Movie Review: Going the Distance

Going the Distance ** ½
Directed by: Nanette Burstein.
Written By: Geoff LaTulippe.
Starring: Drew Barrymore (Erin), Justin Long (Garrett), Charlie Day (Dan), Jason Sudeikis (Box), Christina Applegate (Corinne), Ron Livingston (Will), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (Damon), Jim Gaffigan (Phil), Natalie Morales (Brandy), Kelli Garner (Brianna), June Diane Raphael (Karen), Rob Riggle (Ron), Sarah Burns (Harper), Leighton Meester (Amy).

Whether or not it’s because they are a real couple or not, Justin Long and Drew Barrymore have a natural chemistry together that works. You accept them as a couple in a relationship in Going the Distance. The problem is that while I was watching the movie, I kept thinking that I would love to see them together in a movie. While that may sound strange, I don’t think it is, because Long and Barrymore are quite good in a movie that doesn’t deserve them to be. They are the only reason to see the film, which is just another romantic comedy that hit all the clichés right on the head.

Long plays a low level record executive in New York, who meets Barrymore, a newspaper intern, while in a bar. They bond over their mutual love for the arcade game Centipede, and their one night stand turns into a relationship. The problem is that Barrymore is only in town for another six weeks before returning to school in Stanford (for those you wondering, yes they address the fact that Barrymore is older than the normal college student). But when those six weeks are up, they decide they want to keep seeing each other - so they decide to try a long distance relationship. And that’s when things get complicated.

The movie hits all the bases you would expect it to. Long finds solace in his friends - the lovable losers played by Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis, while Barrymore hangs out with her smart alec sister Christina Applegate. There are threats to their relationship on both sides as both have hot co-workers (Kelli Garner and Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who may look pretty good when the two have to go months without having sex. You get the picture. Romantic comedies have been living off these clichés since the beginning of cinematic history.

The director of the movie is Nanette Burstein, who up until now had made her living making documentaries (the best of which is probably The Kid Stays in the Picture about uber-producer Robert Evans). But you couldn’t tell that she is a documentary filmmaker - the film feels like just another romantic comedy. Yes, Burstein knows how to frame a shot and direct a scene, but the film still feels rather standard issue.

The reason to see the movie is for Long and Barrymore. They are good together, and the film is at its best when it’s at its most relaxed, and just lets the two of them play off each other. Their best scenes have an improvisational feel to them. And it should be mentioned that Applegate is also quite good as Barrymore’s sister. Trust me, I’ve seen my wife and her sister interact with each other enough to know when sister feel natural, and they do. Less successful is Day and Sudeikis, who are probably about as good as they could be given what they had to work with, but when they’re on the screen, it does feel as if they are simply doing a comedy sketch.
The bottom line is that without Barrymore and Long (and to a lesser extent Applegate) there would no real reason to see the movie. With them, the film never really becomes a good movie, but it is a pleasant way to kill two hours. To someone who is more inclined to like romantic comedies they would probably like the movie more. Personally, I’ve kind of had it with the whole genre, so while Going the Distance is better than most recent entries in the genre, I can’t really say that it is a good movie.

Movie Review: The American

The American *** ½
Directed by: Anton Corbijn.
Written By: Rowan Joffe based on the novel by Martin Booth.
Starring: George Clooney (Jack / Edward), Irina Björklund (Ingrid), Paolo Bonacelli (Father Benedetto), Thekla Reuten (Mathilde), Violante Placido (Clara), Filippo Timi (Fabio), Anna Foglietta (Anna).

The American is a movie about a hit man, but it is different than most of the movies in the genre. It isn’t all about action, but rather about a man who has spent his entire life pushing people away and now wants to change that. But he can’t. The people who employ him, not to mention people angry at him for doing his job, don’t want to leave him alone. If you get close to him, you’re probably going to wind up dead. When the action scenes do come - and they do - they are over rather quickly. The people shooting at each other know what they’re doing, so the shootouts don’t last that long.

Like a Hitchcock film, The American doesn’t waste time with back story, but dives right into the action. We first see George Clooney, who plays Jack or Edward or whatever he is calling himself, when he’s in Sweden with his new girlfriend. They are walking through the snow, when Clooney hears something behind him. It isn’t long before the guys after Clooney are dead, and so is his girlfriend. But it isn’t the bad guys who put a bullet in the girl’s head - it is Clooney himself. The girl is a witness, has seen who he really is, and he cannot take the chance that she’ll tell someone.

Clooney goes to hide out in Italy and contacts his old boss. He tells him wear to hide and even sets him with a new job. All Clooney has to do is build a gun for someone - he doesn’t even have to pull the trigger. Clooney makes the man into a consummate professional - yet one who is tired of being alone. He goes to a prostitute, Clara (Violante Placido), but soon they are more than that. They are seeing each other outside of their normal routine, and money isn’t changing hands anymore. But just like Michael Corleone, just when Clooney thinks he is out, they pull him back in.

The American will probably disappoint people who are looking for something more action packed or something a little more in the thriller genre. The film is much more slowly paced and cerebral than most movies with a similar plotline. It is much more about mood and tone than about action. Clooney doesn’t say much in the movie, which would seem to work against the movie because Clooney delivers snappy, clever dialogue with the best of them. But the lack of dialogue actually works quite well for Clooney. It forces him to act much more with his body language - which is slow and sullen - and his face, which expresses much more than dialogue could. It is a brave move on Clooney’s part, and it is one that pays off.

The film was directed by Anton Corbijn, who previous film was the Joy Division biopic Control. On the surface two movies couldn’t be two different. One after all is a biopic about a self destructive singer who killed himself right before his band was about to become major stars, and the other is a thriller about a hit man. But what both movies share is an acute observation of its characters, and a storytelling technique that doesn’t sensationalize the aspects. While both movies fall into well worn genres, they seem fresh and new. The American is a movie that forces you to observe its main character in a way movies like this very often. Clooney plays a real person here, who tries unsuccessfully right up until the credits roll to change who he is. It’s a fruitless effort, but he doesn’t stop trying. By the end, you even feel sorry for the poor bastard.

Year in Review: 1951

There are some years that I really do not like picking a number 1 film. 1951 is such a year - the top two films of the year are so close that on any given day I may have chosen differently - hell any of the top five films are worthy of being singled out. But if that’s the biggest problem I have with a given year, there I’m fine with it.

