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Film Friday: “Let Them Eat Cake” is a Misquote; It Was Actually “Let Them Go to Film Festivals.”
Now, although we’re siding with the After Dark Film Festival, there’s entirely the possibility that, you know, you’re a big scaredy-poo-pants and don’t fancy anything there.
Which makes it very lucky that there are about nine other festivals on this weekend, eh? Continuing festivals include the ImagineNative Film Festival, the Cuban Cinema Film Festival, the Estonian Documentary Film Festival and the Toronto International Latin Film Festival (The Cuban Cinema Film Festival and the Estonian Documentary Film Festival are both showing their closing night films tonight).
But there are also several new film festivals this weekend; the Diaspora Accented Film Festival has begun and runs until Sunday (including a free screening of Manderlay, 6:30pm tonight at the Goethe Institute, 163 King W, which means you won’t have to waste time asking for your money back afterwards). There’s also the DNA Film Festival, a pay what you can festival cleverly broken up into themed blocks, and the Student Shorts Film Festival.
Not to mention a few other festivals which are featuring some cinema; the 7a*11d Festival and the Arcfest; interestingly the Arcfest will be featuring a couple of documentaries on Sunday at 7pm about US war resistors in Canada, a topic that’s also being discussed during Cinematheque Ontario’s current Inextinguishable Fire: The Vietnam War season, which continues this weekend (if you missed it, check out our interview with Hearts and Minds director Peter Davis.)
Of course, The shining star of Cinematheque Ontario’s week has to be Isabella Rossellini, in town to discuss her father, Roberto Rossellini, and his work tonight, including a screening of her touching film My Dad is 100 Years Old, directed by Guy Maddin. That’s hella sold out, though, so don’t bother trying to see if you’ll be able to get in! Console yourself, perhaps, by seeing Blue Velvet at the Bloor next week, or, sticking with Cinematheque, why not the screening of La Jetée and Twelve Monkeys on Sunday? A classic Gilliam plus the classic film which inspired it is nothing to be sniffed at.
Speaking of classic Gilliam, of course, finally brings us to this week’s general releases, which includes the much derided Tideland. Discussion of that and more after the jump.
Perhaps we’re misguided, but we can’t believe Tideland is as bad as everyone says it is. The Toronto critics sure as hell haven’t given it a break; Eye’s Adam Nayman gives us hope calling it “a supremely uncompromised movie” before dashing it with “also almost unwatchable”. NOWs John Harkness opines “It might be a good movie if it were actually about something. Anything.”
The cry of “nice imagery, but empty” is something we’d be quicker to fling at Sofia Coppola here at Torontoist Towers, but Marie Antoinette does sound like something in which “nice, but empty” could be a thematic strength, particularly when attached to a deliriously good soundtrack, but it does sound like she’s just let it be empty rather than make a point of it. Eye’s Jason Anderson calls it “pretty and pretty vacant”, arguing “The idea of making an apolitical film about the French Revolution is so breathtakingly naïve, it can’t work. And it doesn’t.”
Adam Nayman gives us our favourite quote about a film for the second week in a row with his views on Little Children, “so showy and shallow it should get an Academy Award”, but it’s John Harkness who blows our mind by absolutely loving The Prestige; “an extremely intricate plot and a jaw-dropping ending”, and Jason Anderson’s review of Flags of Our Fathers only served to make us more excited for Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood’s companion film.
Finally, however, does anyone have any idea why they only seem to be showing The Nightmare before Christmas 3D in the greater GTA, not Toronto itself? Are they seriously asking us, Torontoist, to go to… The suburbs? Now that truly is horrifying…