Found: One Sucker

By Andrew Potter - Monday, September 13, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Via Glen McGregor’s excellent autotwitter @ordersincouncil:

Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, hereby appoints Wayne R. Smith of Gatineau, Quebec, to be Chief Statistician of Canada on an interim basis, to hold office during pleasure until such time as a new Chief Statistician of Canada is appointed, and fixes his remuneration as set out in the annexed schedule, which remuneration is within the range ($182,400 – $214,700).

Sur recommandation du premier ministre, Son Excellence la Gouverneure générale en conseil nomme Wayne R. Smith, de Gatineau (Québec), statisticien en chef du Canada par intérim, à titre amovible, jusqu’à ce qu’un nouveau statisticien en chef du Canada soit nommé, et fixe sa rémunération conformément à l’annexe ci-jointe, laquelle rémunération se situe dans l’échelle (182 400 $ – 214 700 $).

Federal scientists should be allowed to speak up

By John Geddes - Monday, September 13, 2010 at 9:08 AM - 0 Comments

Interesting story from Postmedia’s Margaret Munro this morning on how the Conservatives have moved to tighten control on what scientists in the federal government’s employ can say to reporters. She offers the comical example of how the new rules, which apparently went into force last March for Natural Resources Canada researchers, limited one scientist’s ability to chat with the media about floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.

Continue…

How about a Mailbag?

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, September 13, 2010 at 7:13 AM - 0 Comments

All questions answered, except for the ones I ignore.

Insert queries below. Mailbag to possibly come Wednesday maybe.

'Mad Men' meets 'NewsRadio'

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, September 13, 2010 at 1:12 AM - 0 Comments

I don’t know if this is the best Mad Men season yet, but so far it’s certainly the one I’ve found most entertaining. The cold, distant tone and anthropological feel have given way to more complete involvement with at least some of the characters, and because the show is going so fast through the mid-’60s (apparently in a hurry to get to Nixon, which Henry’s Republican Party connections will presumably bring in somehow) it creates a sense of momentum and individual episode identity. And another thing I like, perhaps perversely, is that the show is becoming less and less about an advertising agency and more about the business the writers know — television writing.

That’s what I meant by the weird subject heading, because NewsRadio is the only show I can think of that sent out more signals that it was really about a TV writers’ room, no matter what it was ostensibly about. That show just more or less admitted it — taking stuff that happened to the showrunner and making them happen to Dave Foley — while Mad Men is leaving room for doubt. But when Don and Peggy had their argument  about whether she’s getting enough credit, it was hard not to think of Matt Weiner and his famous tendency to put his name on every script, or of the young assistants that he promotes to co-writer status in the least flattering way possible. Here’s Weiner talking about those assistants:

There’s sort of the tradition that if they work the whole season, I will let them write the finale with me. It’s not a given, and they know that. There are certain things I learned as the process went on. This may make me sound like an old person — I don’t know if it’s generational, but I’ve found that with a lot of people between 25 and 35 there’s sometimes this real sense of entitlement, a real sense of “Why don’t I have your job?”

And here’s Don saying basically the same thing to Peggy:

[vodpod id=Video.4432682&w=640&h=385&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

When we have Peggy herself, whose situation makes sense in any workplace but seems particularly informed by TV writing, which is still a man’s world and where the issues she’s dealing with — how to assert authority over men without living up to negative stereotypes of women in power; how to handle the treatment of lower-level female employees — are reportedly as big as ever in some rooms. And the main Peggy situation in last night’s episode had her dealing with the lewd, frat-boy “humour” of her colleagues, which is so redolent of the questions that arise in TV writing rooms that you don’t even need to be an insider (I’m not) to see the connection.

If you want some evidence that things have changed in the last decade and a half, these metaphorical issues are being handled differently than they were on NewsRadio, where the episode “Jackass Junior High” — one of the weaker episodes of the generally stellar fourth season — was pretty much a 21-minute justification for the writers’ refusal to hire women writers (you’ll recall that it was about Maura Tierney asking the guys to act as if she weren’t a woman, upon which they start acting, well, exactly like an all-male TV writing staff).