10. A Place in the Sun (George Stevens)
I know a lot of people think that George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun has aged poorly, and while I will admit that the film doesn’t pack the wallop it must have in 1951, I still feel that it is a great movie. Montgomery Clift is the poor nephew of a wealthy factory owner, who becomes involved with two very different women. First there is the poor, rather slow witted Alice (Shelley Winters) who falls for Clift quickly, and doesn’t really believe that being the nephew of the owner has no real advantage (Clift is treated coldly by his extended family, and kept to the outside). He then meets and falls in love with Angela (Elizabeth Taylor), a beautiful society girl who provides him with the entrance into the upper class that his family wouldn’t. When Alice tells him she is pregnant, he tries one plot after another to get out from her grip, so that he can marry Taylor – but things don’t work out too well for him. Stevens’ direction in the film is superb, but the film really rests on the talent of its cast – particularly the three leads. Clift is great as the main character, caught in over his head, and struggling to get free so he can get what he really wants. Winters is his equal as the poor, dumb Alice, who becomes increasingly shrill as the movie progresses. Taylor is given less to do as Angela – she is pretty much the personification of female perfection, a role she handles well. The trial which ends the movie is a little too cheesy – with Raymond Burr laying it on too thick as the prosecutor, but that’s a minor flaw, with a great film.

9. The Steel Helmet (Samuel Fuller)
Shortly after the Korean war began, Samuel Fuller made this, his first war film, about the conflict. Fuller had been in WWII and knew how soldiers acted and talked, and wanted to make a realistic film about war. Shot for very little money, with no real stars, The Steel Helmet puts most Hollywood war films of the era to shame. The film doesn’t have a lot of action in it – but it doesn’t need it. Instead, the movie focuses on the men fighting the war itself. This is not a overly patriotic movie like many war films of its time – it paints the Americans as flawed, and a few of them as racists. The movie got Fuller in trouble with the House of Un-American activities who thought that the film portrayed communism in too good a light, but Fuller stood firm. He was in the army, and this is the way he saw things. A great, little war movie.

8. The Browning Version (Anthony Asquith)
Michael Redgrave gives a subtle, sensitive performance as an aging British teacher in a boarding school. But this movie is about as far away from Goodbye Mr. Chips as it can get. He teaches Latin, is hated by his students, hated more by his fellow faculty members and perhaps hated most of all by his wife, who has been having an affair with another teacher for months. He is being forced out of his position to make way for a younger, more suitable teacher, and has to take a much lower paying job somewhere else. The Browning Version follows him on the last day of his teaching career at the school he has been at for years. The film is really about a life that has been wasted, and Redgrave slowly coming to grips with the realization of this failure, and how really, it is all his own fault. He remains the stiff, upper lipped British man throughout, but Redgrave, who carries the film brilliantly, lets us see the character for who is he – failings and all. This is not a flashy film, but it is one that captures its subject nearly perfectly. An underrated gem.

7. Detective Story (William Wyler)
William Wyler’s Detective Story, which seems to have been forgotten by many people, is one of the first films I can think which depicts life as a cop as the kind of long, daily grind that we can come so used to seeing on TV shows (best of all in Homicide: Life on the Street). Kirk Douglas gives an excellent performance as a Detective whose hatred from criminals is personal – having been raised by a criminal father who drove his mother literally crazy. Through the course of one long night, Douglas interrogates burglary suspects and arrests an embezzler, but spends most of his time trying to pin down a doctor that he truly hates – and who has a past that involves’ Douglas’ wife, Eleanor Parker. Douglas carries the film – he is in practically every scene – but the supporting cast is also excellent, especially Parker as Douglas’ wife, who confesses to getting an illegal abortion before she met him – something that must have seemed downright shocking in 1951. Lee Grant is also great a shoplifter who spends the whole movie just sitting around, but cannot stop herself from talking. Personally, I think William Wyler is a rather underrated filmmaker, but certainly do prefer his smaller, more intimate films like this one. It’s one of his best and a neglected film.

6. The African Queen (John Huston)
Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn are both wonderful in this comedic, yet thrilling film. Hepburn is a missionary in Africa who decides to stay on, even after she hears that Germany and England have declared war on. The Germans attack the small village, but Hepburn – a prim and proper English woman – and Bogart – a cynical, drunken Canadian boat captain, survive. She convinces him to turn his boat, The African Queen, into a giant torpedo, take it up river and destroy the German boat that is preventing England from launching a counter attack. He thinks the plan is suicide – they will likely never reach the boat, but goes ahead anyway. Most of the movie consists of these two polar opposites on the boat together, at each others throats and arguing – and of course, gradually falling in love. John Huston was a great filmmaker, seemingly able to tackle movies in all genres and make something worthwhile out of them. Here he has a made a movie that is both hilarious at points (like when Hepburn dumps all of Bogart’s alcohol off the ship) and exciting – as when they are negotiating the rapids, or the finale. The film rests in the hands of Bogart and Hepburn, who have terrific chemistry together. A wonderful film. As a side note, Clint Eastwood’s underrated White Hunter, Black Heart is loosely based on the film of this movie, with Eastwood as Huston, a film director who seems more interesting in hunting the game in Africa than making the movie.

5. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise)
The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of the best science fiction movies of the 1950s – in fact, it is probably one of the best ever made. It is about an alien visitor named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) who arrives in Washington DC and says he has a message the whole world needs to hear. He is taken into custody, despite the presence of his giant robot Gort, who acts as his protector. Klaatu escapes custody, and with the help of a young boy sees some of the sights in Washington – including Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. But Klaatu still needs to get his message out to the people of earth before he can leave. The problem with the horrid 2008 remake of the film was simple – they spent too much time on special effects, and not enough on the story and the characters involved. The Day the Earth Stood Still had state of the art special effects for its time, but it really is a story about the people involved, and the movie remains focused on them right to the finale. Yes, you could argue that the film is too preachy if you wanted to, but I think its message is well worth hearing, even almost 60 years later.

