Toronto Line-Up

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HarryGoldfarb
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Re: Toronto Line-Up

Post by HarryGoldfarb »

This is a very Oscar-oriented article... From Newstalk1010.com

at 13:00 on September 14, 2011, EDT.

Movie celebs both court and dodge Oscar hype at Toronto film fest

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press


George Clooney signs autographs for fans as he arrives for the premiere of his film "The Descendants" at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Saturday Sept. 10, 2011. Amid the constellation of stars gathered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival - George! Keira! Brad! Madonna! Glenn! - there's one Hollywood heavyweight whose name looms above them all: Oscar. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn"

TORONTO - Amid the constellation of stars gathered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival — George! Keira! Brad! Madonna! Glenn! — there's one Hollywood heavyweight whose name looms above them all: Oscar.

No matter that the prestigious Academy Awards gala is still five months down the road, the race for the coveted statue is already building for a slew of titles on parade at the 11-day movie marathon.

They include George Clooney's family drama "The Descendants" and his political thriller "The Ides of March," Glenn Close's gender-bending passion project "Albert Nobbs," Ralph Fiennes' Shakesperean update "Coriolanus" and the silent throwback "The Artist."

For many celebs promoting these films, chatter over which movie will snag a slot in the best picture category or which performers are in line for an acting nomination is flattering but also nerve-wracking.

"It seems like there's a frenzy of speculation," Close said while promoting her period piece "Albert Nobbs," about a single woman who disguises herself as a man in order to survive poverty-stricken 19th century Ireland.

The 64-year-old stage, screen and TV star has been nominated for an Oscar five times but has never won. She says she's learned to refrain from paying too much attention to awards show hype.

"I'm a fatalist," says Close. "I've been inoculated against putting too much emotional baggage on something like that because I've been in this business a long time. It would be a huge honour (to win), especially for something that I've been so deeply invested in."

Director Jeff Nichols, whose psychological thriller "Take Shelter" is earning raves for its portrait of a man spiralling into mental collapse, says he's blown away by talk of an Oscar nomination for his lead Michael Shannon.

"I don't even know if I can say it out loud, I don't want to jinx it," Nichols chuckles.

"When you're working with Mike I guess you're always in danger of winning an Oscar, just because he's Mike. This film had really humble, humble origins. This was a low-budget film, we were just lucky to pull it off."

Clooney came to Toronto to build buzz for two films — his family drama "The Descendants," in which he plays the father of two daughters whose wife is dying, and his political thriller "The Ides of March," which he directed and stars in as a slick presidential candidate.

At a press conference for "The Descendants," the gregarious star downplayed the significance of scoring hardware for his craft.

"I've won an award once, so when I die, they say: Oscar winner," said Clooney, named best supporting actor for 2005's "Syriana."

"It's a great sort of thing to have on the tombstone. But after that ... I really don't have this dying need to collect things. You know, there's a point in time when you start in this and you do get competitive. You can get caught up in it, and you're trying to compete with people and you realize it's silly. We're comparing artists, and I don't understand that."

Several high-profile film releases have yet to be seen: the Margaret Thatcher biopic "The Iron Lady," starring Meryl Streep, and Clint Eastwood's historical drama "J. Edgar," starring Leonardo DiCaprio as storied FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover are both being touted to earn kudos.

Shannon says it's nice to get such encouragement before a film hits wide release but notes there's always the danger that enthusiastic predictions could backfire.

"You just hope it doesn't put too much pressure on a movie," Shannon says.

"I think the best way to see a film sometimes is not knowing going in what you're in for. I wouldn't want there to be too much expectation because sometimes that can cloud your ability to enjoy a film."

Still, "Shame" director Steve McQueen says the promotional power of an Oscar nomination is undeniable.

"It's great. Of course it is," says McQueen, whose dark art-house film delves into the sexual addiction of a New York city bachelor.

"Especially my kind of film because it's not a big blockbuster, and I think just helps raise interest and propel the movie forward."

"Without that free advertising films like this disappear completely."

Other celebs admitted to putting little value on the awards at all.