I may be reading things into the Mad Men workplace dynamic that aren’t there, of course, but I think it is the case that the show is more about workplace dynamics in general. It still has advertising-specific plots, of course, but I feel like it also has more moments that could not only take place at any office, but in any time — and not just because it’s a few years later. This sort of thing is common to nearly all workplace shows except for crime-solvin’ workplaces (and sometimes even then): they tend to focus less on the specific work being done and more on what happens when people work together. For one thing, the characters are now well-defined enough that throwing them together tends to resonate beyond whatever work they happen to be doing: I sometimes find my mind spipping over the advertising talk as if it’s Treknobabble, the better to focus on Don and Peggy and the rest.

This is more noticeable in comedy where NewsRadio stopped being about a radio station after about six episodes , but it happens all over the place. The writers run low on stories about the job they don’t know (or, in the case of 30 Rock, the job they used to know but don’t have any more). But what they do know is what most of the viewers know: the experience of being in the workplace. So the workplace show incorporates more of the writers’ own experience, generalized so it can fit the experience of the characters, as well as the experience of the average viewer.

Afghanistan: Turning the corner

By Paul Wells - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 11:07 PM - 0 Comments

The newish Canadian military commander in Kandahar promises “massive activities” for the autumn. His predecessor promised something similar for the summer. I was young and naive then, so I bought it, more than I should. Basically we are being given the runaround and have been for some time. Not even really intentionally: it’s not that all those sunshiny briefings were mendacious, it’s just that at every point in this conflict, commanders and civilian governments have preferred to hope for the best. So the title of this post is ironic: Every quarter for nine years it’s been easy enough to find someone who thought the Afghanistan conflict was turning a corner. And of course, if you turn enough corners you eventually realize you’re going around in circles.

Meanwhile what’s actually happening is that it is all getting worse. Violent incidents of all kind in Afghanistan were up by half in August over their level in August 2009, and everyone used to think the elections would make August 2009 the worst thing anyone could imagine. So August of 2010, last month, was half again worse than what everyone thought the worst would be. The Obama White House is trying to figure out how far downward they can redefine success. I have no particular fresh insights into any of this. Probably as a rule of thumb, it’s best to avoid screwing up a war for seven years before you pull your socks up. At some point, pulling up your socks is no longer much help.

News for people who can't read… good

By Andrew Potter - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 9:52 PM - 0 Comments

So Sun Media is all upset with the Liberals because private citizen Ian Davey called it a newspaper chain for people who can’t read. Their editorial responding to his claim is a scream — it’s like it was written by Sarah Palin’s speechwriter the morning after a fruitless night spent trying to get served a drink in the West Village.

Anyway, I ran the weekend editorials from the major papers through the old Flesch-Kincaid analyser, and here’s what we were offered this weekend in the way of high, mid, and lowbrow newspapering:

No Substitute for an Inquiry, The Star: Grade 13

Editorial Autonomy and Financial Acumen, The Globe and Mail: Grade 10

Nine Years Later, a Troubled America, The National Post: Grade 9

Sounding it out at the Ballot Box, (i.e the one responding to Davey), The Toronto Sun: Grade 8

'Black Swan';

By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 8:45 PM - 0 Comments

It’s one of the most anticipated movies at TIFF, and this outrageous psychodrama does not disappoint. Natalie Portman stars as an insecure, self-mutilating prima ballerina who becomes unravelled as she gets her big break—a chance to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan in an adventurous production of Swan Lake. As she struggles to find her dark side, she is trapped between two cruel task masters, a lecherous choreographer (Vincent Cassel) and an overbearing stage mother (Barbara Hershey)—while fearing she’s losing the role to an ambitious understudy (Mila Kunis). The melodrama veers into camp, but that’s part of the fun.  The tone skips from erotic to scary to funny as Darren Aronofsky dances a pas de deux between Polanski and Cronenberg, with shades of All About Eve and The Red Shoes.  The movie has been called a ballet answer to The Wrestler. But though it comes from the same director,  it’s a different genre altogether, if not several. And Portman is brilliant.

