This will be old news to many of you out there but for those who missed the big TIFF announcements Tuesday, I will just recap some of the highlights here briefly.
The big opening gala film (pictured above) is Jean-Marc Vallée's Demolition. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts, who you can expect to appear in person at the world premier on September 10 at Roy Thompson Hall. The plot centres around a man mourning the loss of his wife who died in a car crash. Gyllenhaal is due for an Academy Award nomination in many eyes with recent turns in End of Watch, Enemy, Nightcrawler and to some extent the recent Southpaw and Vallée has shown a knack for getting award-worthy performances out of his leads in his last two films, Wild and Dallas Buyers Club. That said, while the bravura acting in those films was worthy of note, I can't say that either was among my favourites of their respective release years. Vallée's stuff has really just always felt a little "not bad" to me.
So colour me a tad underwhelmed by that particular selection, but I have an open mind. There's a jam-packed list of other films and much more to come I'm sure. Ridley Scott's The Martian will have its premiere at the festival as will Atom Egoyan's new film Remember starring Christopher Plummer, which can't be any worse than the last one. You can also catch The Dressmaker starring Kate Winslet,
Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl and new films from Paolo Sorrentino, Michael Moore, Zhang-ke Jia, Cary Fukunaga and others.
Check out the list here.
Screening Roundup
I left the multiplex earlier this summer hemming and hawing about whether Mad Max: Fury Road was the best of the whole series. Perfect time to revisit Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior which is screening at The Royal Aug. 1, 2,4 & 5 at 9:30 p.m. (or actually 9:25 p.m. for the first two dates for some reason). All of the Max movies are essentially Westerns in the Man With No Name — or samurai flicks in the Yojimbo — tradition where the lone-wolf shows up on the scene to resolve a dispute and then carries on his way. The selling point is always the strength of the villains (in this case Wez played by Commando’s Vernon Wells) and the actions scenes (The Road Warrior still possess one of the very best chase scenes ever put on film).
The Royal is also giving you Steven Spielberg’s E.T. matinees at 2 p.m. throughout August. I could never get back into the movie after the bicycle took off the ground but I’m probably not a representative voice on the subject.
Last week it was Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo as part of TIFF’s Free Screen run-through of their own top ten all-time Canadian film list. This week, fittingly enough, is the 2005 film that put Jean-Marc Vallée on the map. C.R.A.Z.Y. tells the story of a young man coming out to his family in Quebec. The free screening is at 9 p.m. Aug. 7 and Orphan Black screenwriter Karen Walton will provide an introduction.
Also the Rainbow Cinemas at Market Square is running the second-annual Insomniac Film Festival tonight a 9:30 p.m. It’s suppose to be a showcase for young filmmakers in the city who have submitted shorts. If that’s your bag you can get tickets at the theatre for $5.
Toronto Screengrab of the Week
Congrats to @libbyroach1 for being the first to guess last week’s entry as Half-Baked. A tip of the cap to @vmdTM for getting not just the film but the location as well.
Some of you may be fleeing the city this long weekend for a cottage of some sort, so this dog of a comedy might be appropriate. It was shot in places including Georgina, Ontario, and of course Toronto proper. Sadly enough, it was also the last film the great Gene Hackman acted in before quasi-retiring.
