Mother was only just above average. Kim Hye-ja was great, though. For The Love of Movies was pretty bad. Dare I say I could make a better criticism doc?
Ben, I was at that screening of Toad’s Oil but I don’t remember that many propblems with the projection but now that you brought it up I do remember some things that annoyed me with it.
Adam, I hope you enjoy Lebanon more than I did. The entire movie to me just seems like someone had no idea how to film it so there friend handed them a book titled “How to Shoot a War Film: Cliche’s and All!”.
Adam and Kurt, I’m eagerly awaiting to read your thoughts on Historias Extraordinarias!
amazing amazing amazing amazing, more thoughts to come when this guy catches up on sleep and is capable of more than one word.
It is a masterpiece.
Will elaborate further on my web site shortly.
Ahhh, I’m so angry at myself for missing it. I wasn’t even all that productive tonight either. Ugh.
Look what just got added to the database though! Perfect timing.
It plays again tomorrow, Myra. Yes, that delightful chap Daniel Kasman heeded my need to add Extraordinary Stories to my favourites.
Aghhh, I wanted to go so badly you guys! :( I was bound to my teaching workshop all day. The highlight of it was teaching people how to make bats, origami-style, in the spirit of Halloween. In case you guys ever need to make lots of bats for decoration purposes, you now know who to ask!
I noticed that there are VIFF repeat screenings in the upcoming days. I think this means that I may actually get a chance to watch Breathless and The Headless Woman, if I’m not too exhausted after this weekend…
I’m really curious to see what’s playing in November/December at Vancity and Pacific.
I’m game for an auteurs meetup for The Headless Woman, tis an awesome film.
I was looking through your Cinematheque newspaper. Very jealous you’re getting a Halloween(?) screening of SUSPIRIA on cleaned up 35mm.
Thanks to Adam for the daily reports, Kurt Walker for his film blog, and all the other comments on this thread. Just about all the films that looked interesting or were obvious choices have gotten an excellent and honest appraisal here. We have everything reviewed here from Antichrist to White Ribbon and all the festival fare that might otherwise be overlooked. It looks like Extraordinary Stories is now a must see film and one that is a festival discovery. I hope to catch several of these at some point, thanks to the write-ups here.
Thank you very much Joe! Heres my rankings of all the films I saw:
1. Face
2. The White Ribbon
3. Extraordinary Stories
4. Ne Change Rien
5. The Headless Woman
6. Trash Humpers
7. Antichrist
8. Rembrandt’s J’accuse
9. A Prophet
10. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl
11. Breathless
12. Mother
13. Tetro
14. Lebanon
15. Morphia
16. Beeswax
17. Broken Embraces
18. Air Doll
19. Chloe
20. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
21. My Dog Tulip
http://walkinginthecinema.blogspot.com/
Here are my rankings:
1. The White Ribbon
2. Extraordinary Stories
3. Trash Humpers
4. Antichrist
5. Ne Change Rien
6. Everyone Else
7. Face
8. Breathless
9. Rembrandt’s J’accuse
10. A Prophet
11. The Headless Woman
12. Beeswax
13. Tetro
14. Mother
15. Air Doll
16. Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired Girl
17. Broken Embraces
18. For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism
19. Lebanon
20. Morphia
21. My Dog Tulip
22. Chloe
23. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Man, I saw 10 or so movies at the fest and none of them are the same as the ones all of you saw. Awesome scope this year, me thinks.
What films would you recommend, Joshua?
Jermal, The Forbidden Door and Detour did it for me.
I’m looking into seeing the Sound of Insects, I’ve heard that’s very very good.
What did you think of Forbidden Door Josh?
Ben Cho
I loved MOTHER a lot. Thought it was supremely crafted and performances were terrific esp. Kim Hye-ja. You know, I love when a filmmaker surprises me with their next feature: Bong follows up a monster-movie with a Douglas Sirk-style melodrama about the intensity of maternalism buried within a smalltown murder-mystery setup.
CJ: did you go to the TOAD’S OIL screening when the D&T award was announced? I couldn’t believe how the film was being projected. It looked really bad on a DVCam and also looked like it wasn’t being framed properly. There’s a scene with the haunted house and a subtitle comes up in the centre-right of screen with “haunted house” but because of the way it was being projected it came up as “haunted ho”. I asked someone about this but they didn’t seem to know. maybe your screening looked better.
Did anyone see BLACK FIELD? This woman came up and gave me a postcard for it (i think she may have been the filmmaker). The postcard made it seem probably more interesting than it really was but I’m kinda curious.
ADAM: It was good to read your piece on FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES. I just couldn’t get past the educational video aesthetic and the rather condescending tone of it. Also where the fuck were Scott Foundas and Robert Koehler, some of the best US film critics working right now? Time for Karina Longworth but no Foundas? bah. Sad to say but film critics are fast becoming like vinyl records.