Black Swan premieres at TIFF Sept 13 with additional screenings Sept. 14 and 18

'Another Year'

By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 8:43 PM - 0 Comments

Tim Burton’s jury in Cannes didn’t bestow a single honour on Mike Leigh’s latest film, perhaps because the unadorned English realism of this middle-aged, middle-class character piece is scrupulously free of magic, fantasy or surreal whimsy. But while it doesn’t possess the gonzo energy of Lee’s wilder work (such as Naked), Another Year is a mature and modest masterpiece that shows the director at the peak of his powers. The story is about various lost souls who orbit around a happily married and compassionate couple (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen). Chief among them is a lonely single woman (Leslie Manville) with delusions of youth and a knack for venting her depression with manic bouts of chipper rationalization. To quote Pink Floyd, “quiet desperation is the English way,” but throw in a few rapid rounds of alcohol and that despair gets wonderfully talkative. With his note-perfect ensemble, Leigh strikes a lovely balance between dry humour and well-earned pathos.

Another Year premieres at TIFF Sept. 13 with an additional screening Sept. 14

'Of Gods and Men'

By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 8:41 PM - 0 Comments

This is the film a lot of us expected would  win the Palme D’Or in Cannes, rather than the one that did—the eccentric Thai art house darling, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Instead, Xavier Beauvois’ powerful yet understated drama received the runner-up award, misleadingly named Le Grand Prix. Of Gods and Men does not reinvent cinema or push any artistic boundaries. But it’s a heart-rending story beautifully told. The film is based on the true story of seven French monks who were killed by Islamic fundamentalists in 1996 as they clung to their quiet existence in a Cisterian monastery in Algeria. The attack does not come out of the blue; it is the story’s inevitable tragic ending. Whether to stay or leave becomes a matter of debate among the monks as violence escalates outside their walls. The brothers are endearing characters, and as trite as it sounds, you fall in love with these guys, as if they were the seven dwarfs redux. The parallels between Islam and Christianity are there for the taking. Fortunately, however, Beauvois lets the story tell itself without high-handed morals or melodrama. As we enter the monastery and become part of it, this is a movie that offers a paradoxical escape, into a world of grace from which there’s no exit. Expect it to find a place at the Oscars.

Of Gods and Men premieres at TIFF Sept. 13 with an additional screening Sept. 17.

Yes, no, maybe

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 5:36 PM - 0 Comments

March 31, 2009. Geoffrey O’Brian, a CSIS lawyer and advisor on operations and legislation, under questioning by the public safety committee, admitted there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture. He said it would be extremely rare but in a circumstance as grave as the 9/11 attacks or the Air India bombing, the executive branch has a “duty” to protect the security of its citizens, even if such information can “never” be used in a court proceeding.

April 1, 2009. Peter Van Loan said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has been clear about rejecting information extracted through coercion. ”As a practical matter, they get intelligence from all kinds of sources, a myriad of sources. An important part of their process is to try and identify how credible that is,” Van Loan said Wednesday. ”If there’s any indication, any evidence that torture may have been used, that information is discounted.”

April 2, 2009. “I wish to clarify for the committee that CSIS certainly does not condone torture and that it is the policy of CSIS to not knowingly rely upon information that may have been obtained through torture,” Geoffrey O’Brian wrote in a letter to the House of Commons public safety committee Thursday. CSIS Director Jim Judd, who appeared before the committee on Thursday, also said O’Brian “may have been confused” in his earlier remarks. ”My supposition is that he was venturing into a hypothetical.”

Today. CSIS will share information received from an international partner with the police and other authorities “even in the rare and extreme circumstance that we have some doubt as to the manner in which the foreign agency acquired it,” say the notes prepared for use by CSIS director Dick Fadden. The notes say that although such information would never be admissible in court to prosecute someone posing an imminent threat, “the government must nevertheless make use of the information to attempt to disrupt that threat before it materializes.”

