Ivy’s Toronto FF catch up

I am not dead. It has been hard to catch up on work and I have had a hard time getting back to the blog to catch up on my film write ups. But I am going to see if I can catch up this week. So where did I leave off?

Oh right, after day three. Wow! Five more days to go. Well here is day 4 at least.

Day 4 – Disenfranchisement was the theme* for the day. Everything seemed to be focused on people living outside of society. Maybe this doesn’t really work for The Loved Ones, the midnight, but then killers always live outside of society, so maybe it does.

*A theme isn’t necessary but they are amusing when they sort of appear on their own.

Continue reading

Ivy’s final movie tally

I did warn you what would happen when I started attending the midnight movies. It’s hard to find any time to write when you are in movies from 9:30 AM until 3 AM! (with small breaks of course, I’m not completely insane) I have no idea how the film writers do it!

So this is the final tally of films that I saw. For the most part they were all great with only a couple of exceptions.

  1. Antichrist – amazing!
  2. Backyard – really good
  3. Nymph – good, liked his other films better
  4. L’Enfer de Henri-Georges Cluzot – amazing!
  5. Leslie, My Name is Evil – good and fun
  6. My Tehran for Sale – amazing!
  7. Fish Tank – good
  8. I am Not Your Friend – great
  9. Mall Girls – good
  10. Face – great
  11. Rabia – really good
  12. Reel Injun – really good
  13. A Brand New Life – great
  14. Airdoll – great
  15. The Loved Ones – really good
  16. Youth in Revolt – really good
  17. Colony – great
  18. Bitch Slap – bad
  19. Vision – pretty, but not for me
  20. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done – interesting, have to see it again
  21. Moloch Tropical – interesting but but not for me
  22. She, A Chinese – great
  23. White Material – really good
  24. The Bad Detective – great
  25. Valhalla Rising – really good
  26. Bunny and the Bull – amazing!
  27. planned for tomorrow am – Whip It!

I am bleary-eyed and exhausted. Can’t wait to be home. I will write more on my festival experiences and thoughts through the weekend.

ivy

Toronto Film Fest ’09: Ned’s Day 2 report

TIFF_09Yeah, so it’s been a little crazy here in Toronto and I haven’t been as up-to-date as I would like on my reportage – ok, not up-to-date at all. However, I’ll try to remedy that over the next few days as I crunch and process all of the films that I’ve seen. Ivy and I are planning on heading back to Boston tomorrow after an early morning screening of the Drew Barrymore directed roller derby flick WHIP IT. Since we last spoke I’ve taken in 23 films (plus a little) and seen work by some of my favorite directors in the world. And let me make this clear… I didn’t see George Clooney once – on screen or off.

But I digress; let’s go back in time a moment and revisit Friday, Sept 11, 2009…

Continue reading

Ivy’s report: Day 2 & 3

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up. Getting a wifi signal up here is hard, yesterday was a long day, and today started with a migraine. After nursing that this morning I was back in movies by this afternoon and hopefully will be more timely in my posts from now on (although if I make it to any midnight movies, I will be posting the next day NOT when I get home.)

Continue reading

Toronto Film Fest ‘09: Ned’s Day 1 Report

Starting the festival experience on an easy note, I saw only two and a quarter features and two shorts today. The features were Lars Von Trier’s ANTICHRIST (much more about that next), Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s NYMPH and, unfortunately, just a taste of Matthew Bissonnete’s PASSENGER SIDE. The shorts were two documentaries by Mark Lewis: BACKSTORY and CINEMA MUSEUM. A bit more after the jump…

Continue reading