A film festival as large as Toronto often opens up opportunities for accidental if unusually appropriate double features, but sometimes these juxtapositions can give a film a not totally fair disadvantage. Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare at Goats is, by any measure, a failed film, but seen, as I saw it, in front of Lu Chuan’s unforgettable City of Life and Death, its vapidity actually seems offensive.
So with the film officially getting released finally, it was now time for a strategic marketing scheme. Slumdog Millionaire was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival in late August, and then at the Toronto Film Fest a week later. At both places, the film received unanimous praise and even received the People’s Choice Award at the latter.
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Not everybody loves Slumdog. Much like your favorite band that got too big, many indie film sites have abandoned the picture and moved on to other movies. An mild indie backlash was probably inevitable [sic].
Above: quotes from a post at The Playlist breaking down Slumdog Millionaire’s bumpy road from target of pre-production bidding war, to its loss of initial distributor Warner Independent, to virtual Best Picture sure thing. This is a useful endeavor. It would be more useful if it were a little more accurate.
I recently submitted a ballot for indieWIRE’s annual Critics’ Poll, which offers respondents a chance to create two separate lists of the best films of the year: one comprised of films which received theatrical distribution (which is described as, at minimum, a one week run in a commercial theater in New York City, essentially the same type of release required for Oscar consideration); and a list of the best films which weren’t distributed commercially in 2008––ie: those which screened only at festivals, and/or in other non-commercial venues, and/or outside of New York. Because I see so many films at festivals, I had a far greater pool of candidates for the latter list than the former. My “true” top ten list would combine films which were made readily available to audiences via studio subsidiaries (such as Synecdoche, NY and Rachel Getting Married), with films that I fell in love with at a festival and may never get a chance to see again, and with films which had the bare minimum New York release, but nevertheless were probably still seen by fewer people than the average distributor-less festival hit (such as Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness). That said, I understand the purpose of making the distinction––even if there was no other benefit to it, there’s always the hope that some smaller theatrical and straight-to-DVD distributors will look to the annual Best Undistributed list as a reference to films they might have missed. After all, 2007’s “winner,” Hong Sang Soo’s Woman on the Beach, was purchased and ended up in theaters barely a week into the new year.
In fact, I think singling out films which are still on the market, and in a perfect world wouldn’t be, is so worth doing, that not only am I revealing here the ten titles I included in the poll, but I’m adding a few bonus films. The following list is presented alphabetically and should be considered unranked, with the exception of the first title mentioned — they all deserve to be seen by wider audiences, but the reception thus far bestowed on the work of one French master in particular is actually a travesty.
If you’ve read this blog with any regularity, you’ll know that, as a work of stand-alone cinema, I am notcrazy about Che. However, that doesn’t mean that I was anything but thrilled to hear that the Steven Soderbergh film sold out most of its weekend shows at the Ziegfeld in New York and the Landmark in Los Angeles. Here are five reasons why Che’s +$30k opening weekend per screen average is –– say it with me now –– Good For Cinema:
From left to right, Diablo Cody, Dana Fox, and Lorene Scafaria. Or, the “Femmepire” as they call it, a triumvirate of female screenwriters.
Lorene Scafaria has been toiling as a screenwriter for awhile, although her first produced film, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, is actually an adaptation of a novel by the same name. However, it manages to nail the “teen voice” without slapping a message all over it, and it should open up a few more doors for Lorene. Not that she needs them, since she’s already recorded an album of her own music, and has her next project already in the works.
Read on to find out how she tried to capture the New York City feeling in this movie, what she’s been doing with best friend and fellow screenwriter Diablo Cody, and what’s in store for her.
Danish director Kristian Levring is probably best known for his feature The King Is Alive, which was the fourth film put out under the Dogme 95 rules. His new movie Fear Me Not resides as the other end of that spectrum as a dark thriller that rests on the edge of becoming sinister at any moment. It’s a great commentary on modern day pharmaceuticals, and what they might or might not be doing to us.
Read on for our in-depth interview with Levring, in which he talks about pharmaceuticals, his favorite filmmakers, and the Dogme legacy.
Ari Folman’s animated documentary Waltz With Bashir includes himself as a central figure, and the film concerns his inability to remember events that occurred during the massacre in Lebanon in 1982. It’s a terrible and beautiful movie that isn’t just about war, but also comments on the human brain’s ability to shape itself by erasing events from our memories.
Talking to us at the Toronto Film Festival last week, Folman discussed going back in time for the project, the year he spent on a fake vacation, and what he’s working on next.
Director Peter Sollett turned his short film Five Feet High And Rising into the 2003 Sundance darling Raising Victor Vargas, and now he’s moved into studio fare with the Sony Pictures flick Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Thankfully, it doesn’t feel like a powerhouse of a film, and he manages to make a night in New York City feel honest, and not like a slickly produced starfest.
Read through the break to find out what it was like making this movie, why he thinks Union Pool is “retarded,” the skinny on MPAA censorship, and how much improv Michael Cera did in the movie. [He also swears and then apologizes for it, which Karina finds super endearing. -- Ed.]