Scenes from the 9/11 memorial in New York City

By John Parisella - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 4:51 PM - 0 Comments

Nine years later, the pain and sadness are still in the air. Stopping by Zucotti Park to commemorate the tragedy and listen to the names of the victims being recalled out loud, each with a story, it’s enough to make your heart break. Dignitaries, strangers, heroes of 9/11, and the affected families quietly listen to the litany of names and ponder how this great city lost its innocence, how it suddenly came to feel vulnerable as never before, yet not defeated or broken.

A city and a country that once firmly believed in the values and principles that made them great and the envy of so many has in recent times fallen prey to fear and anxiety. The thwarted attack of the Times Square bomber, the controversy on Park street about the Islamic community center that’s come to be known as the Ground Zero Mosque, and the media hysteria over a lunatic fringe pastor promising to burn copies of the Quran have only revived the pain felt on 9/11.

Continue…

Meet the talented Will Ferrell, Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm and Blake Lively

By Stephanie Findlay - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 4:31 PM - 0 Comments

Blake Lively

I think I’m getting the hang of this TIFF stuff. It’s a steep learning curve. Yesterday, there were a lot of firsts. First interview. First red carpet. And first big stars: Will Ferrell, Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, and Blake Lively. But first, how I got there.

My day began slowly, as it does when you’ve slept only four hours. Around 1 p.m. I got a call from Brian Johnson, Maclean’s film critic, who asked me to do a round table interview with Will Ferrell in about an hour.

Yikes. Here I was, standing on Queen West, in half of my pajamas (a pair of black tights I wore to sleep), no makeup, my breath smells like death and I’m supposed to interview Will Ferrell. I had no time to go home and spruce up, so off I biked to the Intercontinental on Bloor. I arrived just 10 minutes before the interview a sweaty mess. Great.

No matter, I was able to cool off because when you’re dealing with “talent” (aka actors) it seems like you have to wait around a lot. One journalist grumbled about the hotel, saying she wished she was at another one where “the internet is free and it smells better.” First up was the interview with Everything Must Go director Dan Rush,  and then 20 minutes with Will Ferrell, the movie’s star.

Rush was was articulate and kind. It was his first group interview he said. (Mine too, I thought. But I didn’t want him to know that). Will Ferrell very articulate as well, but he was also comfortable—which makes a difference. He had control of the conversation at all times and dictated its direction. Physically, he is very tall and is immaculately groomed, his eyebrows and sideburns especially. Manscaping does wonders. He had a pair of retro ’70s style sunglasses that he rested on the table. I thought he looked expensive.

He was fun to speak with, even in our group of about eight. Not everyone asked questions, but for those that did, Ferrell gave detailed, professional responses. I asked him whether or not his children cared that he worked with another child actor. He said that it’s only been recently that his six-year-old son has deduced that he’s a movie star. (He told that story in much more interesting way than I just described it and the whole table laughed, though just a little bit too loud).

When our 20 minutes were up, I wandered to the second floor of the hotel to rest and find some food. I wandered into a lounge that had popped up on the second floor to get recharged. They were doing hair and makeup, so I figured why not?  Then, I got my hair styled by not just one but two beautiful men. They were on either side of me twisting, teasing and pulling at my hair, while quietly talking back and forth. They were basically finishing each others’ sentences. “Should we do it…”

“Up?”

“And add some wave….”

“I’ll tease it…”

The final product was a high up do that was “rocker chic.” Then I got my makeup done. Hanging out in the film world you sort of get primped and polished just by osmosis because there are so many stylists and makeup artists in the vicinity. I’d come in an ugly duckling and left a not-so-ugly duckling. I went home to eat soup. And I ate it out of the can because I had 20 minutes to get changed and head over to my first red carpet event ever: The Town, starring Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm and Blake Lively. The red carpet was held at Roy Thompson Hall. If you’re media you hang outside in a sort of corral to wait to enter and take your place on the red carpet. It’s very unglamorous. My colleague Tom and I eventually got assigned our spots, and then we waited. As I mentioned before, the talent makes you wait. Forty minutes later I heard blood curdling screams. The talent also makes people go nuts.

