TIFF11 Schedule

TIFF is nearly upon us again with another eclectic potluck of buzzy movies, gambles, cult screenings, and the best of world cinema. And this year's line-up, despite less heavy hitters, looks more promising than last year's. As usual, I eliminated pretty much anything with a release date before the end of 2011, regardless of how much interest I had.

Anyone interested in meeting up for any screenings, let me know (especially for 360, Himizu, or Rebellion as no one else I know is going to those yet). Here's the lowdown on my near-finalized schedule, leaner than last year's by six films:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 09
02:15PM: Alois Nebel // Tomas Lunak
                This B&W Czech animation uses the same rotoscoping technique used in A
                Scanner Darkly. Looks like a visual stunner.
09:00PM: The Hunter // Daniel Nettheim
                Willem Dafoe traveling through the jungle in search of a legendary tiger (with
                Sam Neill in the mix). Sounds positively mythical.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
12:30PM: 360 // Fernando Meirelles
                Interconnected stories are getting tired and Meirelles's last film, Blindness, was
                a bust. Still, he has two major achievements in Constant Gardener and City of
                God and a high-profile cast to help him along the way.
05:45PM: Death of a Superhero / Ian FitzGibbon
                Coming-of-age stories always hit the spot for me. And the stills look promising
                enough for this to be worth the gamble.
11:59PM: You're Next / Adam Wingard
                A home invasion film with the Midnight Madness crowd is going to be a blast
                no matter what. It helps that Wingard's $2000 Pop Skull was batshit crazy in
                a good way.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
03:15PM: Samsara / Ron Fricke
                The long-awaited follow-up to Baraka, 90 minutes of the most transcendent
                footage from across the globe ever be put to film.
09:15PM: Miss Bala / Gerardo Naranjo
                The buzz for this has just grown and grown since its Cannes premiere. I hear
                it's an intense thriller.
11:59PM: Livid / Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo
                From the guys who brought us the fucked up French home invasion horror
                Inside. This is supposedly more like a really dark Grimm fairy tale.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12
04:45PM: Dark Horse / Todd Solondz
                An overgrown manchild looking for love sounds like just the right kind of
                trappings for an awesome dark comedy.
08:00PM: The Loneliest Planet / Julia Loktev
                A haunting travelogue film starring Gael Garcia Bernal. Early reviews have
                been good and Bernal has a pretty good track record.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
03:15PM: Shame / Steve McQueen
                If you've seen McQueen's Hunger, also featuring Michael Fassbender in his
                breakout role pre-X-Men, you don't have to ask why this is a must.
10:00PM: The Moth Diaries / Mary Harron
                Vampires, all-girls' boarding school. Could be the makings of a cheesy CW
                show. Or it could be Harron's return to American Psycho craziness. Hopefully
                the latter prevails.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14
11:45PM: Café de Flore / Jean-Marc Vallée
                C.R.A.Z.Y. is one of the few Canadian films that have blown me away in
                recent years (with Incendies the only one after it). Like Cameron Crowe,
                Vallée has a talent for pairing the perfect music to images and this looks no
                different, supposedly with Sigur Ros, Pink Floyd, and Zeppelin in the mix.
03:00PM: ALPS / Yorgos Lanthimos
                The latest from the director of the bizarro Dogtooth. The premise is sheer
                genius - following a company who will hire out stand-ins for your deceased
                loved ones.
09:15PM: Carré Blanc / Jean-Baptiste Léonetti
                Dystopian sci-fi always has the potential to go to one extreme or the other.
                The footage looks breathtaking so I'm taking the gamble on this one.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15
11:00AM: Jeff, Who Lives at Home / Jay & Mark Duplass
                Jason Segel in an existential comedy. My fest badly needed an injection of
                lightness and this looks to be the ticket.
08:45PM: Himizu / Sion Sono
                Anyone who has seen Sion Sono's insane four hour epic Love Exposure
                featuring pervert gangs, cults, and kung fu or his more restrained dark
                horror/drama work in Suicide Club and Cold Fish can't possibly pass this
                up.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16
02:45PM: Rebellion / Mathieu Kassovitz
                Programmer Piers Handling calls it the French Apocalypse Now. But he's
                been wrong - terribly wrong before (Re: Passion Play). Hoping this is more
                La Haine, less Gothika or Babylon A.D..
06:30PM: The Awakening / Nick Murphy
                When the program references The Others in its description of the film, I have
                to give it a try.
09:00PM: Wuthering Heights / Andrea Arnold
                Respected auteur. Classic source material. Supposedly radical treatment.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
03:00PM: Headshot / Pen-ek Ratanaruang
                A director I've wanted to get into for a long time and a premise that sounds like
                my kind of weird (man wakes up after being shot to see the world upside-down).
06:15PM: The Deep Blue Sea / Terence Davies
                No, not the remake of the '90s shark movie. Though I would see it if it was
                made. Most conventional movie of the fest for me - a traditional period piece
                starring Rachel Weisz and Loki from Thor.
09:00PM: Killer Joe / William Friedkin
                Could this be a return to form for the director of The Exorcist and The French
                Connection? With Emile Hirsch, Matthew McConaughey, and Juno Temple.
11:59PM: Kill List / Ben Wheatley
                Another buzz-maker on the festival circuit playing the last night of Midnight
                Madness. This should end the fest on a high note.

