By Mathew Kumar

Someone recently told us they were giving their friends two reviews of films they’d recently seen—their opinion and then the “Torontoist” opinion, where they were ecstatic about any success, but resolutely unforgiving to even the smallest flaw. They were making a point—they liked Burn After Reading—but in a way they’re kind of correct. After all, we were absolutely thrilled with Casino Royale, considering it one of the most pleasant surprises of the past few years, until we got to the turgid why-on-earth-did-they-put-this-in final half-hour that basically ruined it for us. Of course, I’m sure they’d claim now that they put in that awful ending so they could set up a direct sequel in the form of Quantum of Solace, but it’s more likely they had no idea where to go next with the franchise reboot so they took it in the most obvious direction. And, apparently, that’s been a terrible idea, because we’ve yet to hear more than one positive opinion from anyone (and we’ve heard a lot of opinions, because it’s been out for two weeks in the UK). Possibly more entertaining than the film is Barrett Hooper’s review in NOW, where he goes to extreme lengths to fit as many groan-worthy puns as possible.
Another return of a (ahem) beloved cinema icon this week is Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD, and in retrospect we don’t like his celebrated soliloquy as his arch-rival Steven Segal’s in Hard to Kill. Nor do we think that it even managed to be as clever as the (sorely underrated) Last Action Hero. But we still think it’s pretty worth seeing, as we said in our review during TIFF.
Not as worth seeing as Slumdog Millionaire, which we (idiotically) did not manage to schedule during TIFF, so we’re super glad to see it getting a release (and so quickly, too). Though we’ve never been in love with the format, this week’s combo interview/review of the film in Eye Weekly from Jason Anderson is a really nice look at the film and its path to release.
This week the Royal runs the Eh! U European Film Festival from Sunday (and it’s pay-what-you can), doc Died Young Stayed Pretty (though it’s been poorly received), and an exclusive engagement of François Girard’s Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. The Bloor offers the New Serbian Film Festival (including showings of Tears For Sale, which we liked at TIFF) across the weekend and the Doc Soup showing of The Order of Myths on Wednesday. Across multiple theatres the Reel Asian Film Festival continues—we’ve been informed by Todd Brown of Twitchfilm.net that the closing night film, Adrift in Tokyo, is one of his favourite films of this year, so that’s easily one of the picks of the week. Other festivals this week include the Reel Awareness Human Rights Film Festival, Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival, and the Voices Forward Film Festival.
And finally, Cinematheque Ontario continues, including free screening Free Films Made Freely: The Experimental Cinema of Paolo Gioli, a six-film short programme, on Wednesday.