We saw Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck’s wife first. She literally ran down the carpet. She was all dolled up and jubilant, but maybe that’s cause she wasn’t talking to anyone. Then there was Chris Cooper. Then I talked with Ben Affleck and Tom talked with Jon Hamm. Affleck is tall, and when you’re crammed on the on the red carpet it’s uncomfortable having someone six foot four just a foot away from you, even if they’re a star. I asked Affleck about interviewing people in prisons for research about his movie. Tom asked Hamm about having a rough start in the industry. Whereas Affleck seemed like he was on autopilot, Hamm genuinely replied that he’s spent more time as a waiter than an actor and said something along the lines of this too shall pass, with respect to his current fame. Oh Hamm, you dreamboat.

Then Blake Lively came down the carpet. I could hear the media in line ahead of us asking about her clothes. I got frustrated by that. Sure, she’s known for her boob-baring, leggy outfits, but she’s gotta be something more than a hot bod and a fresh face. She’s the star of Gossip Girl, one of the most successful shows on television right now, she has many projects in the works, and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour thinks she’s something special. And I haven’t seen a train-wreck photo of her coming wasted out of a club a-la-Lohan on celebrity tabloid gossip sites, which means she’s got her act together. I asked her about playing a woman in a male dominated movie. She responded with something generic about strong women. Obviously the red carpet isn’t the place to discuss serious questions. When she passed the next group a women gasped and cried out “Look at your shoes, how do you walk in them?!”

And then it was over. Celebrity mania is overwhelming. On one square metre of the red carpet you can have so many degrees of influence—the stars, their publicists, reporters, fans, producers, event staff—and everyone subscribes to the structure in the interest of making money, and maybe art, sometimes. But before I started ruminating on that thought, I had to refocus and get to the next party, the OneXOne Haiti fundraiser that Frank McKenna and Matt Damon were promoting during the day, held at the Bisha Hotel & Residences Presentation Centre. I came in just to catch the last couple songs of an intimate performance by John Legend. He was playing some low key songs, which I assume was for the sake of the older, well-heeled crowd. One of the event staff said to me that she thought his performance was a “bit arrogant,” because he kept telling the crowd to keep it down so he could play.

I didn’t stay there long, I wanted to check out another fundraiser at PEARS in Yorkville that director Paul Haggis, James Franco and AnnaLynne McCord (90210) were hosting. But by the time I got there, only Annalynne McCord was left. (Note to self: I need to start showing up on time for these things). I had planned to attempt to crash the Vanity Fair party, but couldn’t bring myself to give it a go, I hated to admit it but I was losing steam.

However, when I got home I was unable to sleep. I blame my TIFF diet: adrenaline, lattes and canned vegetable soup.

An abundance of oil

By Chris Sorensen - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 9:03 AM - 0 Comments

RICHARD LAM/CP

In June 2008 the price of a barrel of oil briefly hit US$145, sparking questions about an impending global shortage. But then the recession hit, demand dropped and prices plummeted to US$30. There’s no question the economic downturn resulted in idled factories and fewer gas-guzzling family summer vacations in the SUV, but it still doesn’t come close to explaining how the price of a barrel can fluctuate by more than US$100 in just a few months, raising the question of how much the precious resource is actually worth in the first place. The answer, says analyst Peter Beutel, the president of energy consultancy Cameron Hanover, is not much more than $10, based on a pure supply and demand calculation.

Beutel offered the lowball estimate during an interview with CNBC last week, arguing the price of oil is generally elevated because it’s treated as an investment—something bought with an eye to making money, not simply a resource to be consumed. “The volatility comes from speculators,” agrees Frank Atkins, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary.

