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TIFF 2012 Review: ARGO Is Academy Catnip For Affleck

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TIFF 2012 Review: ARGO Is Academy Catnip For Affleck

TIFF 2012 Review: ARGO Is Academy Catnip For Affleck

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 11:00 PM PDT

Ben Affleck may not be the easiest guy to root for. Between his meteoric rise from indie actor to A-lister, his high profile relationships with some of the most beautiful women in the world, and his Oscar win for his first produced screenplay, it's not like he needs the help. So when Affleck did a pretty bang up job on his first directing try Gone Baby Gone and then just missed out on an Oscar nom for his second feature The Town, his status as golden boy looked pretty secure. With his latest picture Argo, the golden boy makes a real case for a golden statue. This is a nearly flawless movie that will absolutely be in the Oscar picture. Suddenly Affleck finds himself...

TIFF 2012 Feature: WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? Continues to Horrify

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 09:20 PM PDT

[With Come Out and Play, the remake of Who Can Kill a Child?, set to debut at TIFF tonight, we decided to take another look at the original film.] I read a quote from Adam Balz over at NotComing.com that even the most avid cinephile will never see 0.1% of all films released commercially. Considering the number of films released annually from all parts of the world, I'd venture to guess that take your favorite genre of film, and you are unlikely to see 5% of those. Now, given how many less-than-worthwhile films are out there, it is one of the great pleasures to stumble upon a classic you may never even knew existed. It is not a new film, or even newly on DVD,...

Hollywood Beat: THALE and PINES Score Deals, YOU'RE NEXT Pushed to 2013, THE THICK OF IT Returns

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 06:00 PM PDT

The Place Beyond the Pines and Thale are among the films that have scored recent distribution deals at the Toronto International Film Festival, which has long been considered an unofficial market. They appear to be opposites, as far as pedigree and prospects go. The Place Beyond the Pines represents the re-teaming of Ryan Gosling, who stars, and Derek Cianfrance, who co-wrote the script and directed. Blue Valentine, their previous collaboration, earned Michelle Williams an Academy Awards nomination, and it may be that Pines will do likewise for Gosling. Thale, written and directed by Aleksander L. Nordaas (who also served as cinematographer, editor, production designer) features no Hollywood stars, and no real Academy Award possibilities, though the image of a naked woman with a tail...

L'Etrange 2012 Review: HENGE is Hilarious, Outrageous, Violent... And Kinda Heartwarming

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 04:00 PM PDT

I doubt that the "in sickness and in health" line of wedding vows was written with demonic, mutant transformations in mind. But, as director Hajime Ohata shows, sometimes them's the breaks. Indeed, Henge establishes its love of body horror right off the bat, but it soon sets itself apart from other entries in the genre. With this tale of wife and very sick husband, Ohata has not only delivered one of the most delightfully absurd films I've seen this year, but also managed to tell a love story that is, at times, genuinely touching. Kazunari Aizawa and Aki Morita play a young married couple who seem like they would be happy enough, if only Aizawa wasn't having a violent, spasm-inducing stroke every other day. The...

TIFF 2012 Review: FRANCES HA Finds Baumbach At His Best

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 03:00 PM PDT

Noah Baumbach has been a polarizing filmmaker since he burst onto the scene with his first high-profile feature, 2005's The Squid and the Whale. Aside from launching Jesse Eisenberg's career, that effort also familiarized the film world with Baumbach's quirky indie voice. While like nails on a chalkboard to some -- see critical reaction to Margot at the Wedding and Greenberg -- Baumbach's minimalist, self-deprecating style has been emulated by many in the years that have followed. His latest, Frances Ha, is every bit as Baumbachian as his previous work, yet feels somehow more accessible as well, aside, perhaps, from the black-and-white filming, which, at times, evokes early Woody Allen or the French New Wave. It is up for debate whether this is because...

