Posts Tagged ‘Toronto International Film Festival’

5 Cannes films you can expect at TIFF

- May 16th, 2013

With the Cannes film festival getting underway, movie buffs can start to look forward to the Toronto International Film Festival with an eye on some high-profile films debuting in the South of France that may have their North American premiere here in September.

Over the next week, we’ll see new films from the Coen brothers, James Gray, Alexander Payne, James Franco and Nicholas Winding Refen. So while it’s not rocket science, we can start to handicap some of the movies debuting at Cannes that we expect to see in Toronto this September.

Inside Llewyn Davis

I love when the Coens go full-tilt into quirky comedy territory, but their latest, a drama about a young musician (Oscar Isaac) trying to make it in New York, boasts the year’s most intriguing cast. John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Garrett Hedlund, Adam Driver, Carey Mulligan and F. Murray Abraham join Isaac (Drive), with a soundtrack that includes music from T Bone Burnett, Timberlake, and Marcus Mumford.

The Coen brothers have brought many of their films to Toronto over the years – Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, No Country for Old Men – so I expect this one to play opening weekend.

Nebraska

Director Alexander Payne makes dramedies that really seem to click with Toronto audiences. He has had success bringing The Descendants and Sideways here, so this is another sure bet as he makes a run at awards season.

The film features Bruce Dern as an elderly booze hound who, after winning the lottery, must take a road trip with his estranged son (played by SNL’s Will Forte) to collect his prize. It’s black and white, but thus far Payne has proved he can do no wrong when writing stories that unflinchingly examine love and human relationships.

The Immigrant

James Gray re-teams with Joaquin Phoenix for his first film in five years. It’s a period drama that focuses on a love triangle between an Eastern European immigrant (played by Marion Cotillard) who gets involved with a nefarious New Yorker (Phoenix) and his magician brother (played by Jeremy Renner).

Gray has brought The Yards to TIFF, and Phoenix had been here many times, with last year’s The Master earning him his third Oscar nomination.

Its glitzy cast and rich storyline are a match made in heaven for TIFF’s first Friday night.

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As I Lay Dying

James Franco is showing he has a real knack for flipping between big-budget Hollywood fare (Oz the Great and Powerful) and edgy independent cinema (Spring Breakers). His directorial debut adapts William Faulkner’s 1930 stream-of-consciousness novel for the big screen. It employs 15 narrators in its quest to tell the story of how one family struggles to carry out Addie Bundren’s wish to be buried in her hometown.

Fitzgerald it ain’t.

All Is Lost

Robert Redford struggles to survive after he becomes lost at sea. The film, directed by J.C. Chandor (Margin Call), is rumoured to have no dialogue. This is the perfect blend of intriguing concept and Hollywood star power TIFF likes best.

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One film that’s making its debut at Cannes that I was hoping would be coming to TIFF is Nicholas Winding Refen’s Only God Forgives.

The director of Drive hooks up once again with Ryan Gosling in a revenge thriller set in Bangkok. It’s due out in North America this July.

For full coverage of the Cannes film festival, head over to the Toronto Sun.

As we get closer to TIFF, I’ll be posting news as it happens.

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Kinder, gentler Billy Bob Thornton all smiles on TIFF red carpet

- September 13th, 2012
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Billy Bob Thornton on the red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall. (Stan Behal/QMI Agency)

It’s been a couple of years, but the last time actor Billy Bob Thornton was in Toronto, he raised the ire of Canadians after a radio interview with Jian Gomeshi went horribly awry. See, Jian wasn’t supposed to ask the actor, who was here plugging his music, about, well, acting. Gomeshi mentioned the dread ‘a’ word, and Billy proceeded to sulk for 10-plus minutes (don’t believe us, watch the video below).

Well, Billy was back in town Thursday night for the North American premiere of Janye Mansfield’s Car, but this time he was all smiles. The actor signed autographs for fans and happily posed for photos.

Written and directed by Thornton (his first directorial feature in over 10 years), the film is a southern family drama that follows the Caldwell clan (featuring Thornton, Kevin Bacon, Robert Patrick, Katherine LaNasa and led by the acerbic Robert Duvall), who have to come together after they learn that the mother and wife that abandoned them many years before has died.

Her new hubby (played by John Hurt) arrives in town to help bury her and, as you can imagine, Duvall’s long-simmering anger threatens to boil over.

The group does disfunction well, Duvall says. And that’s thanks in part to Thornton’s directing style.

“We just got together and did it,” Duvall told reporters. “(Thornton) said, ‘Rehearsal’s for pussies.’ So, it was just two takes and that was it. He’s very quick. If you talk about it too much, it can become too actor-ish.”

Working with the troupe of actors Thornton assembled was “divine,” LaNassa added.

“You can’t even be bad,” she smiled. “You’re only going to be bad if you try to manipulate the scene. It’s like riding on a river of chocolate working with those guys. They’re fabulous.”

Still, she had a trick for dealing with Thornton’s improvisational style.

“Letting go and beer,” LaNassa said laughing.

By the time Thornton had snaked his way down the red carpet, he was in a delightful mood and had high praise for his co-stars.

“The chemistry was so terrific. There’s a scene towards the end of the movie that features myself, Kevin Bacon and Robert Patrick and when we were editing it, I was thinking how much we seemed like brothers and I was real proud of that.”

Thornton was also asked what it was like to be back in the city, premiering the film at TIFF.

“It’s a great town for a festival… You don’t feel like you’ve gone someplace else where you don’t know how to act,” he said laughing.

