Tag Archives: festival coverage

You Can Thank Tom Hanks For Getting Steve Martin to Sign Up for Twitter

Erstwhile Oscar co-host and current banjo player Steve Martin has taken the leap and signed up for a Twitter account. “It’s new to me,” he told the NY Times . “I just started yesterday, or the day before. At first I thought, oh, this will be an awful thing to do. And then I actually talked to Tom Hanks, and he said it’s actually kind of fun. So I decided to try it. Now I lie awake at night, dreaming up Twitters. It’s a little bit of a problem.” Looks like he’s gotten the hang of it so far. Follow away ! [ NYT /ArtsBeat ]

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You Can Thank Tom Hanks For Getting Steve Martin to Sign Up for Twitter

At TIFF: History Class is in Session with Robert Redford’s Conspirator (Just Don’t Fall Asleep)

Behold the paradox of Robert Redford: Lauded as one of the most innovative, influential filmmaking advocates around, as a filmmaker he has acquired a reputation as a snooze and a scold. In turn, over the last decade especially, I have acquired a reciprocal Redford Reflex: When I heard that his as-yet-unacquired historical drama The Conspirator was screening at TIFF, I felt my eyelids droop ever so slightly, and my throat begin to dry. An independent project with a rich vein of history running through it could be double trouble or a revelation. Either way the Redford Reflex was in full effect; I knew my morning screening would require something large and violently caffeinated.

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At TIFF: History Class is in Session with Robert Redford’s Conspirator (Just Don’t Fall Asleep)

3 Docs to Watch For: A Disgraced Governor, the Hot Bard of New Jersey and Steamy Mormon Sex

The problem with covering film festivals is that the things you have to see so often conflict with the things you want to see; bits of the latter have to be stuffed into the corners of the usual crazed festival going. There’s also the problem of making choices: The other day a new acquaintance tempted me, like a cartoon devil on my shoulder, to check out a Mexican film, Leap Year, that supposedly had, she said, “Lots of explicit sex.” Count me in! But after checking my schedule, I realized that if I went to see that, I’d miss the Alex Gibney documentary on Eliot Spitzer, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, which I was extremely curious about.

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3 Docs to Watch For: A Disgraced Governor, the Hot Bard of New Jersey and Steamy Mormon Sex

James Gunn on His TIFF Hit SUPER, Sidekick Sex and Blending Art House with the Grindhouse

James Gunn just spent one of the most successful weekends of his life in Toronto, premiering his new superhero-splatter-comedy SUPER to Midnight Madness raves before selling it off to IFC Films in the festival’s first distribution deal. In the end, though, Gunn’s biggest triumph may have come in writing and directing the film he wanted to make exactly how he wanted to make it, with Rainn Wilson’s nobody Frank adopting the crimefighting persona the Crimson Bolt after his wife (Liv Tyler) is all but kidnapped by a local drug baron (Kevin Bacon). It’s a lot harder than it sounds in an age of indie-market turbulence, comic-book genre saturation, and even Gunn’s own creative apprehensions following his 2006 debut Slither . He spoke to Movieline about these and other subjects — from Joe Strummer to God — over the weekend.

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James Gunn on His TIFF Hit SUPER, Sidekick Sex and Blending Art House with the Grindhouse

At TIFF: Brighton Rock Extends the Graham Greene Adaptation Curse

In one of his sidelong memoirs, Graham Greene suggested that not only was the bullying he suffered as an English schoolboy the main reason that he became a writer, but that the character of Pinkie Brown, the anti-hero of his early novel Brighton Rock , was based on the scruffy ringleader who sent him running for the typewriter in the first place. Perhaps it’s a testament to just how much Greene loathed the punk he was modeled on that Pinkie is perhaps the least redeemed character in the author’s canon.

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At TIFF: Brighton Rock Extends the Graham Greene Adaptation Curse

‘Get It Up or I’ll Cut It Off’: A Meditation on the Cinematic Brilliance of Machete Maidens Unleashed!

A few days back, after a festival day that began with two-hours-plus of French people talking incessantly while hiding their secrets from one another (Guillaume Canet’s snoozy Little White Lies ), progressed to a moody meditation on the agonies of preteen vampirism (Matt Reeves’ bracing Let Me In ), and was rounded off, just before dinner time, with a trapped James Franco sawing his arm off with a teensy knife (thank you, Danny Boyle), I wandered listlessly around the excessively dazzling and noisy Scotiabank screening complex. I wanted one more movie to finish the day, but what? A nice little Macedonian film, perhaps? Maybe I could find some three-hour Japanese thing with nice scenery.

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‘Get It Up or I’ll Cut It Off’: A Meditation on the Cinematic Brilliance of Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Let Me In and the Hows and Whys of the Remake

When it was announced a few years back that a U.S. remake of the Swedish preteen-vampire film (and indie hit) Let the Right One In was in the works, fans of the original let out a collective groan. Leave it to stupid Americans to refuse to read subtitles! The remake — to be made by Matt Reeves, director of the 2008 Cloverfield, as well as several episodes of Felicity — would certainly trample on the delicacy of this small Swedish gem.

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Let Me In and the Hows and Whys of the Remake

Hometown Girl Malin Åkerman on the Toronto Premiere of Bang Bang Club

Pick any random film that’s opened in the last year, and odds are about 50/50 that Malin Åkerman starred in some capacity. OK, so I exaggerate, but let me put it this way: A week after interviewing Åkerman for her film The Romantics — which opened last week in limited release — the Swedish-Canadian actress is in Toronto for the world premiere of her latest effort The Bang-Bang Club . Busy!

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Hometown Girl Malin Åkerman on the Toronto Premiere of Bang Bang Club

It’s Kind Of A Funny Story Is Also Kind of a Disappointing One

Here’s my kind of funny story: When I was a post-collegiate punk with an afternoon to burn, I would often spend hours riding the single ticket I bought at the very cineplex where most of the TIFF screenings are taking place into and out of two or three different movies. It feels eerie to see many of my New York colleagues clamoring at the scene of the crime, and even stranger to hop from film to film not furtively but as festival workers smile and wave me in. I have to say: The thrill has been compromised.

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It’s Kind Of A Funny Story Is Also Kind of a Disappointing One

Sofia Coppola Wins Venice Film Festival While Jury President Quentin Tarantino Is Accused Of Favoritism

Che dramma ! It’s been a whirlwind of emotions for Hollywood scionette Sofia Coppola in the last few days. Her new film Somewhere underwhelmed the audiences at the Venice Film Fest — Sad! But then she won the Golden Lion! — Happy! And now her ex-boyfriend and jury president Quentin Tarantino has been accused of blatant favoritism by the Italian press — Gasp!

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Sofia Coppola Wins Venice Film Festival While Jury President Quentin Tarantino Is Accused Of Favoritism