Possible last minute fest picks are: Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, The Incident, Trishna, Twixt, Snowtown, Porfirio, Monsters Club, Keyhole, Michael, Crazy Horse, and Sleepless Night.
I may also be doing the movies Drive, Warrior, and Contagion during but not at the fest.

On Film: Perfection is Overrated

The other day, a rant was posted on a film forum with the argument that The Social Network is better than Inception in all aspects (screenplay, technical details, etc) and therefore, it is inconceivable that Inception could rank higher than The Social Network on anyone's 'Best Of' list.

Here's the thing. Perfection is overrated.

As a film fan, sure there are accountable things we can evaluate that help bring about a more accurate idea of a film's merits. But I don't think a film's power can be summed up through a simple critical breakdown. Just because one film is technically superior to another - doesn't necessarily have a direct correlation with its effect and impact on me, the viewer. Judging art cannot hinge solely on whether it achieves a state of critical "perfection". Art exists for the viewer to respond to it, as a result, its value comes from my interaction with it, what I bring to the table.

A film could be as arbitrarily perfect as possible - but that doesn't mean my own reaction to it will be anything but ambivalent. It helps, to be sure, to be formally brilliant, but it takes my experiences, my feelings, my thoughts, my personality, my baggage to really bring a film to life, to get me to respond to it.

If we all could truly put one film up and call it the best of the year without debate (i.e. if artistic perfection could be measured by the sum of its technical aspects hitting their marks) and everyone agreed on it, then the value of art, the value of the medium itself would be diminished.

The fact is, it is perfectly valid to recognize those imperfect films that impact you more as being "better" on your personal scale, despite the lack of logic to see them as such. Cult films, for example, are valid experiences that are sometimes even celebrated for their flaws and I don't think people should feel any shame at recognizing those films as having a larger impact on themselves. Sometimes, the very things one might critique in looking for perfection, are precisely the things that create that unique aesthetic, that piece of work that is unlike anything else out there. A filmmaker like Michel Gondry, for example, is messy and sprawling - and that rambling, low-tech, kitschy quality is precisely what defines him as one of the unique talents out there. Stripping that individualistic streak for a more mainstream veneer may result in a more balanced film but loses out on the qualities that make him so interesting in the first place.

I think we can still generally say a film is a bad one or good one - but we have to recognize that some flawed films can also be just as good or better in their own way - they can still hit home and work their magic. We can embrace and love those flaws for what they're worth.

In fact, that's taste. The best critics in the past generally have had very unique/recognizable sensibilities. There shouldn't be this pandering to the idea of a universal "Best Of" that can be defined simply through technical means. Your taste in film should reflect you as a person - not some kind of consensus viewpoint. The best critics know how important it is to allow their reaction (yes, their bias, if you will) to the material filter through. Without their own reaction, it becomes a systemic breakdown of elements - and explaining a film away through this robotic procedure, eliminating the human response, is surely missing the point of art.

I've seen people get more and more obsessed with the idea of technical perfection as a requirement in film. More and more, I've moved in the opposite direction. I'm not opposed to technical perfection by any means, but I'd prefer a flawed film with ideas or feelings that connect with me than a technically perfect film that I can't begin to penetrate.

To me, it's a combination - the combination of understanding the achievements of a film on its more objective levels while taking into account its subjective ties to the critic, the gut response that cannot simply be directly corroborated by this element or that.