4. The River (Jean Renoir)
Jean Renoir’s best films, I feel anyway, came in the 1930s in his native France (although admittedly, I do need to see more late Renoir). The highest compliment I can give to his magnificent film The River, is that it deserves comparison to his early, brilliant work. The film is set in India, and is about a British family there, particularly the young daughter who “falls in love” with an American soldier who has lost a leg in the war. This isn’t a romance (if it was, it would be creepier than Lolita given the girls age), but rather a film about the passage of time, and life and death. Through it all, The River flows right on by them. The River is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen – Renoir’s camera captures India in all its glorious colors. Like many of his films, this one movies at a languid pace. The film doesn’t try to wrestle its characters into a plot, but rather just simply sits back and observes the people and their lives, and deaths and everything in between. The film is gorgeous to look at, but there is something quietly profound about it as well. This film is one of Renoir’s masterworks.

3. Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder)
Considered a failure upon its initial release, Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole is now widely regarded as one of his best films – and rightly so. This is perhaps the most cynical of all of Wilder’s films – and unlike later some of his later films, he didn’t add any sweetness to the movie to make it go down easier. Kirk Douglas gives one of his best performances as a disgraced newspaper man working for a dinky, local paper who stumbles across a huge story – and decides to use it to get him back to the big leagues. A local man is trapped in a cave, and smelling a story, Douglas convinces the rescue workers to use a much slower method to get the man out – hoping to prolong the story. Douglas visits the trapped man, the only reporter allowed to do so, and the whole incident quickly becomes a carnival freak show, with Douglas calling the shots. Only the poor sap trapped is sympathetic in this movie – everyone else is looking out solely for themselves, even the man’s wife who goes along with Douglas’ plan, and is happy at all the extra attention, and money, she is receiving. Wilder’s film is a tough, bitter pill to swallow. Like Network 25 years later, it looks at the news business not as some sort of larger than life pursuit of the truth, but as a cold hearted business, where death sells, and everyone is out for themselves. Billy Wilder was a brilliant filmmaker – and Ace in the Hole is one of his very best.

2. Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock)
Strangers on a Train moves with almost merciless speed and efficiency. Hitchcock hated lengthy setups, preferring instead to dive headlong into the action, and even though a lot of talk begins this film, that is still what he did. Tennis star Farley Granger is involved a messy, public divorce from his current wife so that he can marry the woman he truly loves. He meets the strange Robert Walker on a train, who seems to know all about his situation – and proposes a plan. Walker will kill Granger’s wife for him, if Granger will kill Walker’s father in return. This way, both can establish an airtight alibi for the murder of the person close to them, and they can get away with murder. Granger goes along with this plan is jest – thinking they are just talking, not taking it seriously. But when his wife is murdered at a carnival, and Walker reenters his life and demands repayment, things start getting ugly in a hurry. Hitchcock was adapting another master of suspense’s story – Patricia Highsmith – and he does her story proud. The film is a visual wonder – particularly the climatic carnival scene which ranks among the best of all of Hitchcock’s set pieces. Walker makes a merciless villain in easily the best performance of his career. If Granger is a little bit bland, like always, that’s okay because so is his character. One of the master’s best.

1. A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan)
Marlon Brando revolutionized film acting in this film. True, Montgomery Clift had been doing the method acting thing for a while, and Brando had already tried it in his first film – The Men – but when movie audiences saw Brando’s Stanley in Tennessee Williams’ brilliant play, adapted perfectly by Elia Kazan, things were never the same. Brando oozed sexuality and danger in every scene. True, he was a brute and a rapist, but you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. His line delivery was perfect as well. Vivien Leigh created her second iconic role as a Southern Belle, but Blanche DuBois is pretty far away from Scarlett O’Hara. She is an old fashioned girl who doesn’t seem to realize things have changed, and allows Brando’s brute to drive her crazy. Karl Malden was never better than he was here, as the Mama’s boy and Blanche’s gentleman caller – her only real chance at salvation. And Kim Hunter is amazing as Stanley’s wife Stella, who knows who he is, but cannot resist him. I know some find this adaptation too stage bound, but I have never been one of them. Kazan uses the space effectively in the film, and creates a hot, humid, steamy atmosphere (which worked all the more perfectly for my first viewing of this film – on one of the hottest nights I can remember in my teenage years, in a house with no air conditioning). One of the great stage to screen adaptation of all time, and one of my favorite films.

Just Missed The Top 10: Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronimi & Hamilton Luske & Wilfred Jackson), An American in Paris (Vincente Minelli), A Christmas Carol (Brian Desmond-Hurst), Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson), Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy), The Tales of Hoffman (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger).

Notable Films Missed: Decision Before Dawn (Anatole Litvak), Europa ’51 (Roberto Rossellini), The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick), Miracle in Milan (Vittorio De Sica), The Thing From Another World (Christain Nyby & Howard Hawks).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture: An American in Paris
I think the Academy was rebelling against the bleakness of the other contenders when they picked An American in Paris as their winner this year. After all, A Place in the Sun won a total of 6 Oscars, and was about a man who plans, but does not commit, murder and still gets executed for it, and A Streetcar Named Desire, which won three acting Oscars – an almost unheard of feat – was about a sexual brute who drives a woman insane. There is nothing wrong with An American in Paris – it is a perfectly fine 1950s musical, with a great performance by Gene Kelly, not to mention Leslie Caron and Oscar Levant. Vincente Minelli certainly knew how to make a movie musical and the film is a hell of a lot of fun. But it is also rather hollow. I find it strange that this won the Oscar, and the next two years the Academy virtually ignored much greater achievements by the key players here – Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain in 1952 and Vincente Minelli’s The Band Wagon in 1953. But whatever. Personally, I would have liked to have seen one of the darker films win, but then I’ve always been told I should lighten up, so what do I know?

