TIFF '08: Part 2

The second half of the movies I watched:

American Swing
This movie was decent. It was a documentary about the rise and fall of a club in the 70s called Plato's Retreat. Like all self-serving docs this one illustrates the grandeur this club brought, and how people at the time were naive of the implications that were slowly going to arise from frequenting the sexy night club. I think stories like this are great, but at the same time they're so predictable. I'm no documentary expert, but I totally could have called the entire film, from the first 2 minutes. It's a shame there can't be more originality in the documentary form. Content-wise, docs are awesome, and I guess that's why this genre has a good, steady following, but I'd really like it if someone could change it up.

Synecdoche, New York
This was my second favourite movie at the festival. Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Catherine Keener, I had high hopes for this film, but didn't try to get over-excited. The movie itself was really confusing, but it was so profound and I left feeling so detached and existentially void (yeah man, here lies the big issues) that I know I need to see this movie 2 or 3 more times to try to wrap my head around. While not nearly as abstract as other existential films (perfect example: 2001), it definitely makes you question your mortality, and relationships with people who you are emotionally attached to. In the Q & A after the film Kaufman said how before he started writing the film, he and Spike Jones were thinking about doing an actual "scary movie". I can really see what he means by a scary movie, mortality and loneliness, what two things could realistically be scarier.

Every Little Step
This movie was really enjoyable. The second documentary I saw at the festival, while the form was also pretty predictable as American Swing, the content of this film was really awesome. It's about the audition process of the revival for A Chorus Line. The film gives a history behind the show itself, talks about the original cast, but most of the film follows the struggles and obstacles that faced the performers auditioning. The fact that this was about a musical was reason enough for me to see this film. Anything singing and dancing is pure escapism, and I'm so there. Watching the film, you know that this audition will change their lives, if they get the part. They put so much energy into trying to impress the producers, you just break-up inside, whenever you learn someone else is cut. But at the same time this film is really motivational. These people are trying to live out their dream of performing on Broadway. They have worked so hard, and it makes you want to put more effort into your own endeavours.

Control Alt Delete
This was a very silly film. It's about a film about a guy who is obsessed with internet porn. That being said, this film is also Canadian, so the production value was only decent, and some of the story lines seemed random and incongruent. However, I definitely enjoyed this film. The protagonist is played by a fairly well known Canadian TV actor, which was really cool, and I felt good supporting a Canadian production.

The Rest of the Night
I wasn't too sure on the message of this film, but it was well-made and was a good story. An Italian film about a group of people who are interconnected and are living out their day-to-day lives, seemingly average, and with an average amount of drama. One group is a family who are well to do. They fire their housekeeper on pretenses that she has stolen the wife's jewelry. The housekeeper then goes to her ex-boyfriends house because she needs a place to stay, and he and his friend and brother make up the second group.
Both groups have their own troubles, involving money and their general happiness. The film runs along smoothly, with good pacing and flattering cinematography. The film ends in tragedy, which seems fitting because the film has a very character-driven story, and tragedy tends to end this type of work. Enjoyable to watch.

33 Scenes from Life
This was a sad film from the beginning to end, probably the most depressing film I saw, but it was also inspiring to not take things in life for granted. A Polish film about a woman who is losing her mother to cancer, and is having marital problems. Throughout the entire film the audience is taken along with her, through her emotional hardships. The film was modestly shot, but definitely portrayed the story well.

Uncertainty
This movie can be typecasts as one of those indie-American movies, that has a strong cast, strong story, good cinematography, but will remain under the radar because it is not mainstream enough. The premise is a young couple start the movie off with the dilemma of how to spend their fourth of July. The film portrays two different results that could have occurred in juxtaposition, going back and forth through the whole movie. I thought this was a clever premise. One funny part, the filmmakers obviously knew that the audience would have trouble distinguishing between one story and the other, so to be able to tell which story is being shown present, they had the couple wear green in one story, and yellow in the other. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and a girl I don't recognize. While I guess there characters were supposed to be young free-spirited/artistic people. A lot of the time the characters just annoyed me. In the story where their lives are being threaten I kept thinking, they could have avoiding all this drama if they just acted like normal people, and not answered the cell phone that wasn't their's.

Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World
This was an awesome movie literally about the biggest Chinese restaurant in the world. The restaurant is in China, of course, and illustrates the lifestyle and workmanship of Chinese people. The film was made by western European filmmakers, and this is really evident, as the perspective has an outsiders look. A lot of the time the film shows how the workers and servers are pushed to their limits, in order to make end's meat. While this restaurant depicts how the Chinese society has developed over the past few decades, the film shows how there are still a countless number of people who live in poverty. Most of the workers at the restaurant work there so that they can send money home to their families. One scene shows how a server "chose" to stay and work, instead of going home because her mother was sick. Chose is in brackets because it is implied that she would have been fired if she went home.

Patrik Age 1.5
This was the last film I saw at the festival, and it was so cute, and happy, that it was a great note to leave it off, of. The film is about a gay married couple who want nothing more than to adopt a baby. One day they receive a letter saying there is a child waiting for them: Patrik age 1,5. Of course this was a typo, as we soon learn, and Patrik is really 15 years old, and a delinquent. The whole movie is about each of the characters getting over their prejudices toward one another. Patrik has trouble getting over living with a gay couple, and the couple have trouble parenting a troubled youth. This makes the film look out to be some melodramatic soap opera, but it's really not. This was definitely the most family-friendly and accessible movie I saw at the festival.