It's the same reason why I no longer rate films using a scale. I don't believe it's a proper judgment of a film - it's heavily reliant on rewarding formally perfect films and penalizes bolder (and possibly more flawed) work, and I've begun to feel that that's the wrong approach to viewing and critiquing.

TIFF10 Final Thoughts

In the interest of moving on with this blog, I've decided to post very quick, short reactions to the final seven films I saw at TIFF.

I saw 22nd of May and Confessions in a row which was, in a way, fitting. Both films utilize heavy amounts of style to compensate for a lack of substance. 22nd of May starts out promisingly, revolving around an incident with a bomb going off at a shopping mall, but it quickly falls back on all sorts of fragmented and pretentious techniques to cover up the lack of anything happening in the film. Confessions is a step up, being very watchable with every frame gorgeously stylized but also having a more substantial storyline that explores teenage violence. The problem is that the director uses montages so often that Confessions never settles down. As a result, I never felt like the characters were three-dimensional and I never cared enough for the film to have an impact. You'll get a snatch of dialogue here, the music will come in, it'll fade to another scene, another character will say a line or two, and on and on and on. To be sure, the montages are all gorgeously done but I was looking for a movie, not a two-hour music video.

Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D was one of the films we were looking forward to most. Herzog + caves + 3D should output something pretty crazy right? Unfortunately, this is not the case as Caves is a rather muted affair. Once you've seen the cave paintings in the film, there's simply not much else to drive the film forward. I enjoyed it to a lesser degree but it's closer to one of those History Channel specials than you might imagine. It's the film that has faded the most for me out of all the films I saw at TIFF.

Cold Fish is the first film of Sion Sono's that I'd seen (since the festival, I have seen two of his other works). It is about a subdued man who runs a tropical fish store and finds himself, his wife, and his daughter caught up in a mass murderer's crime schemes. The film keeps a slow-burn simmer, in line with its extremely passive main character, for much of its lengthy running time - one that gets more and more frustrating as the minutes run by. The last act though is a new level of perverse catharsis goes a ways to redeeming the film. After having seen Suicide Club and Love Exposure however, I have to say this is by far the least of Sion Sono's works, lacking the loose-limbed wackiness of those two films.

Our Day Will Come is the feature debut of Romain Gavras, son of Costa-Gavras, starring Vincent Cassel and Olivier Barthelemy as two redheads who decide to form their own gang. It has an explosive premise but strangely, it's a more muted film than one would expect. It plays well for its entirety but I do wish it pushed the envelope more than it does.

Submarine is one-half of an engrossing film and while the second half doesn't live up to the promise of the first, it's still good enough for this to be the best of the last seven films I saw at TIFF. It's a coming-of-age story with shades of a toned down Wes Anderson meeting the tone of the more romantic Godardian works. Frankly, it's the hipster movie of TIFF10 but the dry British humor and attitude of its protagonist Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), won me over.

The last film I saw at TIFF, and one that I saw on a last minute whim, Beginners is a well-crafted adult drama focusing on the son (Ewan McGregor) of a man in his seventies (Christopher Plummer) who comes out but I can't help but wish there was more spontaneity and spark to the whole thing. It was a surprisingly muted finale to the fest.

TIFF10 // Casino Jack, Three, Kaboom

Still trying to get the remainder of my TIFF10 reviews up. The rest (7 films) will be posted hopefully in the next week.

Kevin Spacey is back. Those who have been waiting for the acerbic, energetic performer from Swimming with Sharks and American Beauty to reappear will welcome Casino Jack with open arms. Director George Hickenlooper grabs your attention right from the start with an in-your-face but charismatic monologue by Jack in his bathroom mirror. Based on the unbelievably true story of Jack Abramoff, a superlobbyist during the Bush regime, the film tells a tale of greed that wouldn't be out of place as a companion piece to Wall Street. Casino Jack however is unhinged where that film was restrained. It goes for louder, funnier, lighter; a film whose easy Hollywood tone belies a story that is actually incredulous and shocking. This glossy exterior is occasionally overbearing but the true story at the heart of it all is already so ludicrous, it plays perfectly as a comedy of errors (albeit one with real world repercussions). While Norman Snider's dialogue doesn't quite crackle with the skewering energy of a powerhouse pen like Mamet, it is nonetheless snappy and intelligently written, material that Spacey, Barry Pepper and Jon Lovitz can sharpen their teeth on. Spacey, of course, is the centerpiece of this web, the fabricator from which lies are spun, careers are made and unmade. He's a man whose delusions of grandeur start to get out of hand even as his handle on the conspirators in his schemes starts to unravel and Spacey plays him just right, a brash player of people who is as arrogant as he is charismatic.