"A Dangerous Method" star Viggo Mortensen expressed disappointment that his longtime collaborator, director David Cronenberg, has yet to be up for Oscar consideration.

"If things were logical, David Cronenberg would have been nominated many times and he would have won at least once," says Mortensen, who's worked with Cronenberg on "Eastern Promises" and "A History of Violence."

"It makes very little sense. I hope this is the year that changes that but I've hoped that each time I've worked with him."

Clooney says he remembers films more than accolades anyway.

"I don't remember who won the Oscar four years ago or five years ago, or what director won, or what film won," he says.

His "Ides of March" co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman elicited laughs at the "Ides" news conference when he joked about the overwrought campaigning that seemed to overtake the festival each year.

He adopted the high-pitched whine of an actor who clearly relished the attention.

"'I'm so sick of the Oscar buzz, I'm so sick of it,'" Hoffman declared to hoots from Clooney and the media.

"'I'm not going to get nominated, back off. It's like a weight on your back, it's like, "Enough!" Everyone out. Ugh.'"

The Toronto International Film Festival runs through Sunday.

Content Provided By Canadian Press.
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
Damien
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Re: Toronto Line-Up

Post by Damien »

I must say, other than Woman in the Fifth and the Terence Davies adaptation of Rattigan's Deep Blue Sea,that -- sight unseen -- this is not a very inspiring lineup.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
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Re: Toronto Line-Up

Post by Reza »

Hd Reporter

Anonymous: Toronto Review

1:48 PM PDT 9/9/2011 by Kirk Honeycutt

Director Roland Emmerich

Screenwriter John Orloff

Cast Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis


Roland Emmerich brings Shakespeare's London to
vivid life in this early 17th century conspiracy
theory with a large and superb British cast

Lionized in Shakespeare in Love, the Bard takes
one on the chin in Anonymous, a movie that
portrays him as an illiterate buffoon, barely
smart enough to fool Elizabeth's London into
thinking he actually wrote all those plays and
sonnets. No indeed, in this movie young Will is a
mere front for the noble Edward de Vere, Earl of
Oxford, one of the more twisted characters in
English history but, alas, a decent poet who has
long had his adherents as the true author of
Hamlet, et al. Of course, others line up behind
Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Queen
Elizabeth herself and perhaps even the stable boy
at the Globe Theater. Anyone but Shakespeare!

This is all historical rubbish, but let's allow
scholars pick to pieces John Orloff's screenplay,
which deals with the worst sort of
unsubstantiated Elizabethan gossip, outright
fabrications and warped facts to support this theory.

As for the movie itself, surprisingly, this is
easily director Roland Emmerich's best film.
Instead of blowing up the world or engaging in
other sorts of mass destruction, he actually
steers a coherent path through a complex bit of
Tudor history while establishing a highly
credible atmosphere of paranoia and intrigue. His
British actors deliver their usual reliable
performances while designers and digital
environmentalist stunningly re-create Elizabethan
London right down to the tiniest detail.

Okay, so you're in an alternate historical
reality, but the movie is glorious fun even as it
grows increasingly implausible. No one is better
than British actors at planting tongues in checks
and yet giving their all to performances that teeters on the absurd.

Rhys Ifansdoes a smart and, yes, noble turn as
Oxford, who initiates a political intrigue with
his secretly authored plays only to find himself
at the center of a Greek tragedy. David Thewlis as
Elizabeth's key advisor, William Cecil, and
Edward Hoggas his hunchback son and successor,
Robert, are political insiders incarnate: They
probably could find a self-interested motive for going to the loo.

It sounds like stunt casting but the
mother-daughter team of Vanessa Redgrave andJoely
Richardson, playing the aging and much younger
Bess, works to perfection. You might quarrel with
the movie's interpretation of this great
historical figure but not with her enactors. They are splendid.