Oscar Winner – Director: George Stevens, A Place in the Sun
The Academy may like frothy, fun movie musicals – but they have often gone darker for the Best Director prize, even when they do give the Oscar to one (for a more recent example, see Chicago winning picture, and Polanski winning Director for The Pianist). So, I’m not overly surprised that they decided to give Stevens the director Oscar, even if his film didn’t win Picture. After all, with five other wins, they clearly loved the movie, and it wasn’t winning any acting prizes, so this was a way to give the film a major award. Also, Stevens was a well established veteran director who hadn’t won. Personally, I think Kazan deserved this award – but he’d get his in a few years. I would have preferred Minelli winning for An American in Paris instead of the egregious Gigi though.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Humphrey Bogart, The African Queen
Humphrey Bogat’s win for The African Queen happened for three reasons: 1) he was a Hollywood legend, reaching the end of his career who had never won an Oscar. 2) He campaigned heavily for it all throughout the season and 3) Marlon Brando said he wasn’t even going to show up to the Oscars because he found them silly. How else can you explain A Streetcar Named Desire winning 3 of the 4 acting Oscars, but losing for the actor that absolutely EVERYONE left the theater talking about? I don’t begrudge Bogart his Oscar – he earned his legendary status, and never was taken seriously enough by the Academy who often overlooked his best work. And at least he won for a great performance, not like John Wayne who won for playing a shadow of his former self in True Grit. But still, come on! Brando in Streetcar should have won this one in a cakewalk.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire
The only “new” member of the cast (she replaced Jessica Tandy from the Broadway cast), Vivien Leigh made Blanche DuBois her own character entirely. She was perfect casting because of her other iconic role – Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. You could look at Blanche as what Scarlett may have been in the 1950s – clinging to a way of life long since dead, and being taken advantage of by a man who was in no way as charming as Rhett Butler. Her descent into madness in one of the greats in screen history, and Leigh earned her second Oscar – becoming one of those rare people who win multiple Oscars, but never get nominated for any of their other work. Winters, Parker and Hepburn were all worthy nominees, but Leigh still stood head and shoulders above them.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actor: Karl Malden, A Streetcar Named Desire
People often forgetting about the supporting characters in A Streetcar Named Desire – but they shouldn’t. Malden is wonderful as Mitch, Stanley’s pathetic friend, who could be Blanche’s only chance to escape with her sanity. He is a mama’s boy, but Malden always said the key to the role was that deep down, he really hated his mother – and you can see that in his key scene with Blanche where he talks about his mother. Malden is great in the role, but he isn’t as flashy as some of the other characters, so he is forgotten. But he deserved this Oscar win, just like everyone else in the movie.

Oscar Winner – Best Supporting Actress: Kim Hunter, A Streetcar Named Desire
The role of Stella is a rather complex one in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Kim Hunter plays it brilliantly – perhaps especially when she isn’t even talking. Watch her in the scene where Stanley screams for her to come back down, and see the carnal lust in her eyes as she goes back to her brutish husband – she cannot resist him, he is just too damned attractive and speaks to her on a base level. Hunter was great in the movie, even if most people talk about Brando and Leigh, she like Malden deserved all the awards she got.

Year in Review: 1929

Despite the fact that sound had come to the movies by 1929 - and the Academy pretty much gave the cold shoulder to all silent films - it really was the silent films that were the best from this year. As with many of the years of the 1920s, not all the great films of the year are available on DVD, but I did the best I could. (Just a note – I know some websites and other sources list alternate years for some of the below titles so don’t bother to point it out.)

10.The Cocoanuts (Robert Florey & Joseph Santley)
The first film by the Marx brothers is not nearly as good as what would come later, but is an hilarious comedy just the same. This film is set at a hotel in Florida, that Groucho runs with the help of Zeppo (still pretty much as useless as always – sorry Zeppo), when conmen Chico and Harpo arrive planning to steal from the guests. The movie is admittedly a little bogged down at times by the other people in the movie – not to mention the musical interludes – but when its brothers at center stage, the film is as wickedly smart and hilarious as some of their best work (some great gags include why a duck and stucco). No, The Coconuts is not the best the Marx brothers were capable of – but considering it was their first film, and an early sound film at that, it works marvelously well.

9. Asphalt (Joe May)
One of the last great silent films from Germany, Joe May’s Asphalt is a love story set in the criminal underworld. Betty Amann is a jewelry thief who is caught stealing a precious jewel from a shop. The owner wants to let her go, but the cop who catches her refuses. But Amann seduces the cop, who against his better judgment falls for her – but because of their conflicting backgrounds, their romance is doomed – and murder comes into the plot. In many ways, Asphalt is just as melodramatic as many silent films of the time were. However, this one has some major advantages. For one thing, Amann is daringly sexual for a silent screen star. For another, the production design is meticulous and wonderful to look at. Most of all though, it is the direction and cinematography – full of shadows that the camera moves through seemingly effortlessly. While I do not think that May is quite as good as many of his German expressionist peers, Asphalt is a wonderful little film – one that not nearly enough people have seen.

8. Queen Kelly (Erich von Stroheim)
Erich von Stroheim’s Queen Kelly is one of the infamous “unfinished” films of all time – and it effectively ended his career as a director (he made part of Hello Sister in 1933, but was never really given the chance to move into the sound era after making such silent masterpieces as Greed). Gloria Swanson has the title role in the film – not a queen but a regular student at a convent who is kidnapped by a wealthy prince who is supposed to marry the real queen. The two do fall in love, but when the Queen discovers this, she throws Kelly out of the castle. That is really about as far as Von Stroheim got in making the film. If you watch the DVD, they recreate the ending he envisioned by using still photographs of Kelly travelling to Africa and becoming the madam at a brothel. Swanson complained about the direction the movie was taking, and production was shut down. Yet, even with all those distractions, you can see what a master filmmaker von Stroheim really was, and how great Gloria Swanson was as well. You see a clip of this film in Sunset Blvd. where von Stroheim played Swanson’s former husband and director, and current butler, as he complains about what happened to his career. The film, though unfinished, is still masterfully directed. Too bad von Stroheim didn’t get to finish it – or anything else – after.

7. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov)
Man with a Movie Camera is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time – it would most likely top most lists of the best films of 1929. But stubborn old me, I prefer movies with characters and plot to movies like this, that are really just a series of images. I do not mean that as a criticism of the film, or director Dziga Vertov, but simply an observation. Vertov thought that films were too much like filmed plays, and wanted to create something completely different. He made the choice that his film would have no plot, no dialogue, no characters – it would simply show the day in a life of one city. It took him four years to get that, and the films moves along at a rapid pace – his editing is as quick as Michael Bay’s, which was innovative and daring (and somewhat disconcerting) to audiences at the time who had seen nothing like this before. There is no doubt in my mind that Man with a Movie Camera is the most innovative, and most influential film of 1929 – the film invented the jump cut, which Godard would be credited with in Breathless 31 years later, but no it started here. But while Man with a Movie Camera belongs on any list of the best films of this year, it is one of those films that once you see it once, you don’t really have to revisit it. Yes the film is brilliant, it’s style innovative and unforgettable. No, I don’t really want to see it again.

6. Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock)
Hitchcock’s first sound film is actually the first sound film ever made in England. Although he considered the idea of using sound in the film stupid, he actually makes the most of it – his use of sound here is superior to most other sound films of the era, and actually much better than the following year’s Murder, which he also directed. The plot of the film is about a young woman (Anny Ondra) who has an argument with her Police Officer boyfriend (John Longden), who runs off with an artist – who she kills when he tries to assault her. A petty thief knows that she is the killer, and tries to blackmail the couple – now reunited – but things don’t turn out the way he planned. Hitchcock’s direction of the film is wonderful – he creates a vivid atmosphere, and keeps the proceedings moving along quickly. Out of all of Hitchcock’s early films (between his debut and about 1934), Blackmail falls behind perhaps only The Lodger and is an innovative and wonderful little thriller.

5. Spite Marriage (Buster Keaton & Edward Sedgwick)
Most people think that once Keaton signed with MGM, his career was all downhill. And while that is generally true, he did make two great films for MGM – The Cameraman, which is rightly regarded as one of his best, and this film, which is largely ignored in his filmography. Keaton plays his regular stone faced character, which is in love with a stage actress. She ignores him because she is in love with her co-star, but when he dumps her for a younger model, she impulsively asks Keaton to marry her. He is overjoyed, but she soon knows it was a mistake and wants out. Keaton then falls into the hands of criminals, and eventually out at sea, where he tries to forget his love, only to have them thrown back together. I’m not claiming that this is as good as The General or Steamboat Bill Jr. or The Cameraman or Our Hospitality or several other Keaton masterpieces. But it is a wickedly funny movie from beginning to end, showing Keaton, as both a star and a director in top form. For people who love Keaton – and I consider myself a devoted fan – Spite Marriage delivers.

4. Hallelujah! (King Vidor)
King Vidor was always a little bit ahead of the curve. He is one of the few major directors who was able to make the transition from making great silent films – like The Crowd – into the sound era with ease. Hallelujah was his first sound film, and one of the first films to feature an all African American cast (this was after all in the years when it was not uncommon to see performers in blackface). Watching the film today, you may think that the film is slightly condescending towards it characters – something Vidor admitted in later years – but mainly his tremendous sympathy towards his characters comes through. Vidor believed in the movie so much, he invested his own salary in making it. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is just a culture movie here for historical significance – it is a wonderful movie musical in its own right – and has Vidor marvelously using sound brilliantly. Yes, the story is a little clichéd at times, but that doesn’t distract from the film – or the performances by Danel L. Haynes or Nina Mae McKinnely. At the time, it was thought that this could be a watershed film for African American performers – but sadly, no one followed up on what Vidor did here for years.

3. Diary of a Lost Girl (G.W. Pabst)
The second teaming of Pabst and star Louise Brooks may not quite as good as their first (see my #1 film from this year), but it is still a masterpiece nonetheless – one of the last great silent films. Brooks plays a naïve young woman who is seduced by her father’s assistant, and gives birth to an illegitimate child. When she refuses to marry the father, she is sent to a strict school for “wayward” girls. She escapes, finds out that her baby has died, and becomes a prostitute. And that’s just the first half of the film! Pabst was a master filmmaker, more at home in silent films than in the sound era. His film is daring in terms of subject matter, and also breathtaking in its visual compositions and storytelling. In Brooks, he found his muse – a beautiful young woman capable of being both innocent and sexual – who had a haircut that started a trend for years to come. Yes, I think Pandora’s Box is the better of the two films they made together, but Diary of a Lost Girl is magnificent as film unto itself.

2. Spies (Fritz Lang)
Fritz Lang’s epic silent film Spies is every bit as good as his Dr. Mabuse films, and concentrate once again on the criminal underworld. The film stars Rudolf Klein-Rogge (Dr. Mabuse himself) as a criminal mastermind hellbent on world domination. He wants to get his hands on a Japanese peace treaty. The secret service knows this, and assigns Agent 326 to go undercover as a bum to try and stop him. But Rogge knows this, and sends a counter spy – a beautiful Russian woman to seduce Agent 326, only to have her fall in love with him instead. The film is nearly 3 hours long and is silent, but it doesn’t feel old or dated, and certainly doesn’t feel long. Lang is a master at directing movies like this – with intricate plots, vast sets, great cinematography and vivid characters (so much more surprising considering this is a silent film). Spies is not quite the film that Metropolis or M is – but then again, how many films are – but it does rank among Lang’s best achievements.

1. Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst)
Louise Brooks oozes sexuality in every frame of G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box. Here, like in Diary of a Lost Girl, she plays a wild child – a woman of tremendous beauty who immediately sweeps the audience off their feet, although we know she is bad for us. That wildness could not be taught, but Brooks had it because she was just as wild in real life. The best thing Pabst ever did was find Brooks and make these two films with her. Pandora’s Box is the better of the two films – it is darker, with a camera that moves along the London streets at night watching as Brooks does precisely what she pleases, right up until the finale, when she is killed by Jack the Ripper. But this is not the story of a woman who gets what she deserves, but a story of a woman who does what she wants, and right or wrong, she accepts the consequences. Brooks is the most modern seeming of all silent movie stars – and she gives that feeling to movie to, which although it was made more than 80 years ago, and is a silent film, doesn’t feel dated in the least. Hell, a movie with this plot would still look daring today. It is a silent masterpiece.

Just Missed The Top 10: Alibi (Roland West).

Notable Films Missed: Arsenel (Alexander Dovzhenko), City Girl (F.W. Murnau), Coquette, Disraeli (Alfred E. Green),The Divine Lady (Frank Lloyd), The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (Charles Reisler), The Love Parade (Ernst Lubitsch), People on Sunday (Richard Siodmark & Edgar G. Unger).

