The Screening Room

Down in the Valley: Tommy Lee Jones searches for clues this Friday (Warner Independent Pictures)

The timing of said addiction works out well, since the rush of post-Toronto releases requires some research. For instance, one of my favorite Toronto films, the Iraq-at-home drama In the Valley of Elah, opens this Friday. Many of the themes remind of the Vietnam war-at-home film Coming Home, which I hadn't seen in ages - until last night. (Verdict: still powerful, but thinner than it was in the context of its times).

The best is when one film can help shed light on two others. Both I'm Not There, the much-discussed Bob Dylan exploration, and The Assassination of Jesse James, a most revisionist of Westerns, got me thinking about Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (which, I must admit, I had never seen - until last night). Verdict: Dylan isn't much of an actor - no surprise there - but James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson more than make up for it, the "end of the frontier" theme is powerfully expressed, and the Dylan songs on the soundtrack work well. (Richard Gere plays a Billy-like character in I'm Not There).

So: Will I kick my addiction any time soon? I hope not. Seems to be good for business.

My fave from Toronto: Persepolis (Sony Pictures Classics)

But you don't want to know about my drool (seek help if you do). You want to know what I saw and what I liked. So here's my Fave Five (out of about 30 films viewed), including dates (if available) when you might be able to see this stuff in Dallas.

1. Persepolis - Sharp humor and wistful remembrance make a profoundly moving combination in this animated film about a girl growing up in Tehran during scary times. Adapted by Marjane Satrapi from her own graphic novels, it strikes the perfect tone in exploring the meaning of home. It should open here by the end of the year or the beginning of 2008.

2. My Kid Could Paint That - Amir Bar-Lev's doc does a remarkable thing in exploring the media sensation and controversy surrounding a four-year-old modern art prodigy. It also explores the documentary filmmaker's culpability in abetting said sensation and controversy. Beguiling and troubling. Scheduled to open Oct. 19.

3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - Not a revisionist Western so much as an interrogation of the very genre, Assassination is a long, lyrical and proudly eccentric story of looming doom, bruised ego and the process of legend on the frontier. Wash it down with a couple of Deadwood episodes. Scheduled to open Oct. 5.

4. (Tie) Margot at the Wedding and The Savages - Two scathingly dark comedies about families mired in resentment. Margot rides the ruthless wit of writer/director Noah Baumbach; Savages features Laura Linney's best work to date. Both will make you feel better about you own screwed-up families. Margot is scheduled to open Nov. 16; The Savages Dec. 26.

5. I'm Not There - Todd Haynes does a fiendishly logical thing with the shape-shifting Bob Dylan: He splits the mercurial one into multiple characters, including a folkie played by Christian Bale, a frontiersman played by Richard Gere, and, most spectacularly, a tired superstar played by Cate Blanchett. It's consistently weird and it gets better with each passing day. Scheduled to open Nov. 21.

And some other favorites: In the Valley of Elah (Sept. 21), Control (Nov. 2), Into the Wild (Sept. 28), Lust, Caution (Oct. 5), Rendition (Oct. 19) and Alexandra (TBA).

And if you have any questions about these or other Toronto fare, don't be shy.

Woody Allen is all over the local papers this morning, having given a press conference Wednesday for for his new noncomedy Cassandra's Dream. If you think his recent output has been a bit lazy he's not about to disagree. The photo caption in the Globe and Mail reads "Woody Allen: I could do better work if I was more conscientous, but I'm not a perfectionist." He says he'd rather watch the Knicks than make a great film, which says quite a bit given the Knicks' recent fortunes. The film is about a pair of brothers, played by Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, who conspire to commit murder to solve their cash problems. Just call it Crimes and Match Point Misdemeanors.

In the cab to the airport in Toronto, and I must say I'll miss it (Toronto, not the airport). Then again, as travellers are wont to say, I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. I'll fire off some final posts on Friday. And check out our look at the festival's finest performances in Sunday's Guide Live section. Yes, that's a tease. Over and out.

You should always use a big festival to check out at least one film you probably won't be able to see anywhere else. I think I just accomplished that with Those Three, an Iranian film about three AWOL soldiers slogging desperately through a brutal snow storm. You could call it slow. Or you could call it a study of existential wandering. In any case I'm glad I saw it. I'm now sititing at a pub/restaurant waiting to munch on some fish and chips, listening to a vocal section shout at a soccer game between Albania and Holland. I miss football (the American kind
That is). Food is here. Over and out.