TIFF 2012 Review: EVERYDAY And Its Lovely Minimalism

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 02:00 PM PDT

Michael Winterbottom is as varied a director as he is prolific. In just the last few years, he has directed a sweeping Indian epic (Trishna), a rollicking road trip comedy (The Trip), a globalization documentary (The Shock Doctrine), and a violent Hollywood crime drama (The Killer Inside Me). So it's no surprise that his latest, Everyday, is a divergence from any of these films, as well as different from much of anything that's been done lately at all. Set in rural England, Everyday is the story of the difficulties a family must face when the patriarch is imprisoned, leaving his wife to provide for their four young children. With a short prison term of only a few years, the promise of the father's release...

Haunted Girls in MAMA Trailer, Presented by Guillermo del Toro

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 01:32 PM PDT

Supernatural thrills abound in Mama, starring Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, an upcoming film presented by executive producer Guillermo del Toro. Last year, Twitch broke the news that Chastain would star in the film, which began life as a two-shot short film by Spain's Andres Muschietti. As Todd Brown noted: "That original short is an absolute masterpiece in mood and tension with one hell of a kick at the end." So our expectations are high for the feature version, and the new trailer does not disappoint. Here's the official synopsis: "Guillermo del Toro presents Mama, a supernatural thriller that tells the haunting tale of two little girls who disappeared into the woods the day that their parents were killed. When they are rescued years...

THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPIDERS: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It!!!

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT

Waitaminute! A trailer for a book? When that trailer is for the book sequel to David Wong's breakout cult hit John Dies at the End? Oh, hell. And yes. While reactions to the film adaptation of Wong's book have been mixed, there is no denying that the source material is cracking stuff. We want this book. Now. As the sequel opens, we find our heroes, David and John, again embroiled in a series of horrifying yet mind-bogglingly ridiculous events caused primarily by their own gross incompetence. The guys find that books and movies about zombies may have triggered a zombie apocalypse, despite a complete lack of zombies in the world. As they race against the clock to protect humanity from its own paranoia, they must ask...

TIFF 2012 Review: GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is the Epic Crime Saga of the Year

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 12:00 PM PDT

Pulling back, deliberately and slowly, from a soap-opera musical on the TV (involving, of all things, character introductions), the 315-minute long Gangs of Wasseypur kicks off with a single shot, Johnnie To-style unbroken assault on the stronghold of Faizal Khan with automatic weapons, grenades and narrow alleyways. It's the bright hearald of a major film career just leaping onto the international stage.  Let us get this out of the way first: Anurag Kashyap's generation-spanning story set in the coal capital of India and spanning almost 70 years comfortably, nay confidently, belongs alongside the great crime sagas of the cinema: The Godfather Trilogy, City of God, Bertolucci's 1900, Heimat and Election. The perfect nexus of history, craft, thematic heft, and balls-to-the-wall entertainment, it is why cinema was invented...

TEBANA SANKICHI Has More Crazy Per Square Inch Than Should Be Allowed By Law!

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 11:00 AM PDT

About to have its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, Yudai Yamaguchi's Tebana Sankichi (Snot Rockets) is a true labor of love. A very, very strange labor of love. Yamaguchi and his frequent collaborator and star Tak Sakaguchi set off down this very odd road in 1995 when their Sankichi character first appeared in a short film. That short film has been growing ever since, the duo adding gag upon gag and layer upon layer to an ultra low budget production that has now spanned continents.Tak Sakaguchi stars as Tebana Sankichi--lover of women, rescuer of the fallen, sometime private detective, wayward son, homeless bum, celebrity, bullied child, spoiled rich kid, and fighting master. The episodic comedy follows Sankichi's adventures across space and time, as well as...

TIFF 2012 Review: AFTERSHOCK Sends Tremors Through Midnight Audience

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 10:00 AM PDT

Playing in the Midnight Madness section to a ravenous audience expecting thrills every reel, the fact that Aftershock takes its sweet-ass time to get going feels like a bold move indeed. At the outset, it appears to be another placid film about how cool it is to go clubbing in Chile. We see wine tours with tourists, eager or not, sipping away at a Cabernet, feigning interest in winespeak. We attend throbbing outdoor festivals, with DJs spinning away and drugged out, barely-clothed throngs dancing away to an incessant beat. We're even taken into an exclusive club, where the likes of Selena Gomez shows up, only to smack down the advances of one of our leads, none other than Midnight Madness stalwart Eli Roth.This prelude should...