Continue…

Robert Redford and the American military conspiracy

By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 8:59 AM - 0 Comments

Robin Wright Penn stars as Mary Surrat in Robert Redford's 'The Conspirator'

When Cameron Bailey stepped onstage to introduce Robert Redford at the gala premiere of The Conspirator last night, he pointed out that the Sundance founder has his own festival, and that TIFF is the only other festival he’s graced with his presence. (Take that, Cannes!). The last time Redford came to TIFF was 18 years ago, for A River Runs Through It. The director’s new film is a historical drama about the unjust military trial of Mary Surratt, who was convicted as a conspirator in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and became the first woman hanged by the U.S. government. James McAvoy stars as the Frederick Aiken, the novice lawyer who overcomes his skepticism to become her passionate advocate. It soon becomes clear that she’s taking the fall for her son, an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth, who is in hiding. There’s no solid evidence against her, but she’s stripped of her rights and sent to the gallows.

This stagey courtroom drama is a movie on a mission. Redford told the gala audience that he wanted the film to speak for itself, and indeed it does. From the first Abu Graib-like images of hooded prisoners, Redford is clearly saying that this miscarriage of justice was the result of America’s first war on terror. “The world has changed,” says Lincoln’s vengeful secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, who’s played as a smug tyrant by Kevin Kline—I could swear he was channelling Donald Rumsfeld.

Hours of waiting for Danny Boyle’s ’127 Hours’

By Brian D. Johnson - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 7:54 AM - 0 Comments

On Saturday the smooth, slick, unsinkable juggernaut of TIFF ran aground.  It happened, as luck would have it, amid the frenzy of the opening weekend. One of the festival’s most anticipated films was 127 Hours, the new feature from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire). It’s the true story of climber Aron Ralston (James Franco), who spent five harrowing days trapped by a boulder in a Utah slot canyon until he finally extricated himself by amputating his arm. I arrived half an hour early to queue up for the 2:45 pm press and industry screening, because I knew there would be a crush. Then we were told the screening was delayed. No explanation. So we waited, and waited. Finally festival co-director Cameron Bailey showed up to address the impatient mob. I thought, this must be serious. He explained there had been a technical glitch with the subtitling at TIFF’s gala venue, Roy Thompson Hall. Consequently, the audience for the public premiere of Guillaume Canet’s Little White Lies was being moved several blocks uptown from Roy Thompson to the Scotiabank multiplex—into the large cinema where we were waiting for Boyle’s film to be screened. We would have to wait for an HD projector to be installed in a different, smaller cinema. Not all of us would get in. Patience frayed and tempers rose as TIFF’s legion of professional movie-goers saw their carefully mapped-out schedule disintegrate. The festival’s opening weekend has been the most frustrating I can remember in a quarter century of attending TIFF, with too many essential movies front-loaded into the schedule and overlapping. This was the last straw.

Continue…

Not with a bang, but with (an opponent's) whimper

By Paul Wells - Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 1:13 AM - 0 Comments

This excerpt from Tony Blair’s memoirs, quoted in the New Yorker review of that book, stood out for obvious reasons:

So I defined Major as weak; Hague as better at jokes than judgment; Howard as an opportunist; Cameron as a flip-flop, not knowing where he wanted to go. . . . Expressed like that, these attacks seem flat, rather mundane almost, and not exactly inspiring—but that’s their appeal. Any one of those charges, if it comes to be believed, is actually fatal. Yes, it’s not like calling your opponent a liar, or a fraud, or a villain or a hypocrite, but the middle-ground floating voter kind of shrugs their shoulders at those claims. They don’t chime. They’re too over the top, too heavy, and they represent an insult, not an argument. Whereas the lesser charge, because it’s more accurate and precisely because it’s more low-key, can stick. And if it does, that’s that. Because in each case, it means they’re not a good leader. So game over.

Sound familiar? Open discussion in the comments.

'You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger'

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 10:09 PM - 0 Comments

Although Woody Allen rarely achieves the level we feel he’s capable of, even on cruise control he has a knack for throwing wonderful actors into rich, if contrived, situations. You get the sense that every great actor in the world wants to work with him, or to have worked with him. It’s on everybody’s bucket list. And as they line up to do so, some great casting combos get forged. Set in London, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger doesn’t have anything to match the fireworks generated by Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But it’s fun to watch Woody throw such a talented sextet into a game of romantic snakes and ladders: Gemma Jones is in the thrall of a psychic as her Viagra-wired husband (Anthony Hopkins) falls for a trashy young golddigger (Lucy Punch), while Naomi Watts supports a failed novelist (Josh Brolin) who steps out on her with a comely guitarist (Slumdog Millionare’s Freida Pinto).