About to watch Alexandra, a big-buzz Cannes film about a Russian grandmother visiting her grandson on the warfront in Chechnya. A guy at the pub I was at just asked for change for a dollar - and he demanded that the coins have "no marks or sevens" on them. Must be OCD.

I'm out of Trumbo and now waiting for Stuck to start. Trumbo was a solid look at perhaps the most famous member of the Hollywood Ten, the 10 "unfriendly witnesses" who refused to testify before the House Unamerican Activities Committee during HUAC's investigation into Communist influence in Hollywood. Dalton Trumbo was a salty dog who penned some remarkable letters, read in the film by the likes of Liam Neeson, Joan Allen and Nathan Lane, who brings down the house with his reading of a jailhouse letter from Trumbo to his son about the glories of masturbation. Trumbo served a year for contempt of Congress; he got his big post-blacklist break when Kirk Douglas brought him onboard Spartacus, for which he received an official screenwriting credit. This is a dark and fascinating period of Hollywood history that's well worth studying.

Just saw I'm Not There, the experimental Bob Dylan flick in which many actors play Dylan (including the great Cate Blanchett, who won best actress at Venice). Weird but compelling with lots of Dylan cuts on the soundtrack. Director Todd Haynes told me he was shocked to get the rights. Now I'm sitting in the theater waiting for the start of Trumbo, the doc about blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Tonight it's Stuck, based on the true story of the guy who got left on a drugged-out Forth Worth nurse's windshield. Look for a report on that in Wednesday's paper. Over and out.

So I didn't stay for the entire festival, but I was able to see 11 movies (if you count the ones playing at the festival that I was able to see in advance), and overall, I really liked what I saw. Here's a quick rundown of my highlights:
Best movie: Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Though it is only September, I will go ahead and install this one as the early, early fave for Best Picture. It has everything Oscar voters look for: a sweeping, historical epic with outstanding performances from its two leads (Cate Blanchett and Clive Owen). Over the course of the movie, Elizabeth goes from boredom to vengeful, distraught and inspiring, and Blanchett is a wonder to behold as she takes her character on that emotional journey.
Most uneven movie: Across the Universe. I went in to this one expecting it to be up and down and my expectations were met. Like a lot of musicals, the highs are really high. But at times the songs -- all from The Beatles -- just seemed kind forced into the plot. And after a while, the cutesy references to the Fab 4 (a character named Prudence comes in through the bathroom window. ugh) get a little thick. But whenever the character named Sadie (Dana Fuchs) belts out a song, hold on, baby.
Most Pleasant Surprise: Starting Out in the Evening. I saw this one on a whim and was very glad that I did. It's the epitome of a small movie, a sort of Venus in reverse. Here, a younger female grad student (Lauren Ambrose) pursues a veteran novelist (the great Frank Langella), who she wants to write her masters thesis on. Once they get to know each other, the dynamics of their relationship are constantly in flux. Watch out for Langella come awards season.
Best Movie Few People Will See: Lust, Caution. Strike 1: It's 2 hours and 40 minutes long. Strike 2: It's in Chinese. Strike 3: It's NC-17. That will equal an automatic out for most people, and that will be a shame. This espionage tale set in World War II era China is all about what's going on under the surface with the characters. And it also sports a pair of top-flight leads in Tony Leung and Wei Tang.

"Would you like a berry?" Keira Knightley asked me this morning as I sat down to interview her about her film Atonement in her room at the Park Hyatt Hotel. She was munching on a cup of mixed berries as a make-shift breakfast as our session started at about 10.
"I suppose it would be more exciting if I had chocolate to offer," she said.
And it was that kind of interview. Some actors launch into a sort of prerehearsed discussion about the movie, and some prefer to just sort of shoot the breeze for a while. And Knightley falls into the second category.
After about a 20 minute chat I was done with my questions, so we started in on the berries again. I made the comment that I always liked blackberries but they always get stuck in my teeth.
"I have gappy teeth, so that's not really a problem for me," she said.
I smiled to show her I too have some serious gaps in the front and she was nice enough to say that my teeth were, in fact, good.
"Straight teeth are [expletive]," she said, throwing around the sort of casual swearing that makes British people endearing. "My dentist asked me once if I wanted braces and I said [expletive] no! You've got to have teeth with character."
So now I suppose when I look at my gappy teeth in the mirror, I'll just remember that I've got choppers with character. Thanks, Keira.