//

After four impeccably crafted and thoughtfully paced films, two of which land in my personal list of favourite films (The Princess & the Warrior and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), Tom Tykwer returns to the experimentation and inventive playfulness of his international breakthrough, Run Lola Run with his new sex comedy Three. About a couple who individually fall for the same man, Tykwer employs all sorts of razzle dazzle to keep the viewer invested, from split-screen layering all the way to angelic appearances. Structure of the film is simple but elegant with the film truly embodying every aspect of the titular number. While the viewer can always see where the characters are headed, the fitting final moments don't seem as important as the questions and ideas raised along the way as the film uses a loose framework to explore all sorts of notions of belonging, living in the moments, and how societal boundaries affect us as human beings. Essentially, the film is a light dissection of humankind and human relationships from an anthropological perspective. Despite being all kinds of predictable, the film is never less than entertaining and along with his usual pathos, Tykwer mixes in a great deal of humor derived from the characters and their situations.

//

Kaboom is an appropriate title for a film that builds and builds in a mishmash of bizarre elements from obsessively jealous witches to masked cultists to doomsday foreshadowing to dimly aware surfers to Explosions in the Sky and dreams of dumpsters, increasingly ludicrous until it gets to its explosive third act, where everything that was already ludicrous is amped up another level and every connection is made, no matter how far-fetched. Of course, above all, this film is a sex comedy. An apocalyptic sex comedy. None of this is a criticism of Gregg Araki's work - this is all confidently made and instead of being a disaster, the film feels lean and coherent - it's a controlled mess, a piece where every bit of chaos has been precomposed and thought out to perfection all the way up to the pitch-perfect final note (in contrast to his previous film, the Anna Faris pot comedy Smiley Face which is half of a great film). After a stilted, miscast turn in this year's dull tracing exercise blunder, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Thomas Dekker finds himself more at ease in the strange wackiness of Araki's universe, where every character is a horny teenager, or else has the hormones of one. To say too much more would spoil the fun of Kaboom; half of which comes from the build-up of all its disparate elements, watching Araki stir the brew, letting one taste combine with another and then just going nuts. This is Araki at his most free and irreverent and while I hope one day he does another 'mature' film like the illuminating tour-de-force that was Mysterious Skin, I certainly won't complain if he makes another sex comedy as entertaining as this one.

TIFF10 // What's Wrong With Virginia, I Saw the Devil, Uncle Boonmee

Dustin Lance Black's What's Wrong with Virginia tries for a style somewhere between the two Todds, Haynes and Solondz, that never quite meshes together perfectly. For the first hour of the film, his juggling act is steady and the film mixes comedy with the darker drama underneath successfully but as the film veers towards a bizarre finish, it can't fully reconcile its personalities. Beginning with the appearance of a gun, the film tries to take on more and more satirical elements but loses the audience somewhat along the way. Still, there is a lot of good to take away from the film, the most notable being Jennifer Connelly's Virginia, a character whose amusing quirks simultaneously frustrate and endear her to the audience. Black draws on his own familial experience with schizophrenia to write an elusive character living part of the way between our reality and her own and Connelly dives into the role with relish, always sympathetic even at her worst. The other highlight in the film is Virginia's relationship with her son. Even when the film loses its own grasp on reality, this connection always feels authentic and eases the audience through much of the schizophrenic second half.

//

I can't recall a film more consistently brutal than Kim Jee-Woon's I Saw the Devil off the top of my head. Ten years ago, Battle Royale shocked audiences with its over-the-top violence and now, a decade later, that film feels like the minor leagues. The new horror shockers have taken a different approach - underlining their films with a kind of sadistic brutality that is even more disturbing for its casual realism and I Saw the Devil outgrimes them all. Essentially a straightforward revenge thriller expertly directed, the film doesn't attempt to deal in surprises or major twists - the serial killer is known to the viewer and the main character, a cop whose wife is murdered in the film's opening scene, within the first act. Where the film excels is in its cat-and-mouse tug-of-war between Choi Min-Sik's serial killer, a pathological, terrifying monster, seemingly incapable of pain or suffering or guilt, and Lee Byung-Hun's possible monster-in-the-making. In fact, apart from the victims and cops, several minor characters in this film are revealed to be monsters themselves in this perversely sadistic world. The film's twisted revenge hinges on a key withholding act by the main character that does not fully convince but if you let this point go, the rest of the film is a high-quality piece of cinema with a visceral energy borne of sheer rage that attempts to explore what makes a monster.

