Tuesday, September 29, 2009

cinefest round-up

Man oh man, what a past week!! Saw a pile of movies, ate out at a pile of restaurants, chatted with a pile of people, threw a giant party, saw dawn and a hangover that will go down in the history books -- here's the full report. Well, the movies anyway:


Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky: This movie was great and perhaps my favourite of the whole week. Like 2 hours of eye candy for us Chanel fans out there. Honestly this movie must have been such fun for the art director and costumer -- please tell me you got to poke around in the Chanel archives for this!! Starring the stunningly beautiful Anna Mouglalis, this movie is perfection, covering the steamy affair between Coco Chanel and composer Igor Stravinsky. Hell you even forget she was almost charged with war crimes....

I know there's another one coming out shortly starring Audrey Tautou but for me, this one is the Coco Chanel movie to beat....





Son of the Sunshine: This movie was actually co-written by local writer Matthew Heiti and tells the story of a young man with Tourette's Syndrome and a strange ability to heal. Shot on a small budget begged and borrowed, you would never know it. This film was gorgeous to watch - like a warm 1980's polaroid. It was sad and strangely uplifting all at the same time. If you're like me and used to seeing really low budget projects look a certain way (usually like someone shot them with a Handi-Cam), see this movie. It will renew your faith in ultra small budget films.








It Might Get Loud: A documentary about the guitar starring rock legend Jimmy Page, gadget-king The Edge, and the all-things-archaic loving Jack White. This doc could EASILY have been 3 dudes sitting around talking about how great they are, stopping the bravado long enough to get all meedley meedley on the guitar. And while that all still happened, it never got out of hand. It made me want to go home and listen to all of our Link Wray and The Jam. One of the best music docs I've seen in a long while....










Survival of the Dead: Interrupting all our film festival snobbiness was a good old-fashioned zombie movie by George A. Romero. Was it anyway near as good as 1970's Romero zombie movies? Not at all. Was it fun and cheesy and gorey? Absolutely. It was a nice break in the week and made me laugh right out loud.











A Touch of Grey: I went to this movie after receiving a really lovely handwritten card from the writer/director inviting me personally and by name. Honestly, nobody does that anymore - how could I not go??? 4 lifelong friends getting together for one night of drinking, sharing, crying, fighting and even some duct tape tie-ups. I usually am not a huge fan of movies that take place only in one location - I like my movies to flow in and out of different settings - so that was a bit of a stumbling block for me but overall a sweet story that women of all ages can relate to. It'll make you send your mom some flowers...








The Woman of Ahhs: Loosely based on The Wizard of Oz, this film tells the story of a man searching for a woman he's never met, a woman he's only ever seen on the internet. Definitely an arty dark comedy, this movie had dance pieces, a documentary feel and a great wee little dog. This production company recently relocated to Northern Ontario and while I can't say this movie was my favourite of the week, I sure do like the producing team a whole lot.




Daybreakers: I know, I know, a big Hollywood vampire flick?? You're disappointed in me, I can tell. But it's Ethan Hawke and I will always have a giant crush on Troy Dyer and I am drawn to every movie he makes. That aside though, it certainly was not your average vampire flick. The gore was stupendous and there was nary a gentle Twilight-y love bite to be seen. It was all throat-tearing, blood-spewing vampire greatness. There were ladies all around me jumping clean out of their seats throughout this whole movie. Yeeeeeahhhhhh........








Tetro: The new film from Frances Ford Coppola, funded through the profits of his winery, this film is a visual masterpiece. Filmed in black and white (artsy fartsy I know), this film could have taken place in any country, in any decade. Admittedly, this film was much much too long, despite how much I loved it. The talk around the town is that Alden Ehrenreich is the next Leo DeCaprio and seriously, google this kid's face and tell me it's not true. Mainly, I am happy to see Vincent Gallo doing something good cuz man, when he's good he is SO good. But then he does something like Brown Bunny and it all goes to shit. This was like Buffalo 66 kind of Vincent Gallo...






And that's about it. Buckets of congrats to our friend Ben Bruhmuller who won first place in the shorts competition for his film Vs, taking home $2500!!. I'm so so proud of him ! His film really is something special. And of course I gotta say congrats to Marc too (he did the music for Ben's film)!! The two are already working on Ben's next project.

At work we hosted our annual party for Cinefest on Saturday so I didn't get to see anything else over the weekend. First reason being I was setting up the party and second reason being that the party took a turn for the crazy and got home at 6am meaning I did nothing at all on Sunday except want to die. But I guess that's the sign of a good party?

See you for Cinefest 2010!!!!!!!!

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