Oscar Winner – Best Picture: The Broadway Melody
It’s too bad that the Academy decided, in only its second year, to pretty much forget about silent films and concentrate on sound films. The best films this were silent – there were some fine sound films to be sure, but they had perfected silent films by this point, and came nowhere close to perfecting sound yet. But the Academy wanted to show off, so they gave their award to this “All Singing, All Dancing Extravaganza!”. The movie would have long been forgotten had it not won this award. It isn’t just that the film is merely mediocre – with sound work that is average at best – but that it looks and feels like yet another generic early talkie musical. There really is very little on interest going on in this movie. Out of the nominees, I suppose I would have went with Alibi, which is a little less creaky, but the Academy really should have admitted that sound wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be yet. Oh well.

Oscar Winner – Best Director: Frank Lloyd, The Divine Lady
I haven’t seen The Divine Lady. I’m not even sure it is available on DVD, and to be honest I have never really checked into all that closely. Lloyd has always struck me as one of those journeyman directors of the early studio era – good behind the camera, but the films of his that I have seen lack energy and life (except possibly Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935). I guess I should be happy that they gave the award to a silent film, but I cannot help but think there were better people this could have gone to (like King Vidor for Hallelujah, who was actually nominated), and that Lloyd won this because he was one of the founders of the Academy.

Oscar Winner – Best Actor: Warner Baxter, In Old Arizona
Despite two quality directors billed – Irving Cumming and Raoul Walsh – In Old Arizona suffers from a lot of the same problems that many early talkies do. They try so hard to get some really cool sounds (this one was bacon frying) that they seem to forget everything else. In addition, Baxter seems to barely register that he is in a talkie – he acting is the type of over the top melodramatic turn you expect to see in silent films. I guess the movie is historically significant – it was the first Western talkie, and the first talkie to be shot outside – but unless that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat, there is no reason to watch this stilted, dated, boring film.

Oscar Winner – Best Actress: Mary Pickford, Coquette
I haven’t seen Coquette, so I cannot tell if silent screen icon Pickford deserved to win the Oscar or not. What does appear clear though is that Pickford became the first star to ever lobby hard for an Oscar win. She was one of only 3 female founding members of the Academy, but she was snubbed at the first ceremony, so she went out of her way to woo voters the second time around – hosting lavish lunches at her home, apparently called Pickfair. Some even went as far as to call the film the first “lifetime achievement award” the Academy handed out. Whether she deserved it or not, I cannot say. But the story behind her campaigning is certainly groundbreaking as far as Oscars go.

TIFF Preview: The 23 Films I Will Be Seeing

At TIFF, you win some years and lose others. This year I lost. I ended up in Box 3, and since they drew box 9 (out of 39 total) that means mine was the 6th last box processed. What this means is that films like Black Swan, Another Year and Blue Valentine, which I had hoped to see, join the already long list of films playing at this year’s festival that I not be able to see. Oh well, it happens that way some times.

I will be seeing 23 films at this year’s festival though, and while from the outside looking in, this looks like a weaker year than normal for me, I have high hopes. I do have more what I would call “filler” titles this year than ever before – but sometimes those filler titles end up being the best of the festival. I remain hopeful. So without further ado, here are the 23 films I will be seeing, in alphabetical order.

1. Aftershock (Feng Xiaogang)
This film from China spans the 32 year gap between two epic earthquakes, focusing on the long range impact the first quake, in 1976, has on the people involved – particularly a young girl who was left by her family to die. The film is already a huge hit in China. I am not familiar with the director, but this one could be a sleeper.

2. Amigo (John Sayles)
I have nothing but respect for John Sayles, who is one of the only American directors that you can honestly call completely independent. He makes the films he wants to make no matter what. This one is set in 1900 in the Philippines during the American occupation, a mostly forgotten period in American history. Starring a host of Sayles regulars (like Chris Cooper), this one will undoubtedly tie back to the current excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sayles can be somewhat hit and miss, but I hope this one is a hit.

3. Beautiful Boy (Shawn Ku)
Regular readers will know that I have a little bit of an obsession with school shootings. So despite the fact that Shawn Ku is a newcomer, I couldn’t resist this movie, starring Michael Sheen and Maria Bello, as parents who are shocked to discover their son has shot up his college and then turned the gun on himself. School shooting movies can go either way, but let’s hope this is one of the good ones.

4. Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman)
Despite his huge reputation in the documentary world, I have to admit that I have never seen a Frederick Wiseman movie. I have no real reason why I haven’t, I just have never done it (perhaps because most of them are hugely long – this one is only 90 minutes though). So I look forward to seeing what this supposed master filmmaker is really like.

5. Casino Jack (George Hickenlooper)
George Hickenlooper is certainly a hit or miss filmmaker. His documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse is perhaps the greatest “making of” doc ever made, and his feature The Man from Elysian Fields is underrated. Having said that his last major film was Factory Girl and that sucked. But here he has a seemingly can’t miss story – that of lobbyist Jack Abramoff who involved Washington in perhaps its biggest post Watergate scandal. Starring Kevin Spacey in the title role, I hope it is a return to form for both director and star.

6. Chico and Rita (Fernando Treuba & Javier Mariscal)
Having missed out on Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist at this year’s festival, I wanted to add another unorthodox animated film to my list – and I think this one set in 1948 Cuba, before moving onto to New York City, set in the world of jazz musicians and their various affairs certainly counts. I don’t know the directors, but it sounds interesting at least.

7. The Debt (John Madden)
John Madden started out his directing career wonderfully – with back to back critical hits Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love in 1997/98 – the second of which actually won the best picture Oscar. He has been trying, unsuccessfully, ever since to replicate that success. His latest film is a thriller (like the Elmore Leonard Killshot he made a few years ago that sat on the shelf for a while). This one stars Helen Mirren as a Mossad agent facing questions about her actions in the 1960s – when she and her partner supposedly tracked down and killed a notorious Nazi war criminal. This could be good – reminiscent of Spielberg’s Munich, but fine nonetheless, as the buzz has so far been positive.

8. Let Me In (Matt Reeves)
I caught some slack last year when I made up a list of the best vampire movies of all time, and put the recent Swedish film Let the Right One In as the best ever. I stand by that position to this day, so I am eagerly anticipating and also equally fearing this American remake of the film about a young boy whose only friend is a vampire. A good cast – Kodi Smith McPhee from The Road as the boy, Chloe Moretz from Kick Ass as the vampire, and Richard Jenkins as her “guardian” makes me think this one may actually be worthy of what came before it.

9. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Kelly Reichardt’s last two films – the male bonding film Old Joy and the woman and her dog movie Wendy and Lucy – have both been small, intimate, beautiful and masterful films. So this makes Meek’s Cutoff – a more ambitious film, a period piece about a group of people on a wagon train – one of my most hotly anticipated films of the festival. Michelle Williams is back with Reichardt, and the cast includes Bruce Greenwood and Shirley Henderson for good measure. I like it when directors reach farther than in their past, so here’s hope she pulls it off.

10. Miral (Julien Schnabel)
Julien Schnabel’s Miral has received some critical smackdowns after its Venice premiere earlier this week – but I think that a director his caliber (Basquaint, Before Night Falls, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) should be incapable of making a film completely devoid of interest – although a director with his ego (he has publicly stated that he was robbed of Oscars for his two most recent films, which in his mind were “clearly the best film of the year”) could certainly overstep and make a mess of an ambitious movie. And when you are making a pro-Palestinian movie, stretching from 1948 to the present, that would be easy. I still look forward to this one though, because I know Schnabel has a ton of talent.

11. Monsters (Gareth Edwards)
Sometimes, you have to take a chance at the film festival, and that’s what I’m doing with this film. A very low budget film about the aftermath of an alien invasion in Mexico. The film is described as Lost in Translation meets District 9 and that meant I just had to see it. Whether it will be good or not, I have no idea.

12. Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)
I for one quite liked director Mark Romanek’s debut film, One Hour Photo, and have been waiting for him to follow it up for a while now. He has taken one of the most celebrated novels of the past decade – written by Kazuo Ishiguro of The Remains of the Day – for his latest project, and cast Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightly and Andrew Garfield as her students at a very strange English boarding school. I won’t say more in case unlike you haven’t read the book, but I will say that the novel was a masterful blend of English school dramas and sci-fi. One of my more anticipated films of this year’s festival.

13. 127 Hours (Danny Boyle)
Far and away the most energetic screening I have ever attended at the Toronto Film Festival was for Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. I have never been with an audience who was more clearly loving the movie they were watching. When you combine that with the fact that I do generally like Boyle’s films, and love actor James Franco, this story about a young man who goes alone into the wilderness in Utah, and becomes trapped, was irresistible to me.

14. Peep World (Barry Blaustein)
Barry Blaustein, a long time comedy writer who made his feature directing debut with The Ringer (a film I have not seen) has assembled a great cast for this film – Michael C. Hall (of my still favorite TV show Dexter – yes, it’s better than Mad Men dammit!), Sarah Silverman, Rainn Wilson, Judy Greer, Taraji P. Hensen among others for this comedy about a dysfunctional family. I would watch most of those actors in anything, so to see them all together is making giddy with excitement.

15. Poetry (Lee Changdong)
Out of all of the films I am seeing this year, Poetry has got to be my most anticipated. In 2007, one of the best films I have ever seen at the film festival, Secret Sunshine, stunned me – especially since I saw it on a whim. That film has still not gotten a release of any kind in North America, but here’s hoping that director Lee Changdon’s follow up is as good as that film, and finally gets him the respect on this side of the ocean he deserves. It is the last film I will be seeing, so no matter how bad the festival gets, I will have something to look forward to.

16. The Poll Diaries (Chris Kraus)
If I’m being 100% honest, I have to admit that The Poll Diaries is a film that I am only seeing because I have a hole in my schedule one day, and this was pretty much the only film available to fill it. It takes place in Estonia before the outbreak of WWI. It could be good, I don’t know, but I’m not really looking forward to it that much – it just sounded better than my other options at that time, and I didn’t really want to have to kill 4 hours doing nothing.

17. Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell)
John Cameron Mitchell’s first two films – Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus – were fiercely independent, and wholly original. For his third feature, he decided to adapt a Pulitizer Prize winning play, and cast stars Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman in the lead roles (not to mention Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh for support). If it’s as good as Mitchell’s first two films, or even as good as Doubt, the last Pulitizer winning play to be adapted, I will be happy.

18. Route Irish (Ken Loach)
Ken Loach has been a hit or miss director for almost his entire career – making some of the best political films since the 1960s, and some of the most labored. Here’s hoping that he, and longtime screenwriting partner Paul Laverty’s, look at the Iraq war is one of his better efforts.

19. The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillant)
I have long since had a love hate relationship with Catherine Breillant. At times, her insistence on pushing sexual boundaries in her films borders on the absurd (Romance anyone?). But she is also capable of making gorgeous, and though provoking films (Fat Girl, The Last Mistress). So, I hope her strange, sexual take on Sleeping Beauty is more like the later (it bodes well that people are comparing it to her latest film, Red Beard, which to me sounds fascinating, even if I still have not had a chance to see it.)

20. Three (Tom Tykwer)
I will, and have, followed German director Tom Tykwer pretty much anywhere – from the raw energy of Run Lola Run, to the metaphysical The Princess and the Warrior, to the Kieslowski scripted Heaven, to the disturbing Perfume, and even his foray into big budget action filmmaking The International. So his latest – about a couple who both start having an affair with the same man behind the others back – is one that I eagerly awaiting.

21. Trust (David Schwimmer)
Former Friend David Schwimmer has been directing for a while – mostly for TV, but he did make a previous feature, Run Fatboy Run, but mostly in comedy. This time, he takes a step onto the dark side, making a movie about a teenage girl who meets a sexual predator online, and the consequences it has on her family (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener are her parents). I like dark stories like this, and I am more than willing to give Schwimmer the chance to impress me.

22. What’s Wrong with Virginia (Dustin Lance Black)
Dustin Lance Black won an Oscar for his screenplay for Milk, and is now making his directorial debut in this story of a small town Sheriff (Ed Harris) who is going to run for State Senate – and the affair he has had for years with the mentally disturbed Jennifer Connelly that threatens to destroy it. Black, who has also written for TV’s Big Love, is an expert at writing stories about the darkness that lurks beneath the surface, and the movie has been compared to the work of David Lynch, Todd Haynes and Douglas Sirk. Let’s hope he delivers.

