news
Film Friday: Knocked Out
Cinematheque Ontario’s summer season begins tonight, and we’ve got one pair of tickets to give away to their opening night screening, the celebrated silent film classic Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans, argued to be one of the greatest films ever made by countless critics. It’s tonight at Jackman Hall at 6:30 p.m., so if you can make it and you’re randomly selected from the people who email us at [email protected], we’ll notify you by 4:30 p.m. today that you’re the winner. (The contest is now closed. Thanks to all who entered.)
The other silent screenings, selected by Guy Maddin, are fantastic too—including Broken Blossoms, from Birth of a Nation’s DW Griffiths, on Saturday at 8:15 p.m. and The Unholy Three, by Freaks’ Tod Browning, on Monday at the same time. Check them out.
There are a lot of festivals on this week too, including the Voices Forward Film Festival, as covered by Torontoist’s Rhonda Riche, and the continuing European Union Film Festival and Toronto-Hispano Film Festival. Opening tonight is the cinematic portion of the aluCine Toronto [email protected] Media Festival, featuring collections of shorts, and the Toronto Italian Film Festival opens on Wednesday at 7 p.m. with 7 Kilometers From Jerusalem at the Bloor Cinema.
And so, on to this week’s big releases (it is summer, after all.)
Now is Torontoist alone in just not really liking The 40 Year-Old Virgin that much? We understand it took, like, $175 million at the box office and critics seemed to unanimously love it, but, you know, didn’t it feel just a bit…boring, at points? With its rather scatter-brained narrative flow? Did you really think it was that warm and empathetic, or was it ultimately a bit throwaway, a bit empty? We admit it was pretty funny at points, but with all that in mind nothing has sat right with us about the pre-release hype for Knocked Up, the latest film from Judd Apatow, staring 40 Year-Old Virgin co-star (and Vancouverite) Seth Rogen. The film seems to be pushing all the same buttons but this time with what happens after K-I-S-S-I-N-G if you miss out love and then marriage. Therefore we don’t trust any of the critics opinions of it (good or bad) so we’re not going to quote anyone on it. Um, make up your own mind then?
Also out this week! Severance (well received as a Midnight Madness screening at TIFF 2006) Ten Canoes and of the most awful crap apparently—or should that be awesome crap? I can’t tell. According to Eye’s Adam Nayman, Mr. Brooks stars “Kevin Costner as an upstanding family man…who harbours a long-standing addiction to serial murder; William Hurt as the sinister imaginary friend egging him on; Dane Cook as the aspiring serial killer he takes under his wing; and Demi Moore as…a multi-millionaire detective who is going through a messy divorce, hunting down Mr. Brooks and being stalked by a third serial killer.”
Rise: Blood Hunter features Lucy Liu “raped and murdered (via slit throat)…compelled by her bloodlust to smother a homeless man and suck out his blood…run over on the highway…killing and eating a drifter mid-coitus…groped by Nick Lachey while unconscious…having her throat slit (again) and being hung upside down to bleed to death (again).”
And that’s not even the full list! A pair of classics there, no mistake. Go and see them one after another, it’ll be more fun than Grindhouse.