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With temperatures in Toronto this weekend set to hover in the low-teens, the setting is ideal for film fans to take in any one of three excellent and award-winning documentaries screening for free at local repertory houses.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about director/producer Sally Rowe’s captivating documentary A Matter of Taste – which offers a startlingly candid look at the rise and fall and rise again of star chef Paul Liebrandt – is that Rowe had either the foresight or plain dumb luck to have started filming the mercurial chef years before his career skyrocketed.
Is there ever a bad time to watch Monty Python movies? If you pithily answered “He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy!” then we have just the ticket for your late nights this fall.
Beginning October 8 and running over consecutive Saturdays through December 10 is Python in Excelsis, the latest Late Night Series screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Environmental activism can be sexy. Also funny, heartbreaking, breathtaking, illuminating and really, really entertaining.
That’s the distinct impression left by a press conference held today announcing the complete lineup of films for the 12th annual Planet in Focus Environmental Film Festival, happening in Toronto October 12 to 16. And boy, does it look good.
Its provenance is somewhat murky but a clip of a very young Dan Aykroyd circa 1975 ad-libbing for an off-screen audience that was apparently part of an early Saturday Night Live demo reel has popped up on YouTube. Check it out below.
The words ‘sperm donation comedy’ rarely crop in the everyday course of things, so we are delighted to be able to present them here.
In the vein of guerilla filmmaker Judd Apatow comes Starbuck, director Ken Scott’s unhinged French-language comedy about a middle-aged slacker (Patrick Huard) who discovers that the sperm he once donated has fathered 533 children, many of whom are now seeking to meet their Daddy. Needless to say, slapstick hilarity ensues.
Playing dead isn’t just for Rover anymore. Resident Evil fans are being offered the chance to win a walk-on role in the fifth installment of the movie franchise, Resident Evil: Retribution set to begin filming in Canada later this year.
To date, only 12 men have walked on the moon. On my final day at the Toronto Film Festival, I joined a slightly less elite but equally distinguished group: I became one of maybe 20 people who will ever sit through Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz's 360-minute-long Century of Birthing in its entirety. No intermission, no bathroom break. David Blaine managed to live underwater for a week without eating, but I doubt that even he could withstand more than three or four hours of Diaz's spectacularly uncompromising epic.
With the 36th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival now fish-wrap, it’s time to cast one last look over the shoulder at some trends which emerged during the 11-day event. Granted, I didn’t see every film that screened (even if it felt that way) but these patterns were just too obvious to miss.
And so ends another TIFF: not with a bang, but a whimper. (The big pops were all heard last weekend—now only echoes remain).
Here’s what got me up and down this year:
Highlights:
Asking Madonna a question during the W.E. press conference. For 20 seconds, Madonna’s attention was focused on me—a monumental reversal in our usual relationship.
Interviewing Morgan Spurlock. Although seeing actors onscreen gives a sense of familiarity, you never really know who you’re going to get when you meet. But Morgan Spurlock is exactly as he appears in his documentaries: warm, affable and enthusiastic. Talking to him was a true pleasure, as you’ll see when my interview comes out next week.
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August 2011