//

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives opens with a surreal silhouetted nature shot, backlit by the twilight, leading to a gorgeous, dreamy scene with an unhurried camera letting us soak in the quiet sounds of the jungle. The mysticism is elevated to a new level as the camera lets us catch a glimpse of a monkey ghost, its glowing red eyes staring out from the darkness, setting the mood for the rest of the film. It divides itself into six reels that shift in tone and style, and each reel has its own outstanding qualities from the first where two lost members of Uncle Boonmee's family appear at his dinner table, to the last, most ordinary reel that ends with a most unordinary timeshift/doppelganger puzzle. It doesn't feel like separate pieces despite an interlude into a fable (which may not be so much a fable in Uncle Boonmee's world as it is an accepted piece of history) but is tied together by its matter-of-fact acceptance of the supernatural. The film's meanings will have to be teased out on repeat watches but on its most superficial level, there's a pace of life revealed here in Apitchatpong Weeraskethul's cinema that feels near alien to the North American city life. It is one that calmly accepts the natural beauty of the world, that lives and feels the jungle and the world around in all its majesty.

TIFF10 // Essential Killing, Blue Valentine, Promises Written in Water

Vincent Gallo takes centre stage as an escaped Taliban fighter in this survival tale by Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski. With little dialogue, none of which is spoken by the main character, Essential Killing is a tense thriller set against a natural landscape for the first two-thirds of the film as we follow the nameless fighter as he shoots, runs, and hides from the American/Russian forces in the snowy woods. Committing 100% to a physically difficult role, Gallo's charismatic turn pulls us through much of this straightforward premise but after a bizarre climax of a moment on a quiet road, the film rapidly loses the viewer's interest in a final act involving a conveniently mute woman (in keeping with the film's aesthetics). There are also other moments of convenience that are a little hard to buy, notably a moment involving a dog at the right place and time. One can make the argument that it is hard to care about a character we know next to nothing about but there is something about allowing us a silent glimpse at this character in the most primal form of humanity that lets us understand him, at least a little.

//

Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine examines the making and breakdown of a marriage, leaping back and forth in time to create a dimensional picture of these two pivotal points in a couple's life. The movie opens with said couple already at an inert point - Cindy (Michelle Williams) is distant and no longer amused by her husband Dean (Ryan Gosling), who spends his days drinking and painting houses for cash. The thread that is ties them together here is their daughter, but as the film progress, even that may not be enough. Simultaneously, we track the lead-up to their marriage, a set of events that shows that despite what they may have thought was love or even might have been love, they may not have been as compatible as they thought. Blue Valentine never tries to make an outright statement, preferring to document and observe this couple, allowing us to see the way Cindy and Dean are destructive to each other, the way the resentment and bitterness rises to the surface despite the good intentions of both and the ties that have bound them for so long. What is great about Blue Valentine is that it lets the viewer infer reasons on why the marriage breaks down from his or her own experience, ringing true to anyone who has been witness to a turbulent marriage. The film's red and blue color scheme amongst its naturalistic cinematography (wisely shot in tne more intimate 1.66:1 aspect ratio) is a gorgeous reminder of the intertwining elements of destructive love. It is probably also of little surprise to those who have followed their work that Gosling and Williams are phenomenal in the film, always convincing and burrowing deep into their characters. It's a testament to their abilities that you are always invested in their relationship, right down to its bittersweet end.

//

Having witnessed Vincent Gallo's charismatic turn in Essential Killing earlier in the day, I sat down to watch Gallo's latest effort - as actor, writer, editor, composer, producer, and director of Promises Written in Water. If you follow Gallo's work at all, you will have heard that there were 200 walkouts at its premiere in Venice; while the film is not an easy piece of cinema, and often quite slow, that statement speaks more to me about the quality of the audience in Venice than the film itself. Gallo's work has always had a retro quality to it and with each film he makes, he seems to retreat further into the past, and further into abstraction. With Promises Written in Water, he has made a rumination on death that expands to accommodate various other ruminations on life. I will confess there is a lot I don't understand about the film as a whole and I found the last half increasingly difficult to grasp but it is the work of an artist and individual scenes often hit either on visual levels (a hypnotic dance sequence) or in a more direct manner (conversation scenes that feel like they've cut right to the subtext). There is an elliptical element in the film, not only with the way it seems to progress backwards in time but also with constant repetition, notably in a hilarious sequence where Gallo repeats himself over and over again. It seems to me to be a statement on the way we sabotage ourselves from moving forward but then again, I think you can interpret it any way you like - that's part of the beauty of art and Gallo understands that. It is his weakest effort yet and one I don't think is altogether successful, but it deserves more of a chance than the Venice audiences gave it.

