As I type this the final sessions of MIFF 2010 are about to be unveiled, including the Australian premiere of
Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, which I am seeing tomorrow. I could have waiting until then and included it in here, but that would mean I'd have to wait and I really couldn't be bothered!
MIFF is exhausting enough doing 23 films, so I can't imagine how some of my fellow Melburnian film fanatics -
Lee Zachariah,
Thomas Caldwell and
Richard Watts included - who see upwards of 70 feel. I plan to write more reviews of some of the other films I have seen at the fest, although some of them might come around when they receive a theatrical release (
Red Hill for instance). One film you won't see me review is Clara Law's
Like a Dream because it was my sole walk out of the festival. It wasn't exactly good in any way, but I was just so tired and when you're not enjoying a movie sometimes you just have to just throw in the towel.
I have ranked all 22 films and I'm glad that I was able to see so many good movies. Only at around #17 do the films truly start getting a bit iffy. And, of course, titles like
Certified Copy could very easily rise even higher as the process of time works its magic.
Note that some of the "Review" links below send you to
Trespass Mag where I did a few MIFF pieces. Enjoy.
- Dreamland (dir. Ivan Sen - Review)
- Brotherhood (dir. Nicolo Donato - Review)
- The Illusionist (dir. Sylvain Chomet)
- I Love You Phillip Morris (dir. Glenn Ficcara & John Requa - Review)
- Four Lions (dir. Chris Morris)
- Life During Wartime (dir. Todd Solondz - Review)
- Certified Copy (dir. Abbas Kiarostami)
- City of Life and Death (dir. Chuan Lu)
- Jean-Michael Basquiat: The Radiant Child (dir. Tamra Davis)
- Red Hill (dir. Patrick Hughes - Review)
- Women Without Men (dir. Shirin Neshat)
- The Actresses (dir. Je-Yong Lee)
- Beeswax (dir. Andrew Bujalski)
- Machete Maidens Unleashed! (dir. Mark Hartley - Review)
- Cane Toads: The Conquest (dir. Mark Lewis)
- The Myth of the American Sleepover (dir. David Robert Mitchell - Review)
- Blank City (dir. Celine Danhier)
- Winter's Bone (dir. Debra Granik - Review)
- Piggies (dir. Robert Glinksi)
- 1981 (dir. Ricardo Trogi - Review)
- She, A Chinese (dir. Xiaolu Guo)
- The Silent House (dir. Gustavo Hernández - Review)
Those final two are the only ones that I would consider truly terrible cinema, so all in all it was a very successful festival!
The Men:Two performances stand out from the pack:
Ewan McGregor in
I Love You Phillip Morris and
David Denkic from
Brotherhood. McGregor hasn't been this alive on screen in years and is his best performance in over a decade (I'd have to go back to before
Moulin Rouge!, even, to find a better performance from him). He's so knowing about his surroundings and balances the fine mix of flamboyance and sweetness. Denkic on the other hand is all bubbling rage, sexual longing and sadness and during
Brotherhood's best scenes he is the focal point.
Other male performances that registered were
Steve Bisley in
Red Hill,
Ciarán Hinds in
Life During Wartime,
John Hawkes in
Winter's Bone and while
William Shimell is obviously playing second fiddle to Juliette Binoche in
Certified Copy he has some fine, delicate work there, too. Lastly a big -
BIG - shoutout to the terrible ensemble of
Four Lions, my favourite of which was probably
Kayvan Novak (he's sexy too!).
The Women:You don't win Best Actress at Cannes for just being pretty, so it's no surprise that
Juliette Binoche shone brightly in
Certified Copy. So many expressions go by on that woman's face over the running time of Kiarostami's movie, you'd think she was going to pull a muscle!
Jennifer Lawrence was low-key in
Winter's Bone, but still fine, however I much preferred her support in the form of
Dale Dickey.
Allison Janney and
Ally Sheedy, the latter in a bizarre but hilarious cameo, were tops in
Life During Wartime and, yet another ensemble, the women of
The Actresses were all fantastic but my favourite was definitely
Yoon Yeo-Jung.
Experiences:There were individual moments that I will remember for a very long time. How about the meditative and
2001-inspired ending of
Dreamland or the beautiful, stunning end to Sylvain Chomet's
The Illusionist. I won't ruin it for anybody out there, but the card on the table? It will tear your heart open! Juliette Binoche putting her earrings on in
Certified Copy, the discovery of so many long-forgetting films in
Machete Maidens Unleashed! (
CLEOPATRA WONG is at the very top of my must-see list), the anger I felt at the end of
The Silent House, the lush 3D of
Cane Toads: The Conquest or that stunning confrontation scene between Ciaran Hinds and
Chris Marquette in
Life During Wartime. All amazing, all unforgettable.
Sound:I'm not sure what it was with MIFF this year, but I could fill out the Academy's Best Sound Design/Editing categories just from the movies I saw at this festival alone! The soundscapes of
Dreamworld were second-to-none, the shot-blasts of
Red Hill were teeth-shattering, the gunfire of
City of Life and Death rattled... even the way Binoche's feet clapped against the Tuscan stone paths in
Certified Copy felt blissful to me.
Music, too, played a major role in several of the films. Come February 2010 I really hope to see
Sylvain Chomet's name listed as a nominee for the Oscar for Best Original Score. His music to
The Illusionist was divine. Probably the best score I've heard since Alexandre Desplat's work on
Birth. And if you know me that is
high praise, indeed.
~-~And so that about wraps it up. You'll no doubt be hearing about several of these titles throughout the rest of the year and next and I've had a ball. It will be good to be able to back to having a diet free of shoving KFC down by gob and being able to just relax at home in the evening instead of having to rush about hoping to get a good spot in line. And, just quietly, I will be able to get back to such things as
Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene, which I'm sure you're excited about (as am I!)
{fin}
At a time when the thought of another comic book movie being released is akin to punching oneself in the face, along comes Scott Pilgrim Vs the World to redefine what a mere comic book adaptation can be. Fast paced and visually exciting at a time when being gritty and dark is the popular choice, Edgar Wright’s film will surely hold dedicated Scott Pilgrim fans in rapture, but those new to the series will have their work cut out for them.