The most moving viewing experience I've had here so far was Persepolis, a remarkable animated film by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, based on the graphic novel by Satrapi. Satrapi grew up in Tehran, experiencing the Islamic revolution and the Iran/Iraq war before her parents shipped her to the safety of Vienna. This is a memoir of cultural displacement, but it's filled with warm, biting humor and razor-sharp observations, all filtered through a lens of personal remembrance. Marjane gradually comes to realize Iran is not an idea place for a woman to live, and yet it is home, and home has an emotional pull that always defies logic. The images are rendered in fanciful, pliable flourishes of blacks and whites that create long shadows and expressionistic silhouettes. It is wistful, dark, and marvelously human. I liked it so much a I started a mini ovation at the press screening (for my thoughts on applause at movies, check out the arts department's applause package that ran in Sunday's paper).

So my esteemed editor Stephen Becker spots a card for some place called Lone Star Texas Grill. It claims to be "Canada's Only Authentic Texas Restaurant." This sounds intriguing, and they must certainly be showing the Cowboys game. So we head over to the lone Toronto location to test the authenticity claim.

The verdict: not horrible, but nothing to make Mi Cocina worry. My margarita tasted kind of like a Slurpee, though it got better when I squeezed in some lime juice (I miss you, Gloria's). The queso - which was free with the presentation of the above-mentioned card - had a processed taste to it. The chicken and ribs combo was adequate, if a bit on the salty side. I will let Becker comment on his chicken tacos, though the early report was they were kinda dry.

So how did there come to be a Lone Star Texas Grill deep in the heart of Canada? It seems a former Ottawa Rough Riders football player from Texas started missing his native cuisine. He started the place in 1986, and it slowly blossomed into a chain.

Oh yeah: The Cowboys game was on, but not the audio. That was reserved for a hockey game between Canada and Russia. No Dorothy, we're not in Texas anymore.

We'll always have Venice: Tony Leung and Tang Wei experience lust and caution (Focus Features)

Two years ago, Lee flew from the Venice Film Festival to Toronto, got to his hotel, and was immediately told to head back to Venice to accept that festival's top prize, the Golden Lion, for Brokeback Mountain.

This year? Same song, different verse. Once again he flew to Toronto from Venice. This time, he had time to walk the red carpet for the Friday night premiere of Lust, Caution before jumping on a plane and jetting back overseas for his second Lion in three years.

"That would be a foolish thing to do," said the ever-humble Lee when asked Monday morning if he considered just hanging out a little longer in Italy. "What if I didn't win anything?"

Then again, he must be learning to like his odds. Like Brokeback, Lust, Caution is a story of forbidden love, this time set in Shanghai and Hong Kong during World War II. A young acting student (Tang Wei) is assigned to assassinate a Japanese collaborator (Tony Leung). Their mutual self-loathing leads to a passionate love affair that earned the film an NC-17 rating.

But the film's cloak-and-dagger plot is nothing compared to the spinning that occurred for the press on Saturday, when Lee was slated to do interviews in Toronto. "Ang is under the weather," explained a publicist for the film's distributor, Focus Features. When I interviewed Leung, he assured me it was nothing serious. Now we know he had merely come down with case of "Gotta hop a plane to Venice to get another award," the news of which had not yet been officially announced. Hence, the sickness story.

In any case, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy: Lee is the rare great artist whose ego is dwarfed by his talent. We'll have more on Lust, Caution closer to its opening date of Oct. 5.

So there's this very chic little club I walk by every year and wonder who gets invited in (Mr. Dallas would dig it). This year I happened to score an invite for a party celebrating The Jane Austen Book Club (coming soon to a theater near you). So I sit as I blog, sipping a Pride and Prejudice - tequllia, Triple Sec, lime juice and cranberry juice - one of a handful of Austen-themed drinks at this suare. Just call me Darcy. Cast members, including Jimmy Smits, are said to be on the way.

