Link and Response

Neill Cameron the A to Z of Awesomeness. This is so fun
Sunset Gun Kim Morgan recalls her time on the now departed At the Movies
Twitpic Tom Hanks tweets the casting of his new film. He's reuniting with Julia Roberts for Larry's Crowne. Let's hope it's better than Charlie Wilson's War
Empire Bryan Singer will oversee but not direct X-Men: First Class. I haven't seen this much craziness for "young" versions of things since the Muppet Babies craze in the 80s
popbytes Dennis Hopper gets his Walk of Fame star


Celebitchy on Jude Law's hair and the "naughty Adonis" vibe
CHUD announces the best back-to-back filming news I've heard in years and years: Viggo & Cronenberg will follow filming of Talking Cure with Eastern Promises 2. Yay!
The Awl Clash of the Titans "Adventures in Mimicry"

Here's the trailer for The Lovely Laura Linney's Showtime series The Big C which co-stars Gabourey Sidibe and Oliver Platt. They seem to be attempting to jam all the TLLL trademarks into one series...



Acerbic wit, sympathetic mortality drama, half-assed romance and of course... the sister act. It's all there. And nobody does the sister act better you must admit.

he said / he said
Salon on the continued might of French cinema and...
.......The Guardian responds. Do Brits measure up?
Todd Alcott details A Serious Man's true protagonist and...
.......Scanners responds to this reading and more
New York Times sings the praises of Greta Gerwig and...
.......My New Plaid Pants joins in for the chorus

uh, I guess I should see a Greta Gerwig movie right quick. I'm still a Gerwirgin and I hate being late to actress parties. I'm used to starting them!

5 More From TIFF: Perrier's Bounty, The Joneses, The Hole, Survival of the Dead and A Serious Man

Faithful readers! You may have noticed my absence from the blog of late as I let friends fill in from the Toronto International Film Festival. The Canadian fest wraps today but we've got a few more TIFF related reports to get through. I hope you're enjoying (comment!). After the TIFF wrap, I'll be back. Things have been crazy for me. Apologies! (I can't wait to tell you about my star studded 'Oprah Day'). Here's five more capsules from Txt Critic who I like to argue with in real life (he sees everything) despite his anonymity here.

on The Joneses

This satire of consumerism starring Demi Moore (at TIFF with her man, left) and David Duchovny as parents of a fake family "cell" placed into suburbia to sell their neighbors on various products is about as stale and 'blah' as that plot description sounds. The screenplay leaves both leads grasping at straws to fill in the holes of their characters and it's awkwardly indecisive on a tone; the softball-satire "jokes" clash with the stabs at relevancy and pathos (including a "what have we learned here" climax), and none of the actors ever finds a consistent pitch. I'd be surprised if it gets theatrical distribution. (C)

on The Hole

While I didn't get to see the entire film (the fire alarm was pulled twenty minutes before the film was over!), I feel like I got the gist of this 3-D Poltergeist throwback from Joe Dante. The movie, which intends to be a horror film for family audiences (PG-13?), alternates between groan-inducing dialogue, family drama backstory and jumpy B-movie scares (e.g. a creepy clown doll that keeps reappearing in inconvenient locations). It’s not up to snuff with Dante’s Gremlins but what is? If you have any 8-to-12-year-old kids who like being scared, take them along. That said, you’d still probably be better off with a DVD of Coraline. (C+)

On Perrier's Bounty

Derivative of films like In Bruges (without the emotional heft) and Snatch (without the emphasis on style), this Irish crime comedy flew under the radar of most festival-goers, despite starring well-liked mick stars Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson and Jim Broadbent. Though it doesn’t bring a ton new to the well-worn genre, it boasts clever dialogue, fun performances (particularly Gleeson as the crime boss) and surprisingly off-kilter sources of humor, such as violence in the name of one’s affinity for dogs and dislike for homophobes. Seems a sure bet for small-time US distribution. (B+)

On A Serious Man

I can’t really be trusted when asked for my opinion on a Coen Brothers film. I’m more than a bit biased: for well over a decade, I’ve espoused the belief that they’re the best filmmakers working and I think even their worst movie (yes, The Ladykillers) is still pretty great. That said, even I was surprised at the level to which I was knocked out by their latest, which is supposedly their most personal film. It's about a much put-upon Minnesota university professor (Tony-nominated Michael Stuhlbarg) and how he attempts to grapple with the innumerable trials and tribulations in his life, most prominently via advice from the rabbis in his life.