Rosemarie DeWitt is best known for her role as Don Draper’s beatnik-artist-in-residence Midge on AMC’s hit show Mad Men, but her turn as Rachel in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married is already getting rave reviews. She’s been acting since 2001 and has done a lot of television work, but after this performance she may be ready to turn the corner and move into film.
Read the full interview after the break to find out how she got the role, and what it was like working with Anne Hathaway and Jonathan Demme.
Kathryn Bigelow hasn’t made a feature film since 2002’s Harrison Ford starrer K19: The Widowmaker, unless you count the “blink and you’ll miss it” Mission Zero with Uma Thurman. The Hurt Locker returns her to real roots as a character-driven action director, and she gets some terrific performances out of relative unknowns Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie in this film about the war in Iraq.
In our interview, she discusses fictionalizing real war stories, what The Hurt Locker does that other Iraq films haven’t, and the everlasting legacy of Point Break.
Jonathan Demme has had an extremely successful career ever since directing Caged Heat in 1974. He won the Oscar for Best Director in 1992 with Silence of the Lambs, and helped Tom Hanks act his way to a Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia. He’s also directed things as varied as a Saturday Night Live episode in 1980, the Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense, and Neil Young: Heart of Gold, with a new Young movie on the way in next year’s Trunk Show.
Rachel Getting Married represents another big change for him, as the film was shot completely handheld, features a lot of improvised dialogue, and uses ambient music from musicians actually on the set. It’s about as close to a Dogma film as you can get these days. We sat down with Jonathan in Toronto, and read on to find out what inspirations he drew on for this film, why he wanted to cast director Paul Thomas Anderson as the male lead, and how he came to work with Anne Hathaway.
I was pleased to be asked to participate in indieWIRE’s post-TIFF critics poll, through which consensus selected Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Still Walking as Best Film, Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) as Best Performance, and Les Plages d’Agnes by Agnes Varda as Best Doc. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any of those movies, but the three titles I named as my favorite films of the fest all made the poll’s top ten: Summer Hours, Rachel Getting Married, and Treeless Mountain.For Best Performance, I named Treeless‘ Hee Yeon Kim, Mathieu Almaric from A Christmas Tale (maybe technically a Cannes film, but he still blows most of the competition out of the water, as far as I’m concerned) and Matthew Newton, director/writer/star of Three Blind Mice. I didn’t see as many docs as I would have liked (I guess I’m saving them for the fall season of Stranger Than Fiction, programmed, like TIFF’s Reel to Reel, by Thom Powers), but by far my favorite was Blind Loves.
We still have a bit of TIFF coverage in the can for posting over the next few days, BTW. Look for interviews with Jonathan Demme, Anne Hathaway, Ari Folman and more by the end of the week.
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Barry Jenkins’ film Medicine for Melancholy, and we’re lucky enough to have Barry be big fans of Spout as well. His little film has had a long journey since it premiered in Austin at SXSW earlier this year, and it’s continuing to take him around the world.
We spoke with Barry in Toronto about the genesis of the movie, what has happened since that first screening in Austin, how he found the actors, and if this film represents a love letter from him to the city of San Francisco. Read on for the full interview.
It’s been just over a year since Danny Boyle’s sci fi film Sunshine came out, and it would be hard to imagine a more different film than Slumdog Millionaire, which has just premiered at both the Telluride and Toronto film festivals (and won the People’s Choice award at the latter). It’s an extremely touching love story set amidst the slums of Mumbai, and uses the Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” as a catalytic backdrop.
Boyle definitely continues to mature as a filmmaker, and has somehow learned to be an excellent director of children––the performances he gets out of the young kids in both this movie and Millions are astounding. Despite his punk-rock roots, he claims to have gotten in touch with his innner hippy while shooting Slumdog in India. Read on to find out all about it, and why he might be driving a cab around London.
As the Toronto International Film Festival draws to a close, we talk with Karina Longworth and Kevin Kelly about their experience. The Coen Brothers’ new film Burn After Reading gets a mixed reaction, apparently it’s better if you get to see it with Adrien Brody. Brody’s new film, The Brothers Bloom, by Brick director Rian Johnson, is one of Kevin’s favorites.
The Fall, a lush surrealist epic directed by Tarsem (yes, he only goes by one name), is out on DVD. Adam and I mull it over, comparing it to the 1973 campy classic Zardoz, starring a half-naked Sean Connery.
Lastly, I interview Michelle Byrd, executive director of IFP about Independent Film Week, taking place in New York September 14-19. I should note that I accidentally mispronounced her name as “Boyd,” my apologies. It’s sort of funny if you imagine I have a strong Brooklyn accent for just that one word.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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So with the film officially getting released finally, it was now time for a strategic marketing scheme. Slumdog Millionaire was first shown at the Telluride Film Festival in late August, and then at the Toronto Film Fest a week later. At both places, the film received unanimous praise and even received the People’s Choice Award at the latter.
I was pleased to be asked to participate in 
