Lawren Harris resurrected on screen
#VIFF16: Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang on Lawren Harris
The Group of Seven founder rides a wave of rediscovery with the bow of a revealing and personal Harris documentary from Peter Raymont and Nancy Lang that gives the viewer a portal into the painter's time
The Promise not worth keeping
#TIFF16: Critic's Dispatches
A bad old-fashioned historical drama about the Armenian genocide revisits final days of Ottoman Empire while La La Land and few gin and gingers quench artistic thirst
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — They threw a party last night at the Toronto International Film Festival where they served a delicious drink made of gin and ginger ale, and you could have as many as you want.
When I regained consciousness, it was time for The Promise, a bad old-fashioned historical drama in which the troubles of three little people — in this case, an Armenian apothecary (Oscar Isaac), a comely dance teacher (Charlotte Le Bon) and an American journalist (Christian Bale) — don’t amount to a hill of beans when they’re cast across the vast and clichéd canvas of tragedy during the First World War. Fusillades of exposition fly across the screen, capturing our doomed heroes in a crossfire of clunky dialogue, tired movie tropes, and earnest over-acting. Pass the gin and ...
Seeking inspiration in the Big Smoke
#TIFF 16: Critic's Dispatches
Damien Chazelle's La La Land offers a deep breath filled with human notes in an urban landscape where the creative urge is often filtered and conditioned for comfort
By Katherine Monk
TORONTO — The condo tower I’m staying at affords me a view of downtown Toronto’s rooftops: squares and rectangles carving their way into the horizontal blue line of Lake Ontario. Sheer glass and steel boxes topped with trailing steel tubes that allow sealed office buildings to breathe.
Inspiration, mechanized.
It’s a necessity in an urban landscape that denies human scale, and emotionally speaking, all things human. But I didn’t even notice the ambient drone of a thousand HVAC fans whirring away over the Big Smoke until today — until I saw Damien Chazelle’s La La Land and rediscovered what true inspiration really feels like: A deep breath exhaled as song.
Sure, La La Land had already been touted as the big buzz movie at this year’s Toronto ...
Three at-bats, but no TIFF hits on this day in cinema sports
#TIFF16: Critic's Dispatches
Seasoned critic sacrifices a Blue Jays game to take in The Queen of Katwe, Planetarium and The Bleeder but finds little to celebrate beyond a sweet mid-movie slumber
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — I went to three films today, which means I didn’t get to watch the Toronto Blue Jays game on television. The films weren’t great as cinema, but they were excellent as distractions from the Toronto Blue Jays. For the record, the Boston Red Sox beat the Jays 11-8, and I went 0-for-3.
The first movie was The Queen of Katwe, a Disney movie based on a true story about a teenage Ugandan girl who lives in dire poverty on the bad side of a small African village — mud streets, bare shacks, a cacophony of people trying to sell maize to people in cars stuck in monumental traffic jams at red lights — and becomes a chess champion.
Yes, it’s that movie, which suited my fellow movie-goers to a T. They laughed and applauded on cue, which makes me think The Queen ...
On American Pastoral and Canadian Shields
Movies: #TIFF16 American Pastoral press conference
Ewan McGregor's adaptation of Phillip Roth's novel points out the problems in bringing internal narrative to the big screen, but the actor-turned director faced the same challenge as those who braved the work of Carol Shields
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Here’s something pretty interesting: in the Carol Shields book Unless (now a motion picture at the Toronto International Film Festival), a sensitive teenage girl sees a monk setting himself on fire and is inspired to drop out of society and become a mute beggar in front of Honest Ed’s discount emporium in Toronto. In the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral (also a movie at TIFF), a sensitive teenage girl sees a monk setting himself on fire and is inspired to drop out of society and become a domestic terrorist.
This tells us something about Canada and the United States — or perhaps just something about Carol Shields and Philip Roth, and about the film industry in general. ...