TIFF10 // 13 Assassins, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, Insidious

Takashi Miike's newest film 13 Assassins is of two parts; the first, the calm before the storm with measured bits of horror and insanity peeking though; the second, as one of the characters phrases it - "TOTAL MASSACRE". In some ways built like a heist film, the first part deals with the recruitment of the 13 assassins as well as showcasing the horror of the villain's deeds, investing the audience with a reason to root for the title assassins in the second half. The film opens with a samurai committing hara-kiri in a gruesomely extended take focusing on the samurai's face. This perfectly sets the tone for this harsh world, ruled by codes of honor and face, in which one man, a Lord Nagasawa, dares to break every code of honor without punishment due to his standing with the Shogun, leaving the samurai, bound by their honor, in a difficult position. The horrors of this first section are classic Miike but the film as a whole is surprisingly restrained in its gruesome effects in comparison to his other work. Instead, the film lets us get to know the characters before sending them on an all out, 45-minute bloodbath of a war; 13 assassins against 230 men in the most epic action sequence in a year. For such an extended bit of action, one never loses interest as Miike jumps from one assassin to the next, varying things up but also showing just how brave these men are. Miike lets completely loose and the result is glorious - a masterful sequence of traps, bombs, sword-fighting, bows and arrows, rock-throwing, and everything else you can think of, always underlined with the samurai idea of honor.

//

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale feels like the first draft of a funny and dark concept - a team of excavators dig up an ancient evil in the north that escapes and causes havoc on a small town, an evil known across the world as Santa Claus. The problem in this film lies in its unwillingness to push the concept as far as it can go. There is a bit of a Spielberg vibe here but with a few hints of more twisted humor in the mix (a blood red countdown, dozens of slaughtered reindeer, Santa biting a man's ear, the father of the lead character being a butcher), Rare Exports makes a promise that it doesn't deliver. The villains are strangely passive and do almost nothing frightening so the viewer never really cares whether the characters succeed in stemming them off. The story is developed at a slow simmer that never changes. Frankly, this is a film tamer than anything from the '80s Amblin period, a significant problem for a film that is making its reputation on its supposedly twisted story.

//

Saw-haters can rest easy - James Wan and Leigh Whannell's Insidious is nothing like that series of films and is surprisingly good. Playing to a receptive Midnight Madness audience and only finished one or two days prior, Insidious is a prime example of the nice surprises the Midnight Madness program occasionally has up its sleeve. The film revolves around a couple (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) whose son falls into a mysterious coma and who find their house haunted by some malevolent spirits. Frankly, the film does have a lot of rough edges. No one's going to accuse the film of looking good, the dialogue is clunky on several occasions, the character motivations don't always feel realistic and even a solid actor like Patrick Wilson doesn't come off fully believable under Wan's handling. But shot in 22 days, it has the low-tech vibe of recent thrillers like Paranormal Activity coupled with a strong commitment to the kind of scares that don't cheat (i.e. just using sudden music to generate a jump). There's an unpredictability in the way each scene and shot plays - the film keeps you tense and on your toes, sometimes following through on a scare and sometimes just letting the tension build to no climax. Don't get me wrong - this film is no slow, elegant ghost story - the scares, when they come, come fast and furious and are more of an ilk with Poltergeist, a film Wan and Whannell referenced in their introduction. There's also an acknowledgment of the camp potential with some humorous sequences thrown in the mix. It's not high art but Insidious is proof that Wan and Whannell have a genuine understanding of horror. Frankly, they out-Carpentered Carpenter this year, delivering where The Ward did not.