23. Womb (Bendek Fliegauf)
Womb sounds like a fascinating idea for a movie – that could either turn out to be wonderful, or awful. Eva Green stars as a woman who loses her lover to an accident – but jumps at the chance to be impregnated with her lovers clone – meaning that when the child is born, she is conflicted in her feelings as mother and former lover. If new director Bendek Fliegauf pulls it off, it could be great.

So that’s what I will be seeing at this year’s festival. I’m sure there are some great and not so great films lurking in here somewhere, but for now, I prefer to think that I am going to see 23 great films.

Movie Review: Lebanon

Lebanon ***
Directed By: Samuel Maoz.
Written By: Samuel Maoz.
Starring: Reymond Amsalem (Assna), Oshri Cohen (Herzel), Yoav Donat (Shmulik), Michael Moshonov (Yigal), Zohar Shtrauss (Gamil), Itay Tiran (Asi).

Watching Samuel Maoz Lebanon, I found it impossible not to think of Wolfgang Peterson’s Das Boot. That 1982 masterpiece was a war movie that took place almost entirely aboard a German U boat during WWII, and Peterson made the most of the claustrophobic atmosphere. Maoz film is about a different war, in a different decade in a different part of the world, but it reminded me of that film. Aside from the opening and closing shots of the movie, Lebanon takes place entirely inside an Israeli tank during the 1982 war with Lebanon. We only see the country the way the men in the tank see it – through their gun sights.

The movie begins when the new gunner assigned to the tank opens the hatch and drops in. He is joining a trio of men – an unsure commander officer, the constantly bitching loader who like Rodney Dangerfield feels he never gets any respect, and a driver who is just trying to keep the peace and survive his tour. For most of the movie, it is just these four men in the tank. Occasionally, the hatch opens and their commanding officer comes in to yell at them, or to drop in the body of a fallen solider before it can be airlifted out, or to store a prisoner, etc.

The movie is episodic in nature. There are long stretches of calmness, where the men just talk and bitch at each other, followed by intense war sequences where the gunner seems constantly frozen – he is finding out that shooting at people is a hell of a lot harder than shooting at barrels – and this doesn’t go away even after his inaction results in one of the men on the outside being killed. He finds he can only shoot with his eyes closed.

Lebanon must have been an extremely difficult movie for Maoz to make from a technical standpoint. After all, how can you make the interior of a dank, dark tank offset by shots through a gun sight cinematic enough to keep the audience’s attention? But somehow Maoz succeeds. The movie is a triumph of direction and the movie is not nearly as static or stagy than you expect it to be.

If there is a problem with the movie it’s that the characters never really rise above the level of clichés. Maoz, who also wrote the screenplay, establishes their basic outline early in the film, and they never really progress from there. On one hand, this is effective, because after all how much soul searching can you realistically expect during the numerous firefights in the film. On another, since the characters in the tank remain cookie cutters, and everyone outside not even that, it becomes somewhat hard to truly care about their fate.

Any movie about a war involving Israel is undoubtedly going to be political, but Maoz never beats you over the head with his message – in fact you never really get the sense that he has a message at all. He has the gunner be a sympathetic guy – a man who finds it hard to kill others, and in particular gets emotional when his firing could mean the loss of innocent lives. Yet the commander who drops in on them occasionally is much more of a hard liner – a man who says that this is war, and in war people die. And when we see members under his command die, it is hard not to see it from his point of view – even if at times, it is clear that what the Israelis are doing could constitute a war crime if anyone looked into that closely.

Lebanon is a fascinating movie – one that is political, but not overtly so, but rather one that simply wants to give the audience an idea of what it must be like to fight a war in a tank. There is not right or wrong, you do what you do to survive. On that level, the movie works.

TIFF 2010 Preview

Yesterday represented one of my favorite days of the year – the day I get to pick up my pre order package from TIFF and select the 20 films I will be seeing at this year’s festival (this number will most likely increase to at least 22, perhaps as many as 25). This looks like a good year at TIFF, but I had several disappointments.

The first disappointment is that they seem to have pretty much done away with 9:00 am screenings. I liked starting my day early, and ending around 9:00pm, but it looks like this year, things will start around 11 each morning, and end around 11 at night. It means I will get home later – but also that I don’t have to get up so early.

Another is that the festival seems oddly frontloaded this year. It has always been such, with most of the major films wanting to get in the first half of the festival, but this year it seems even worse. So unfortunately films like Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu’s Bituful, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Palme D’Or Winner Uncle Boonme Who Can See His Past Lives, Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter, Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, the 3-D documentary by Werner Herzog (whose name escapes me right now) among others will almost definitely have to wait until they get released.

Having said that, I did request tickets to a lot of hopefully great movies. If I get all of my number 1 choices (which I won’t, but I am hopeful) the 20 films I selected are: Trust (David Schimmer), Film Socialism (Jean Luc Godard), Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek), Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky), 127 Hours (Danny Boyle), Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell), What’s Wrong with Virginia (Dustin Lance Black), Poetry (Lee Chang Dong), Another Year (Mike Leigh), Incendies (Dennis Villeneuve), Let Me In (Matt Reeves), The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillent), Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt), The Debt (John Madden), Amigo (John Sayles), Blue Valentine (John Clanfrance), In a Better World (Susanne Bier), Three (Tom Tykwer), It’s Kind of a Funny Story (Ryan Fleck & Anne Boden), Casino Jack (George Hickenlooper) and Aftershock (Xiaogang). Among my second choices are Miral (Julien Schnabel, which if it hadn’t had to go against Black Swan would have easily been a number 1 choice), The Trip (Michael Winterbottom), Tamara Drewe (Stephen Frears), Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolminski) and Brighton Rock (Roland Joffe) – the rest of the number 2 choices were smaller film by lesser known directors that I picked because they sounded interesting).

I like this list. It isn’t as strong as some lists have been in the past (and for the first time in three years, it does not include a Coen Brothers movie). I will find out for sure what I am seeing next week – and when I do, I will make the list official. I am not sure if I’ll do my daily updates like last year (it was rather exhausting to write them after getting home that late), or if I’ll just do one big wrap up piece when it’s all over. What I do know is that TIFF is usually by favorite week of the year (although last year it trailed behind my honeymoon, and it will have to pretty great this year to top my time in NYC). Anyway, since this is a slow week on the blog, I thought I’d share.