennifer Connelly as his "former favorite actress" -- and reportedly tore her photograph in half as party guests looked on. His reasoning? The Oscar-winner made only the briefest of appearances at Creation's opening-night fête, hosted by TIFF benefactor Astral Media. Her emotional defense came at Friday's Creation press conference, when Connelly announced she'd been struggling with the first anniversary of her father's death. Astral exec John Riley released a statement saying he "was in no way serious when I made the comments, and the ripping of the picture was for effect." Well! Mission accomplished. [Toronto Sun]
Penelope Cruz still isn't pregnant, Terry Gilliam finds peace, and more fest nuggets after the jump.
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Whoever wrote the open letter slamming Megan Fox that appeared on Michael Bay's blog last night, it's probably safe to say they hadn't yet heard Fox's latest dig at her Transformers director from yesterday's Jennifer's Body press conference at TIFF. It's also probably safe to assume that when Bay gives the implicit OK to call the actress an "unfriendly bitch," "dumb-as-a-rock" and suggest a future in porn, the duo is probably not going to be working together again any time soon. The latest war of words follows after the jump.
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It's one of the weirdest moments in a movie full of them: Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried's lingering, very close-up lesbian kiss in Jennifer's Body. Debate its merits or lack thereof all you want (I think it makes sense), but it's there for all time. And to hear the co-stars tell it at today's Toronto Film Festival press conference for the film, that's fine by them. In video after the jump, Fox and Seyfried share their thoughts on how and why they found their inner lesbians for Jennifer's sake.
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Go ahead and add Perrier's Bounty to the films that could spark heated market interest in Toronto this year. The dark-comic Irish crime thriller premieres tonight and features Cillian Murphy as Michael McCrae, a ne'er-do-well whose outstanding debt to gangster Darren Perrier (Brendan Gleeson) becomes the common interest of half the Dublin underworld after an unexpected visit one night from his estranged, dying father Jim (Jim Broadbent). Joined by Michael's heartbroken (and possibly fugitive) downstairs neighbor Brenda, the duo's race from imminent death both threatens and fuels their reconciliation. The violence, twists and even the philosophy of Mark O'Rowe's cracker-jack screenplay explode and illuminate one scene after another, sharpened to raw, laugh-out-loud set pieces by sophomore director Ian FitzGibbon. All its characters need is one flash of luck that always seems just around the corner; here's hoping whatever eludes them finds its way to you in the way of an American deal -- and soon.
Murphy sat down with Movieline today to discuss the pleasures of pitch-black comedy, working with his heroes, and how one gets "movie-fit."
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When one desk closes, another desk opens, goes the old saw. We doubt anyone will be making a strangely-cast film about Conan O'Brien's move to 11:35 PM, but there will be tons of behind-the-scenes drama, as network affiliates across America sit on their hands and hope that the Cone Zone holds up local news ratings numbers while still trying to offend a decent amount of Americans. To paraphrase a bit that should reappear on the new incarnation: 'The future, Conan?' No one knows what is going to happen, but it should be funnier than what happened the last 17 years.
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War is hell -- that's a well-established fact. But war is something else, too. War is weird. Particularly the war that began eight years ago today, fronted as it was by a puppet President who liked to play flight suit dress-up. Its tyrannical despot target was found living like a well-heeled mole in a tunnel beneath the ground, and his tribunal and execution would bring such matters into the YouTube era. Meanwhile, his loyal footsoldiers (or were they our allies? It's so hard to tell) were sequestered behind prison walls, where they were subjected to exquisitely perverse human rights violations -- everything from waterboarding to cheerleader formations to Barney the Purple Dinosaur singing "I Love You" at ear-shattering volumes on infinite loop.
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The Toronto International Film Festival officially commenced Thursday with its opening-night selection Creation. Director Jon Amiel's semi-biopic of Charles Darwin -- featuring Paul Bettany as the totemic, tormented scientist and the actor's wife Jennifer Connelly as Mrs. Darwin -- arrived as the first British film ever selected to open the 34-year-old festival. The couple was on hand to introduce the early screening, but Amiel (pictured here with his stars) wound up doing all the talking onstage. And, perhaps regrettably, most of it onscreen as well.
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Sure, souls are valuable, but what's a measly spirit compared to the chance to see Jason Reitman sip a cocktail from across a crowded bar? One enterprising Toronto Film Fest attendee is so determined to hobknob with the awards circuit hoi polloi that he's offering his body, soul, and much, much more for the low price of one Craigslist dollar. What else is he willing to do? Let him tell you himself:
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