Much of the focus of this very plot-driven film
falls on Sebastian Armesto, who plays Will's
fellow playwright, Ben Jonson, here cast as a
most reluctant go-between in the conspiracy
behind Shakespeare and indeed Oxford's initial
pick to front for him. Ben grumbles about this to
a ham actor in his company, a guy named Will
Shakespeare (Rafe Spall in a myth-shattering
comic performance). Will is a dim light but
bright enough to seize the opportunity to take on
the role himself as Ben has his own reputation as a playwright to protect.

One of the film's many historical problems is
that it wants the fake authorship to play the key
role in the Essex Rebellion of 1601, where the
fantastic earls, Essex (Sam Reid) and to a
lesser degree Southhampton (Xavier Samuel),
engaged in a foolhardy though brief coup d'etat
that lead to Essex's beheading. But Shakespeare
started producing plays at least eight years
prior to that moment. Plus the key persuasive
fact presented by the film to back up its
conspiracy claim is that Oxford presented his
play Richard III, with its hunchback villain to
mock Robert Cecil, just before the Rebellion. The
problem is the play was actually Richard II. Oops.

Nevertheless, the film grabs at historical facts,
mangles them into a plot worthy of a John le
Carre spy novel and takes the viewer on a
breathtaking ride through ye olde London.
Especially splendid are the aerial shots of that
depict that era's town with the accuracy of John
Stow, the city's first great surveyor.

The river city seemingly dwells in permanent
midnight as darkness settles over the town at all
hours and everything is poorly lit. From the
bear-baiting rings, crowded theaters, filthy
streets and the royal court with its
black-and-white finery, this is one of the best
historical depictions of Elizabeth's London yet.

Surprisingly, it does get the theatrical
presentations wrong, showing them at night lit by
torches when in fact they were always performed
in the afternoon. But the staging itself is
brilliantly done, conveying the interaction
between declaiming actors and the groundlings
in the pit, an audience that is literally part of
the performance. (Most doubtful, however, is the
creation of rain on stage from overhead sprinklers.)

The coming and goings of opportunistic courtiers
in Elizabeth's palaces, the movement of poets,
peasants, whores and cut-purses in and about city
streets, the city's love for conflict and
conspiracy all this feels absolutely right.

The upshot of all the intrigue comes in a line
delivered toward the end by Robert Cecil. He
declares that the Tudors show strange tastes in
bedfellows. And that is the nub of the argument,
believe it or not, that the Virgin Queen dropped
so many bastards all over England that even she and the sons lost count.

As far as who wrote the grandest immortal lines
in the history of the English language, let's
give Shakespeare the last word: A rose by any
other name would smell as sweet.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Sony Pictures Releasing)

production companies: Anonymous Pictures Ltd.

Cast: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely
Richardson, David Thewlis, Xavier Samuel, Sebastian Armesto, Rafe Spall.

Director: Roland Emmerich.

Screenwriter: John Orloff.

Producers: Roland Emmerich, Larry Franco, Robert Leger.

Executive producers: Volker Engel, Marc Weigert, John Orloff.

Director of photography: Anna J. Foerster.

Production designer: Sebastian Krawinkel.

Music: Thomas Wander, Harald Kloser.

Costume designer: Lisy Christi.

Editor: Peter R. Adam.

No rating, 130 minutes.
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Toronto Line-Up

Post by Mister Tee »

As usual, between Venice and Toronto, we'll get a crash course in 2011's Oscar competition.


Guggenheim's U2 docu to open Toronto
Coppola, Payne, Cronenberg pix preem
By Jennie Punter

TORONTO -- "An Inconvenient Truth" helmer Davis Guggenheim's U2 docu "From the Sky Down" will open the Toronto Film Festival Sept. 8. on the Gala screen -- marking the first time in 36 years a docu has opened the fest.

The fest unveiled 11 Gala and 43 Special Presentation titles Tuesday morning, including the Gala world preems of Luc Besson's based-on-a-true-story "The Lady," starring Michelle Yeoh as pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and David Thewlis as writer Michael Aris, Bennett Miller's baseball underdog drama "Moneyball" (Sony), starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, and Bruce Beresford's multi-generation family comedy "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding," starring Jane Fonda and rising stars Chace Crawford and Elizabeth Olsen.