TIFF10 // The Ward, Black Swan, Rabbit Hole

After a 9 year absence, John Carpenter returns with...this. While it does have some of the Carpenter touch in the framing of the shots, the film feels like a rather uninspired attempt from Carpenter, with little thrills to be had. Relying on shock tactics with sudden, loud blasts of music, the film rarely showcases Carpenter's considerable skill at tension and release and never demonstrates the complexity of Carpenter's work in movies like In the Mouth of Madness or They Live. There are a few bits of classic Carpenter imagery but the malevolent spirit of The Ward is rather unscary and the ending finally implodes in on itself in a groanworthy and predictable twist. To think that Carpenter chose this hackneyed and unoriginal script over so many other possibilities for his comeback is mindnumbing; one hopes that this is simply a warm-up exercise for his real return.

//

Anyone looking forward to Black Swan can breathe a big sigh of relief - it's a hit out of the park for Darren Aronofsky and his best film since Requiem for a Dream. A mindfuck of a film, it seems inspired by Perfect Blue in its lead character's descent into madness but the ballet angle and Aronofsky's confident handling of the material pushes it into its own league. Anyone who has seen his films will recognize his ability to spin and build intensity to the breaking point and Black Swan does this with his usual style, leading to an inevitable but intense finale and a pitch-perfect ending. The film's structure is beautifully conceived with the duality between the Swan Queen (Natalie Portman) and her alternate (Mila Kunis) paralleling the Swan Lake story in an obvious but elegant manner, supported ably by all three main cast members. Portman in particular, injects a strained fragility that becomes more and more tense and uncomfortable to watch in all the right ways - she should be a major contender come awards season.

//

Rabbit Hole is a small-scale but emotionally affecting drama with Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart playing Becca and Howie, two parents dealing with the aftermath of their son's death. The film smartly chooses to begin several months after the incident, allowing a little more perspective and giving the film some air to breathe. Surprisingly, it never bogs down in its own sentimentality and is occasionally even funny, striking one as always authentic and true to its characters. Becca's complex relationships with a quiet teenager (Miles Teller) and her mother (Dianne Wiest) also affect with each character in the tightly written screenplay (by David Lindsay-Abaire based off his Pulitzer-winning play) dealing with one loss or another, with the exception of Becca's sister who is about to welcome a new addition into her life. John Cameron-Mitchell dials back the stylistic quirks from his previous film, letting the characters take centre stage and the result is a moving chamber piece that never rings false.

TIFF10 // Brighton Rock: Sharp, intimate and epic

Those who have been craving a great gangster flick need wait no further; Rowan Joffe's Brighton Rock is a thrilling and nearly pitch-perfect remake/adaptation with top-notch production values across the board.

The movie opens with a bang, as the head of a gang is murdered. Sam Riley plays Pinky, a thug who takes his revenge and starts dating Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a girl who has seen more than she should have. Essentially an intimate story centering on the relationship between Pinky and Rose, the film has the quality of an epic, while moving quickly and never letting the pacing slow down. As Pinky's girlfriend, Andrea Riseborough stands out amongst a terrific cast (including Helen Mirren and John Hurt) in a role that should get her some attention.

Several scenes in the film have the feel of a classic, in no small part thanks to the evocative and suspenseful score by Martin Phipps which mixes noirish Hermannesque tones, a sweepingly dark but romantic theme and thrilling drum sections to complement the visuals brilliantly. Shots are framed perfectly to maximize their visceral nature and the film feels involving from the first frame to the last. The climax could have been larger but the film ends on an unsettling note that feels fitting.

TIFF10 // Everything Must Go: Solid showcase for Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell plays Nick, an alcoholic who has lost everything in a single day - his job, his wife, and his car in this first feature written and directed by Dan Rush. Coming home, he finds himself locked out by his wife, all of his things strewn across the lawn and proceeds to try and rebuild his life while living on his lawn.

The film is a character piece, resting entirely on Ferrell's shoulders and he delivers with a sensitive portrayal of a man on the brink. While he has a few funny moments including a hilarious reaction shot to his neighbours' in-home activities, he never delves into the Ferrell persona we're so used to seeing, burying it successfully inside a fully formed character wrestling with serious problems. His relationship with ---, a kid who helps him sell his things and his pregnant neighbour across the road bring out his issues without feeling forced.

Rush portrays Nick's alcoholism with a deft hand, never letting it drag down the film but never treating it lightly either. On a similar wavelength, the film strikes a laidback, low-key tone, with the occasional laugh to liven things up. The script is economical, with few characters, each one an important key to Nick's arc. Its crisp dialogue is efficiently conveyed in the film but it could use a little more colour and innovation on a visual level as it feels all too similar to the numerous other indie dramas of the past decade and relies heavily on its script to carry it through.