You can't swing a dead cat here without hitting a famous face, and the weekend has been prime time for celeb watching. Without really trying, so far I've crossed paths with:
Juliette Binoche, who was exiting the Hotel Intercontinental into a waiting car. Big crowds often gather on the sidewalk outside the hotel since it is a well-known home for celebs during the festival. I happened to be walking back to my (less fancy) hotel when Ms. Binoche swiftly passed through the crowd into her ride.
Jim Broadbent and Jimmy Smits at a cocktail party sponsored by a couple of smaller movies. The Oscar-winning Mr. Broadbent stars in When Did You Last See Your Father while Mr. Smits is featured in The Jane Austen Book Club. Speaking of which, I had a very nice conversation with Jane director Robin Swicord at the party. While Jane is Ms. Swicord's directorial debut, she wrote the screenplay for Memoirs of a Geisha and Little Women.
Woody Harrleson in the lobby of the Four Seasons. He's in town to promote The Walker, a film he did with Lauren Bacall. The Four Seasons serves as the other big gawker hangout, and last night the crowd seemed to be whipped up into a frenzy as I was passing the hotel on the way to a party hosted by AFI Dallas. I figured it was probably Brad Pitt leaving to attend the premiere of his film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. So I wasn't too interested in catching a glance as I had already listened to him talk for almost an hour at a press conference earlier in the day. What I didn't learn until I picked up the paper this morning was that this time he had Angelina on his arm.

The only applause I have heard inside a theater here has been before the movie has actually started. Like all festivals, Toronto shows a few ads preceeding the feature, but the festival also gives a shout out to its volunteers in a short spot, which has routinely received applause from the audience.
And rightfully so.
Everywhere you turn at the venues, you see the orange-shirt-clad volunteers scurrying about, and each that I have come in contact with has been eager to please. To call it a small army would be an understatement -- the estimated 4,000 workers make up a fairly large army. And it's because of them that the festival is so well organized.

The last decade has seen head-to-head asteroid movies, head-to-head volcano movies, even head-to-head Truman Capote movies. But this year's festival presents the unlikely phenomenon of dual Joy Division movies.

They aren't competing exactly: one, Joy Division, is a doc in which the director of the other, famed rock photographer Anton Corbijn, appears as a talking head. And Mr. Corbijn insists his film, Control, isn't really about the influential Manchester post-punk band but rather the lead singer/songwriter, Ian Curtis, who hung himself in 1980 at the age of 23.

But it's still a striking confluence that speaks to the long shadow the band casts over artists ranging from the band that rose from Joy Division's ashes, New Order, to more recent inward-looking pop acts like Arcade Fire and Interpol.

"Their music was era-defining, but it wasn't tied down to that era at all," says Mr. Corbijn, who first shot photos of the band in 1979. "It's very modern, and it's about things that matter. It has depth to it. It's simple, great, strong rock music."

Control, whose black-and-white look accentuates the bleak industrial atmosphere of Manchester, is guided by the haunting lead performance of newcomer Sam Riley. He acquits himself well in performing songs including "She's Lost Control" and "Digital." But he also has the deeply expressive eyes, the impulsive onstage body language and the burdensome sense of doom. Curtis suffered from epilepsy, for which he took a potent cocktail of drugs, and he had the soul of a Romantic poet, with one eye firmly set on death. It's doubtful he foresaw a day when his life and music would be featured in two films. But that's one of the best things about art. It outlives us all.

Wild things: Sean Penn directs Emile Hirsch (Paramount Vantage)

Intimidating? Sure, a little. But he mostly came off as a guy who doesn't suffer fools or make compromises. Leaning back in a plush chair, deferring frequently to Hirsch, he was even kind of courteous. The film is based on Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book about recent college grad Christopher McCandless. Christopher jumps off the grid and roughs it across America before reaching the solitude of remote Alaska. His adventures suggest that sometimes you need to find yourself before you can keep living among others.

So was Christopher disappointed in humanity? No, says Penn, before offering this half-joking observation about himself: "I have a great love for humankind. It's humans that get to me. I feel it out there on the street, at the film festival," he says, motioning out the window of the hotel room. You get the feeling he doesn't mind people as much as the celeb factory that turns people into false idols (and the autograph-seeking idolaters that feed the machine).

Into the Wild is slated to open in Dallas Sept. 28.

It stands to figure that you spend a lot of time in movie theaters at a major film festival. But just because the festival is top-shelf doesn't mean the venues are all exotic or fancy. (I've never been to Cannes, but my mind's eye always picture the theaters there being deluxe. Yet I'm sure this isn't the case).

So for the venue-curious, here's a brief rundown of a few major festival theaters up here in Toronto.