Toronto thesp-turned-director Sarah Polley's relationship comedy "Take This Waltz" (Mongrel Media in Canada), starring Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams, Jim Field Smith's Capra-esque comedy "Butter," starring Jennifer Garner as a champion butter-carver, Rodrigo Garcia's Irish period drama "Albert Nobbs" and Remi Bezancon's pregnancy tragicomedy "A Happy Event" will all world preem as Galas.

Venice-bound pics receiving Gala North American preems include George Clooney helmed presidential primary suspenser "The Ides of March," Toronto helmer David Cronenberg's Freud vs. Jung psychological thriller "A Dangerous Method" and Madonna's romance-driven "W.E."

Clooney starrer "The Descendants" (Fox Searchlight), helmer Alexander Payne's Hawaii-set family drama, will world preem in Special Presentations, as will Jonathan Levine's cancer comedy "50/50" (Summit), Jay and Mark Duplass' meaning-of-life comic odyssey "Jeff, Who Lives at Home" (Paramount) and Jennifer Westfeldt's ensemble comedy "Friends With Kids," starring Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm.

The program also includes world preems of Roland Emmerich's Shakespearean-era thriller "Anonymous" (Sony), Derick Martini's coming-of-age road pic "Hick," Cameron Crowe's "Pearl Jam Twenty," a rare-footage portrait of the Seattle band (playing back-to-back stadium shows in Toronto during the fest).

Other U.S. pics world preeming in Toronto include Francis Ford Coppola's small-town murder mystery "Twixt," Marc Forster's "Machine Gun Preacher," starring Gerard Butler as a reformed criminal who rescues troubled kids, Julian Farino's neighborhood comedy "The Oranges," starring Hugh Laurie, Oren Moverman's "Rampart," starring Woody Harrelson as an LAPD cop facing work and family scandals, Jamie Linden's reunion-set friendship saga "Ten Year."

International titles world preeming in Special Presentations include Pawel Pawlikowski's Paris-set intrigue "Woman in the Fifth" (ATO), starring Ethan Hawke and Kristin Scott Thomas, "Americano," the directorial debut of Mathieu Demy, who also stars, playing alongside Salma Hayek, Wang Xiaoshuai's murder-tinged child-driven mystery "11 Flowers" and Malgorzata Szumowska's "Elles," starring Juliette Binoche as a journo investigating university student prostitution.

Program also includes world preems of "Trishna," Michael Winterbottom's modern India-set adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles," Huh Jong-ho's "Countdown," starring Korean star Jeon Do-yeon, Fernando Meirelles' round-the-world romance "360," starring Jude Law and Rachel Weisz, Lasse Hallstrom's self-discovery romance "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen," starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, Cedric Kahn's immigrant family drama "A Better Life," Jonathan Teplitzky's father-son story "Burning Man," Terence Davies' 1950s London-set romance "The Deep Blue Sea" and Daniel Nettheim's Tasmania-set psychological drama "The Hunter."

The program's international preems include Drake Doremus' first love drama "Like Crazy" ( Paramount ), starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones, Nadine Labaki's woman-powered war-torn drama "Where Do We Go Now?" and Fred Schepisi's "The Eye of the Storm."

William Friedkin's crime thriller "Killer Joe" will receive its North American preem in Special Presentations, as will Ralph Fiennes' "Coriolanus," Todd Solondz's "Dark Horse," Lars von Trier's "Melancholia," Steve McQueen's "Shame," Pedro Almodovar's "The Skin I Live," Nanni Moretti's "We Have a Pope," Marjane Satrapi's "Chicken With Plums," Morten Tyldum's "Headhunters" and Ann Hui's "A Simple Life."

Festival faves getting a Canadian preem in Toronto include Sean Durkin's Elizabeth Olsen-starring psychological thriller "Martha Marcy May Marlene" (Fox Searchlight) and Lynne Ramsay's parent-child drama "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (Oscilloscope).

Other Canadian preems include Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," Jeff Nichols' "Take Shelter" and Paddy Considine's "Tyrannosaur."

Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" will receive its Toronto premiere.
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