Janye Mansfield’s Car screens again Sept. 14, 11:30 a.m., Ryerson Theatre; Sept. 15, 12:00 p.m., Scotiabank 1

 

 

 

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Joshua Jackson happy on his home turf

- September 11th, 2012
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Joshua Jackson and Diane Kruger arrive at the red carpet premiere of Inescapable at the Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall, Sept. 11, 2012. (Jack Boland/QMI Agency)

Vancouver-born actor Joshua Jackson was feeling the love from Toronto fans Tuesday night as he and longtime girlfriend Diane Kruger walked the red carpet for his political thriller, Inescapable.

And he was certainly happy to be here.

“It’s rewarding to be a Canadian actor at this festival, which is a global festival, where a film that I am a part of is being presented as equal to the best in world cinema,” the 34-year-old star of TV’s Fringe said outside Roy Thomson Hall.

Jackson plays a questionable Canadian consular official stationed in the Middle East who, along with Marisa Tomei, helps a Syrian-Canadian businessman (24′s Alexander Siddig) try to locate his daughter after she vanishes in Damascus.

“I loved the fact that (Montreal-born director) Ruba Nadda was going to do a formula movie,” Siddig said. “She’s an auteur, you’d expect her to be doing art movies only, but she decided to do a genre film and her take is really interesting. It’s like a great cover of an old favourite song. I really loved the idea that she was going down a path that had been trodden before to see what she would come up with.”

“My hope,” Jackson said, “is that just like a lot of good science fiction, this hides something from you with a simple… story. What you see when you’re going in is a digestible thriller with a heroic, sympathetic leading man and a pretty linear story. Then, what you get sucked into is a political drama set against a Syrian backdrop.”

Inescapable opens in Toronto theatres this Friday.

 

 

 

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Sister’s polio battle inspired Bill Murray

- September 11th, 2012

So, as far as red carpets go, Bill Murray fans can’t compete with the raucousness of Kristen Stewart, Selana Gomez, Johnny Depp and Will Smith diehards.

The atmosphere at Roy Thomson hall was tepid when the 61-year-old funnyman showed up to promote Hyde Park On Hudson last night. Other than a few fanboys who kept chanting, ‘It just doesn’t matter’ (Murray’s signature line from Meatballs), it was easily the tamest red carpet at TIFF so far.

It might have had something to do with the, er, other red carpet, To The Wonder, with Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko, making noise at the nearby Princess of Wales Theatre, but Murray’s co-stars heaped praise on both the actor and director, Roger Michell.

“(Michell) has great command of narration and he’s fantastic,” actress Laura Linney told reporters. “And Bill,” she continued, smiling, “is Bill Murray. It was so much fun to watch him tackle his character and rise to the challenge of playing this figure.”

“Bill was wonderful,” actress Olivia Williams said, radiating in red.

Hyde Park On Hudson  probes the relationship between the polio-suffering Franklin Roosevelt (Murray) and his mistress (and distant cousin) Margaret Suckley (Linney) during a visit to his country estate by the King and Queen of England right before the start of WWII.

For his part, Murray told reporters he drew on a real-life inspiration to play the part of FDR.

“I have a sister who has polio,” Murray said. “She’s battled it her whole life. So her stoicism is really something I carried with me into playing FDR. After wearing the brace for two days, I called her and said, ‘I had no idea.’ I thought I had some idea, but the pain and constant discomfort told me so much more about my sister. Because of the way she was, she didn’t talk about it that much. And that informed me a bit into what FDR must have gone through. There’s an expression, ‘Can you walk in another man’s Moccasins?’ Well, walking in another man’s braces is a whole other challenge.”

Hyde Park On Hudson screens again Tuesday, September 11, 12:30 p.m., Winter Garden Theatre. The film hits theatres this December.

 

 

 

 

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Will Smith joins Jada on TIFF red carpet

- September 9th, 2012
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Will Smith greets his fans at the premiere of ‘Free Angela & All Political Prisoners’ at Roy Thompson Hall, Sunday September 9, 2012. Craig Robertson/QMI Agency

As Will Smith walked the red carpet on Sunday afternoon to help promote the documentary, Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, the first person he wanted to thank was his wife, Jada.

“First of all, I want to give a shout out to my wife for demanding that I watch this documentary, and then the hard work she did to make sure this red carpet and (screening) happened,” Smith said fist-bumping the 39-year-old actress.

The Men In Black star made his first-ever appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival to help present director Shola Lynch’s documentary on American political activist Angela Davis.

Davis, who was also on hand for the screening, was a fearless advocate for civil rights in the 1970s, outspoken critic of the U.S. government, and icon for people advocating for political prisoners across the world.

“I think that one of the things that comes out of this story is we have to be active, whatever your cause is,” Lynch said outside Roy Thomson Hall. “Rights just aren’t handed to you, you have to struggle for them and that should be part of your everyday life,” she continued, praising Will and Jada and actor Danny Glover for helping bring attention to the film.

Smith said he was here to help filmgoers understand the “fire” behind Davis’ revolutionary tactics.

“She’s akin to Nelson Mandela, akin to Muhammad Ali,” 43-year-old Smith said. “One of those images and figures who was literally willing to die for what she believed, now that’s hardcore.”

“The idea of someone who’s willing to risk it all for their beliefs, that’s something that we’ve forgotten and she represents that fully,” Pinkett-Smith added.

“When I saw her story, I had no idea. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Angela Davis; I knew nothing. So I felt that it was important people get an opportunity to watch a story about a person who was willing to stand up for what they believe in.”

 Free Angela & All Political Prisoners screens again Monday September 10 The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 3:00 PM; Saturday September 15 The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema 12:00 PM.

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