Toronto: TIFF Day 1

Back in the USSR! (Sorry, been hearing Beatles music everywhere with the new Rock Band and everything I suppose.) I was reading this profile of Michael Ignatieff in The New Yorker and the author gave an elegant analogy that perfectly articulated the philosophy of Canada, the beliefs I have such an affinity towards: "No man is an island, and rules made for imaginary islands ignore the fragile ecology of the actual archipelago. We are people who live in communities and our sense of who we are derives from what the people around us are like." Take that Libertarianism!

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be talking about films.

This year I have ten, maybe twelve films I plan to see. This is pretty light for me, about half of the usual. Still this should be enough to slake my cinema jones for a while. It's been a quiet movie-going year for me. The best film I've seen all year was Let The Right One In and that came out last year. So I'm looking for Toronto to be a barometer as to how '09 will end. The pre-fest buzz has been good, but we'll see how things shake out. Either way, there's always Mad Men.

Thursday began with a plane ride where I got the chance to listen to a gaggle of journalists talk shop. Film criticism seems like a nice gig if you can get it, but I can't say I found their world too enticing. I'd much rather stay on this side of the wall. Movies are a passion, but I wouldn't want to think of viewing films as work. Saps all the fun out of the entire enterprise. I will say you'd be hard-pressed to find a chef with a set of knives sharper than a film critic's.

I ended up seeing two films today. The first was Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces starring Penelope Cruz. It's only the third film I've seen by him (the other two were Volver and Talk to Her). I really enjoy the worlds Almodovar creates. You could watch his characters interact with each other for hours. They are all fairly layered; their motivations complex. Even the bad guys aren't really all that bad; they're just human.

Penelope Cruz gives a good performance as the woman who makes a deal with a devil of sorts (who you really can't blame save for one incident) and tries to renege for a chance at true love. Lluis Homar has a more challenging role which he executes with aplomb. His Mateo Blanco is the portrait of a man humbled by loss but not broken. Almodovar imbues him with a wry sense of humor that I especially enjoyed. The plot is full of more twists than a soap opera; it has melodrama entwined in its DNA. And there's nothing wrong with that. The film toys with being absurd at times, but Almodovar is very assured here. He knows exactly how to string us along. I found myself enthralled from the opening frame through to the credits.

I was also happy that the film didn't feel constrained by genre. It presents itself as a mystery--a murder mystery to be exact. But that's not what it delivers and I was actually grateful for that. Such a structure presents life as some puzzle that can be solved--event X happens because of action Y--when real life is usually far more random and more maddening. Almodovar's films all seem to capture the messiness of life--especially when it comes to love. Highly recommended.



The second film was Jennifer's Body, the second screenplay from Juno-scribe, Diablo Cody. The film stars most notably Megan Fox who gets to do more than just straddle motorcycles in demeaning sexpot poses (thanks again, Michael Bay!). If you didn't care for Juno's chock-full-of-pop-refs-and-elaborate-putdowns dialogue, then you should just avoid this film altogether. Horror junkies will not find a fix here. The scares are tepid and the gore if not exactly restrained, then unremarkable. Still I enjoyed the flick. I laughed enough at some of the so-hip-it-hurts dialogue. I like Cody's sense of humor. I mean the plot alone is genius: mediocre alt-rock band tries to sacrifice a virgin to Satan so they can be somebodies "like the lead singer from Maroon 5"; only she's impure and becomes a half-demon feasting on the high school boys.

Amanda Seyfried and Adam Brody give solid performances. Seyfried plays the mousy "Needy" who slowly learns the truth about her best friend and has to overcome her fierce loyalty to end the carnage. Brody's part is short but sweet as a wannabe rockstar, virgin-sacrificing tool. Megan Fox gives a workmanlike performance that doesn't really make me suspect any great things will come from her as an actress in the future, but doesn't make me write her off altogether either. On a side note, she's super-skinny in person, I hope she's healthy at least; I hate that this is what Hollywood puts out as the quintessence of beauty . The star of this film though is the script. It's Juno with bloodletting (minus the heart as well) which isn't a bad thing. It's about what I expected to be honest. Diablo Cody catches a lot of flack for her work, but I like her self-creation and knack for publicity. How many screenwriters are known by name in Hollywood these days? So bully for her I say.



So far, so good. Two solid films to open the festival. There is nothing like watching a movie with a festival crowd. If regular crowds were like it, I'd go to the movies a lot more often. No crying babies, no talking during the movie, no cellphones, no texting...just sitting back and enjoying the show. The way it should always be.