Man recalls Barton Fink but definitively possesses its own unique identity. The film is consistently very, very funny but proves surprisingly weighty, too. A Serious Man depicts life as basically, ‘one fucking thing after the other,’ and espouses a supremely bleak worldview in an entirely original, oddly moving manner. While it possesses the Coens’ trademark immaculate filmmaking and shot composition, this is probably one of their most esoteric and least commercial films. It’s also, in my opinion, one of their three or four best films and in serious contention for my ‘best movie of the year’ title. (A+)

on George A Romero's Survival of the Dead

I appreciate the effort, but the guy should really give it a rest. I seemed to be one of the few in attendance who thought this was (mildly) more watchable than his last effort, Diary of the Dead. At least it featured a handful of fun, gory moments, and characters I didn’t want to instinctively murder. Overall, I think my reaction can best be summed up by my sold-out midnight audience’s behavior: they gave Romero a standing ovation when he showed up to introduce the film, and shuffled out of the theater as the credits rolled with their heads hung low -- not even bothering to stay for the Q&A with their hero. (C)

Whoa. High praise for the Coen Bros. After No Country For Old Men (my #2 of 2007) and Burn After Reading (#11 of 2008), both top-notch efforts, it's clear that they've jumped whatever hurdle they were struggling to clear in that weird mid-Aughts patch (The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty). Well done.
*

TIFF: Up In the Air

Lev Lewis reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

Lev (third from left) and friends inbetween screenings

Apologies for my absence yesterday. A crowded day of films and fatigue and incoherent thoughts overtook me. Today, I have a few moments, so a few thoughts on a film that everyone is talking about.

Up In the Air
Jason Reitman's mildly diverting corporate comedy, his third stab at directing and second at writing, has moments of inspiration but for the most part feels blandly safe in its assessment of corporate culture. The film has been touted as a departure from Reitman’s earlier, more overly comedic features and this is in a sense true; a malaise of melancholy runs throughout. Thankfully the dramatic overtones rarely interfere with the humour, and this becomes the films strongest asset. For the first hour Reitman pulls off what many attempt, but few can do: the assimilation of drama and comedy. This should come as little surprise to anyone who's kept up with his career. Both Thank You For Smoking and Juno had an emotional core that allowed them to stand slightly apart from other films of the same ilk. Juno, in particular, was able to pull off an emotional denouement that rang true, while rarely losing sight of the simple fact that it was a comedy.

Up In the Air's brand of humour feels more organic than Juno's clever catchphrases, and its drama is filtered more evenly throughout. Too bad then that by the third act Up In the Air squanders most of the goodwill it has elicited. Though the steady evolution of drama builds quite gracefully, Reitman’s handling of George Clooney’s character, and the progression of the story, fall into cliché. Any sense of subtlety goes out the window as the story progresses exactly as one thinks it will. [spoiler] By the time Clooney dramatically races away from his big public speaking event the film has lost most of its grounding in anything truthful or authentic. [/spoiler]

The film’s bland cinematography, voice-over and editing do little to separate the film from numerous other movies. Clooney gives a charming, affable performance but its nothing he hasn’t done before; Michael Clayton, but funny. Anna Kendrick continues to show promise, handling what could have been a cloying character with grace but it’s Vera Farmiga who gets best in show honours. Lesser screen time does nothing to quell Farmiga’s continual acting prowess.

None of this stands to say that Up In the Air won’t play well to audiences or the Academy. In fact, the Oscars seem quite likely at this stage in the game. With Clooney in the lead and the crowd-pleasing nature of the film, Up In the Air should glide through the season with ease but the movie doesn't soar. Final Grade: C+


Next Up: Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime, The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man and Jacques Audiard’s Un Prophète.

The Linker is In

Nathaniel (c'est moi) is back. Thank you to the guest bloggers Robert, JA, Adam, Jose, RC and Kieran for letting me breathe this week. Give them a round of applause.

The past seven or eight days have been alternately stressful, joyous, upsetting, relaxing and extremely busy (offweb stuff mostly: friends getting married, work deadlines...) but all the while I didn't have that sick omgihavetopostsomething*now* feeling that I don't think is conducive to good blogging or creativity. That feeling was beginning to sully The Film Experience a bit for me and it's something I'll have to watch out for and shoo away in the future. There's hundreds of corporate movie blogs out there that provide that 12-25 daily news-posts fix. I'll just try to craft good little nuggets as I can. I cherish this little home I've made on the web and the many people (you) who walk into it every day to join in the conversation. Please remember that even if you can't donate (times are tough) there are other ways you can encourage the Film Experience to keep on keeping on: commenting, recommending articles you like for IMDb's hit list, sharing the best pieces on social networking sites, etcetera.

LiNKS!
SLatIFR Dennis Cozzalio's in-depth interview with Stephanie Zacharek (Salon) gave me much to ponder and smile about
Guardian movie jargon we love to hate
Urlesque "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" as someone who taught himself to type this delighted me so

---> No, Penélope & Pedro do not appear in these links. I just like seeing them pictured together. That said, I quite miss Victoria Abril. Can't Pedro bring her back for one picture... just one. Por favor?

Shiantology I'm not religious but I have been known to worship movie stars... I'd better stay away from this
Daily Mail Lindsay sparkling (sort of). So much older than her years...
Monkey See Laughing at the Man: HBO's Hung. Haveg. Have any of you seen the new series?

Finally... since none of my guest bloggers shared it, better late than never: The Coen Bros A Serious Man trailer. I'm not sure what to make of it. It could be an Intolerable Cruelty, which is undervalued but still mostly disposable or a Raising Arizona. We won't know till we see it. I did however get a big kick out of the sound effects as percussive musical accompaniment.



I'm not sure who the sound mixers and sound editors on the Coen Bros pictures are or if they vary from film to film but they tend to be top notch aural magicians.