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger premieres at TIFF Sept. 12 with an additional screening Sept. 19

'The Housemaid'

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 10:06 PM - 0 Comments

I’m not sure what this says about me, but of all the films I saw in Cannes, for me this sexy, elegant and outrageous intrigue from Korea was the most unalloyed pleasure, yet one with enough rigour and intelligence that it could be enjoyed guilt-free.  The Housemaid is an erotic melodrama about an innocent young beauty (Jeon Do-youn) who works as a nanny and maid for a wealthy modern household. The mother who hires her is pregnant, and her blithely entitled husband is a decadent womanizer who takes advantage of his new employee at the first opportunity. The story is a remake of a 50-year-old classic, but it feels relentlessly modern, and the maid has been transformed from femme fatale to avenging angel. To give away more of the plot would be a crime. Let’s just say it takes some breathtaking twists. Im Sang Soo directs this polished tale of class conflict with surgical precision. Scene by scene,  it’s opulent, seductive and exciting. Combine The Housemaid with Poetry, and it’s a hot year for Korean cinema.

The Housemaid premieres at TIFF Sept 12, with additional screenings Sept. 14 and 19

! Women Art Revolution – A Secret History

By Tom Henheffer - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 10:04 PM - 0 Comments

W.A.R. is a film that revels in its own disjointedness. Shot over 40 years by artist/director Lynn Hershman, it takes a machine gun approach to telling the schizophrenic story of the women’s art movement from the ’60s up to today, dissecting its major events through interviews and footage Hershman shot as they unfolded. The film is primarily about the struggle to find recognition in a world where congress debates for hours to prevent the exhibition of art because it contains depictions of vaginas, where 83 per cent of nudes at the Met are female but only three per cent of the art was produced by women, and where infighting constantly tears apart and rebuilds the whole movement. Footage from mavericks like Hannah Wilke, Dr. Lucy Lippard, and the Gorilla Girls—anonymous, costumed vigilantes of the art world who fight against the established elite—combine with shocking statistics and a lot of images of genitalia to make a powerful narrative that holds society accountable for its past prejudices, celebrates how far women have come, and is hopeful about where they have to go.

W.A.R. premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, with additional screenings on September 14 and 19.

'West is West'

By Tom Henheffer - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 9:58 PM - 0 Comments

West is West follows the story of George Khan (Om Puri), a Pakistani immigrant, his stoic but strong British wife, and their children as they struggle with living between two cultures in England and Pakistan in the 1970s. The sequel to 1990’s East is East, the film picks up the narrative as George’s youngest son, Sajid (Aqib Khan), now a teenager and sick of being bullied at school, begins rebelling against his heritage. To teach him a lesson, George plans a trip back to Pakistan, where his first wife and their daughters live. Sajid reluctantly begins to come of age with the help of a wizened older mentor and George, racked with guilt for leaving his family behind for 30 years, decides to extend the trip without telling his British wife. It’s been done before with a different cast and a different culture, but the film’s showcase of the universal way loving, albeit dysfunctional, families deal with their crises makes it compelling, and one climatic scene where George’s first wife forces her British rival to sit down and communicate is so moving and conveys the built up rage, the passion turned despair, and the similarity of the polar-opposite cultures so touchingly  that it brings the whole film to another level.