Ram Gopal Varma Is Back With BHOOT RETURNS. Haven't I Seen This Somewhere Before?

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 09:30 AM PDT

The once edgy and unpredictable enfant terrible of Indian cinema, Ram Gopal Varma, has taken a turn for the worse lately. His output for the last five years or so has taken him from the highs of truly remarkable films, like his gangster opus Company, to the unforgivable dreck of Department. It's gotten to the point that even the staunchest of RGV supporters are beginning to call for him to hang up his megaphone and call it a day.However, Ram Gopal Varma doesn't want to hear it. He keeps cranking out the turds at an astonishing rate. His latest film, his seventh since the beginning of 2011, is the Paranomal Activity/Poltergeist supernatural horror film Bhoot Returns (The Ghost Returns), a sequel to his 2003 film,...

TIFF 2012 Review: ROOM 237 Axes Film Theory, Blows Minds

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Few films have the power to truly haunt their audience in a way Stanley Kubrick's The Shining does, and continues to do, 30 years after its initial release. Like many of Kubrick's films, it received a relatively lukewarm reception upon initial release (Kubrick even received a Razzie nomination for Worst Director), with Variety and Roger Ebert both initially giving the film negative reviews. Many fans of the Stephen King novel, upon which the film is based, were upset with Kubrick's fairly loose adaptation, while the film's languid pacing and relatively low body count ran contrary to the slasher flicks that were popular in 1980. The years have been kind to Kubrick's film, however, and it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest...

Esben Toft Jacobsen's BEYOND BEYOND Announces Start Of Production With Gorgeous New Still

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Danish animator Esben Toft Jacobsen's debut feature The Great Bear made an immediate impression with a selection to the Berlinale and Twitch has been anxiously awaiting any progress on Jacobsen's sophomore effort ever since the first concept images arrived online. Gorgeous was one word for them. And now there is both news and a gift. The news? Jacobsen's Beyond Beyond is now in production. The gift? That fabulous image above.Johan and his father have lived alone on an old ship for as long as Johan can remember. They have a good life together, but something is missing. One day, when Johan's father has gone ashore to get supplies, Johan is alone on the ship and receives a mysterious call over the radio. His mother is...

Action Packed Final Trailer For Hong Kong's COLD WAR

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 07:30 AM PDT

With an all star cast - Andy Lau, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Aaron Kwok just scratch the surface - and its high octane story of corruption, Longman Leung and Sunny Luk's Cold War will almost certainly be the biggest film of the year to come out of Hong Kong. And to help make it so distributors Edko Films have just released one final trailer to spread the word.In Asia's safest city, the police have long been untouchable. Approaching midnight in Hong Kong, police headquarters receives an anonymous call: a fully-loaded police van carrying the force's most advanced equipment and five highly-trained officers has disappeared off the grid. The hijackers possess direct knowledge of police procedures. They're already steps ahead. The police must meet a list...

TIFF 2012 Review: JAYNE MANSFIELD'S CAR Meanders, With Charm

Posted: 13 Sep 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Despite the impressive cast and generally positive word of mouth, I still sat down to Billy Bob Thornton's Jayne Mansfield's Car wondering, "Does anybody really need another nostalgic family comedy/drama? What could Thornton possibly have to add to this well-worn genre?" I'm still pretty sure that the answer to my first question is, "Probably not," though everyone else's mileage may vary. That said, there is a great deal of pleasure to be found in Thornton's meandering, good-natured yarn about a fractured family in the Vietnam War-era South. It touches on most of the expected issues - generational conflict, drug experimentation, Southern conservatism - but Thornton explores them with subtle wit and welcome sincerity. It also helps that his characters are all complex, unique and...
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