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TIFF 2010 Preview: Eastwood, Affleck, Boyle Added to Gala and Special Presentations Program
As the Toronto International Film Festival gradually unveils its programming, we’ll be providing cheat sheets with each major announcement.
Still from John Sayles’ Amigo courtesy of TIFF.
CATEGORY: Galas and Special Presentations, i.e. where the stars come out to shine and see films that, for the most part, will be in theatres within a month.
HEAVY-HITTERS: Heavy-hitters? Is Clint Eastwood heavy enough for ya? The Hollywood icon continues to elude retirement (and death), keeping up his steady movie-a-year pace with Hereafter, which stars Matt Damon as a factory worker who can communicate with the dead. Damon’s bosom buddy’s kid brother Casey Affleck makes his directorial debut with I’m Still Here, a documentary tracking scraggly weirdo Joaquin Phoenix’s move from Oscar-nominated thespian to hopeful rap star.
Will Ferrell is set to star in Dan Rush’s Everything Must Go (not to be confused with the Manic Street Preachers single or the Steely Dan album). Ferrell flexes his underworked dramedy chops (he was pretty good in Stranger Than Fiction, but also pretty not good in Melinda and Melinda) as a motivational speaker whose life hits the skids. And Mickey Rourke is back in down-and-out mode as a burnt-out trumpet player in Mitch Glazer’s Passion Play, also starring Bill Murray as a mobster and Megan Fox as a circus freak, somehow. Also making its world premiere is John Sayles’ Amigo, a period piece set during the Philippine Insurrection.
OF NOTE: Iranian-American screenwriter Massy Tadjedin makes her directorial debut with Last Night, which is not a remake of Don McKellar’s Last Night. Instead, it’s a tense romance with an international cast featuring Kiera Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, and French actor-director Guillaume Canet (whose own film, Little White Lies is also scheduled to screen at TIFF 2010). Last Night is slotted as the closing film of this year’s festival. And Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire made a considerable splash at TIFF 2008, in case you didn’t hear about it. Boyle has teamed up again with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy and producer Christian Colson for 127 Hours, starring James Franco as a stranded mountain climber struggling to survive. It’s based on a true story, which guarantees extra audience sympathy for Slumdog’s gifted purveyors of schmaltz, while also quashing the hopes of anyone holding their breath for Danny Boyle to make another Trainspotting or Shallow Grave.
EVEN MORE: TIFF also announced that they’d shine their City-to-City spotlight on Istanbul in this year’s program. Considering the lightning rod of controversy that was last year’s focus on Tel Aviv, Istanbul seems a far less contentious choice. (Provided that nobody makes the mistake of calling it “Constantinople.”)