Oliver Stone says paranoia is par for the course
Movies: Snowden press conference at TIFF 16
The director and stars of Snowden say they now put bandaids over the cameras on their computers and have a new appreciation for what freedom really means
By Katherine Monk
TORONTO — It didn’t take long for Oliver Stone to affirm his public reputation for being a little paranoid, calling President Obama “the most efficient managers of the surveillance world,” pointing out the presence of “rockets 200 miles in space peeking in on us” and accusing the U.S. government of “lying all the time.”
In other words, it was everything you could have wanted out of an Oliver Stone press conference. This time, the director of JFK and Nixon was speaking about Snowden, his latest feature screening at the Toronto International Film Festival starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as whistleblower Edward Snowden and Shailene Woodley as girlfriend Lindsay Mills.
“It’s out of control,” Stone said, citing Snowden’s own words from a recent ...
In Praise of Amy Adams
Movies: Toronto International Film Festival
A veteran movie critic spends the day with Amy Adams and concludes she's Oscar bait, as well as a reminder of what Nicole Kidman used to look like before Botox
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Let us now praise Amy Adams, and all who sail on her. I recently spent a morning with the actress — she was on screen in two movies at the Toronto International Film Festival and I was in the audience, but still — and I concluded that a) she reminds me of what Nicole Kidman would look like if she had more common sense, and b) she might be in line for a couple of Oscar nominations this fall for roles in which she plays troubled women in unhappy second marriages with doomed daughters but, nonetheless, beautiful houses with large windows overlooking vastly photogenic scenery.
Both movies — Nocturnal Animals and Arrival — have all that in them, but Adams herself couldn’t be more different and you have to remind yourself that she was also, among ...
Toronto festival buzz or bust?
Movies: TIFF 16 - First Looks
Jay Stone checks out a handful of the early buzz-makers at the Toronto International Film Festival, and keeps it real and offers this tip "longer is not always better"
By Jay Stone
TORONTO — Two things about a film festival are buzz (what is everyone talking about?) and more importantly, time (how long to I have to spend so that I can talk about it too?) After all, if life were eternal, you wouldn’t worry about it. Indeed, if life were eternal, you could afford to go to see a German movie called Toni Erdmann. But more about that later.
First the buzz. Well, actually, first the fact that the escalator at the downtown theatre where Toronto International Film Festival screenings are held for the press was broken on opening day. Thus, you walk up 105 stairs (by my count) before you can even join the crowds. In film-going — as in film directing, they tell me — the knees go first.
We’re here to sample three movies on our first day, all of ...
Roger Frappier Records another win
News: Canadian Media Producers Association Awards
The man who can claim responsibility for the Decline of the American Empire and picks up Canadian producers' award, Hany Ouichou wins inaugural emerging talent prize
By The Ex-Press
TORONTO — Roger Frappier, the man who enabled the crucifixion of Jesus of Montreal and had a central role in the Decline of the American Empire, was named Producer of the Year at the Canadian Media Producers Association’s annual schmooze Thursday.
Over 100 industry types packed into the CBC Glenn Gould Studio for the event that also inaugurated The Emerging Producer Award, which was handed to Hany Ouichou for “his creative vision and impressive talents as an independent producer with a promising career ahead.”
Ouichou produced two features, Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau and Prank, both of which are part of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
Frappier won the award ...
Jay Stone picks his TIFF16 ponies
Movies: #TIFF16
The Toronto International Film Festival offers 400 film titles, two Ryan Gosling movies, a Denis Villeneuve Arrival and if you're lucky, free chips
By Jay Stone
There are many things to look forward to at the Toronto International Film Festival, including that party they have every year to celebrate Canadian cinema where they hand out bags of potato chips and chocolate bars, although this year I hear they’re not having the chocolate bars. But we soldier on. Getting through a film festival requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice.
And oh yes: the films. There are about 400 of them here, and if you play your cards right, you can see a couple of dozen and still have time to pick up enough bags of complimentary potato chips to get you through to lunch, although some chocolate bars would have been a nice addition. You know. For dessert.
Where was I? Right: the films. Here, in no particular order, are some that I’m looking forward to.
Arrival
A sci-fi film ...