West is West premieres on September 12, with additional screenings on September 14 and 18

'Trigger'

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 9:19 PM - 0 Comments

Shortly after actress Tracy Wright was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Toronto’s film community swung into action to create a starring role for one of Canada’s most under-appreciated and best-loved actresses. But the result is no act of charity: Trigger is superb. Molly Parker and Wright co-star as Kat and Vic, former rockers who are reunited a dozen years after the breakup of their band Trigger. They’ve gone their separate ways: Kat is the pretentious L.A. showbiz type, Wright the acerbic bohemian. Aside from some cameos, Trigger unfolds as a two-hander, a feast of wall-to-wall dialogue along the lines of My Dinner With Andre. But while it begins in a restaurant, the conversation goes on the move as the women head into the night, to a reunion concert, an after party, a park bench. The dialogue, brilliantly crafted by Daniel McIvor, crackles with recrimination, rivalry, competing addictions and blunt inquiry into the Big Questions. Bruce McDonald, who’s proving to be a master at capturing spontaneous moments (This Movie is Broken) directs with an elegant, unobtrusive eye, as Tracy and Parker deliver a master class in acting via luxurious stretches of unbroken dialogue. Witty, moving and immensely satisfying, Trigger is a real gem, and far better than a movie so quickly slapped together has any right to be. It says a lot about what can be accomplished when filmmaking is fired with urgent devotion to a common purpose.

Trigger premieres at TIFF Sept. 12 with an additional screening Sept. 18

Playboy + Strombo + Coyne = TIFF evening 2

By Stephanie Findlay - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 8:58 PM - 0 Comments

I couldn’t resist, the chance was too great to pass up. I had to check out the Playboy Party. It was held at Muzik, a huge Miami-style club at Exhibition Place. At 41, 000 square-feet, the club can hold a capacity of 3,000 people and there are nine bars. After flying solo last night and feeling like a loner, I decided to bring a friend. So around 11 pm my pal Vic and I set off to the event. When we arrived there was already a frenzy of cabs at the entrance, all of which was red carpet. There were a group of scantily clad women who were wearing fur coats that welcomed you at the door. Inside there were other groups of scantily dressed women, sans fur coats, in Playboy uniform sporting bunny tails, ears, corsets, and nylon stockings with black heels.

After getting into the party, we walked through a huge red cavernous hall before getting to the main bar in the middle of the club. There were Playboy bunnies everywhere. Four were dancing on the bar, others were posing in groups, still others were mingling with the crowd. The energy was high and the music was pumping. There were some serious Jersey-shore types. You could just sense the fist pumping in the air. Big Boi was dj-ing, he was at the booth dressed in a white tux. He was texting on his phone. Oddly enough, he was playing a generic mix of top 40, Katy Perry and even some Journey thrown in. Was this really the mastermind from Outkast?

Continue…

When ministers of the crown tweet

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Whatever the result of his last adventure in this regard, Industry Minister Tony Clement endeavours once more to engage the Internet.

dgardner David Frum takes “impartial” stock of the war on terror and concludes … he was right about pretty much everything. http://bit.ly/91kut9

TonyClement_MP @dgardner David Frum’s analysis seems spot on to me. Level-headed for someone under attack 9yrs ago today. Why so snarky?

dgardner @TonyClement_MP : I agree with some of it. What bugs me is seeing someone use his abundant intelligence to rationalize away any ...

Continue…

'Never Let Me Go'

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 9:27 AM - 0 Comments

Here is an exotic hybrid. We’ve got Alex Garland, the writer of The Beach, adapting a celebrated dystopian novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. I haven’t read the Ishiguro novel, but those who have are a bit shocked to see that the story’s horrifying premise, which remains mysterious for much of the book, is explained at the end of the first act. I suppose that makes it fair game for plot summaries, but I’m not going to do that here.  Let’s just say that the story is set in England, and concerns a love triangle among three former school mates (Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield) who acquiesce to a grim and pre-ordained destiny. The three leads are superb. Mulligan is not a suprise, but who knew Knightley was such an interesting actress. Garfield is the next Spider-Man, but here he shows he might be overqualified. This is science fiction that plays as pure realism, without techno gimmickry, and barely any explanation. Director Mark Romanek conjures visions of mortality via elegiac images of England’s cozy landscape and its haunting architecture. The film unfolds as a delicate mood piece, and Romanek sustains the tone of melancholy beauty with remarkable control. This is a film you don’t watch so much as inhabit.

Never Let Me Go premieres at TIFF Sept. 11 with additional screenings Sept. 13 and 18.