Varsity Cinemas - An uptown multiplex housed in a mall, but it's a pretty nice multiplex, and a pretty nice mall. Comfy seats, good sound and sightlines. The mall, the Manulife Centre, has plenty of good eats that you can bring into the theater (at least during the festival). Long lines, like the one this morning for No Country for Old Men, can snake down multiple corridors and into the street.

The Elgin - Straight-up class. This is a massive downtown movie palace - think Dallas' Majestic - with a spacious balcony and history you can feel. By far my favorite venue here.

Cumberland Cinemas - Surrounded by uptown bars and restaurants, which is always nice. The design is extremely vertical, which can make for lots of stair/escalator climbing, and the seats aren't all that welcoming. The air conditioning could use some work: Thursday night's press screening of Lust, Caution was sweltering, not good for a 160-minute film that starts at 9:45 p.m.

A post script: festival HQ will be moving into a ginormous downtown development by 2010. This may shift the hub of the action from uptown, which is more of a shopping district, to downtown, which has more clubs and such.

A side note to the Rendition press conference: Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal sat at least 10 feet apart. When it was all over, she exited stage left, while he lingered until she was out of site before heading backstage. When you stay out of photos together, it makes it easier to keep any romantic gossip at bay.

I'll cut straight to what the masses want to know about this afternoon's press conference for Rendition:
Reese Witherspoon looked impeccable in a knee-length navy dress, and Jake Gyllenhaal is quite possibly the prettiest man I've ever seen.
And they even answered questions. Sometimes begrudgingly.
When a reporter asked the American actors on the panel -- Witherspoon, Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard -- about the practice of "extreme rendition," in which the government basically has the right to kidnap someone and hold them for questioning without charging them, a game of hot potato ensued.
Gyllenhaal: "I'll let you field that one, Reese."
Witherspoon: "I've suddenly come down with a cold." (cough, cough)
It's a sticky position for the actors to be in: They make a politically charged movie, and when they are asked about their personal beliefs, sometimes they feel as if they need to watch what they say so as to not turn anyone off from going to see it.
In their defense, they eventually each gave reasoned, if not slightly dodging, answers. But it seems the only answer anyone should really need is this: they did the film, and the film certainly falls on one side of the argument (though it goes out of its way to be accessible to the other side, casting no less than Meryl Streep as the voice in favor of the practice). Had they had a problem with the film's politics, you can bet that none of them would have had difficulty finding another movie to make.

The crowds at press/industry screenings here are usually well trained, but all it takes is one idiot to spoil a movie. This morning, the same idiot spoiled two screenings. Crime No. 1: In a tense moment of the superb Rendition, a cell phone rings. And rings. And rings. Crowd commences indignant shouts of protest. Idiot finally recognizes idiocy (or the call went to voicemail).

Crime No. 2: In a quiet moment of No Country for Old Men, the exact same rings goes off. And keeps ringing. And ringing. I wanted Javier Bardem to reach through the screen and open fire.

Note to idiot: Do your business elsewhere. Some of us came here to watch movies.

OK, so the MPAA probably got this one right. Ang Lee's Lust, Caution proudly let its NC-17 flag fly at its debut screening Thursday night at the festival, proving once again that sex and violence are not equal in the eyes of the ratings board. And Lust, Caution has plenty of the former. The MPAA said when handing down the NC-17 rating that it was partially do to a number of "non-traditional" sexual positions, and it's pretty aggressive stuff at that.
Which is not to say it's gratutous.
Ang Lee shows you can learn a lot about a relationship by watching how a couple couples, a theme that also runs through the graphic but telling Tell Me You Love Me, which debuts Sunday on HBO.
Now that that is out of the way, I can also report that it's a very well-made movie, and surprisingly taut for its 157 min. running time. Set in Japanese-occupied China, it follows a group of college students who decide it is there duty to aid in the resistance movement. They target a Chinese traitor, Mr. Yee, (Tony Leung) who is aiding the Japanese and making a fortune doing it. When the group discovers that Yee has an affinity for one of the women in their number, she's thrust into the position of having to form a relationship with the man she intends to kill. And after spending a whole lot of quality time with him, things begin to get messy.
Will American audiences head out to see a nearly three-hour long NC-17 movie performed in Chinese? Probably not. But the ones who do will be happy they did.

The big film tonight is the press screening of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. It's already received a sizeable amount of buzz for earning an NC-17 from the good ol' MPAA, so it's sure to be a hot ticket. This year the festival has marked some press screenings as "Priority Press," meaning that there is now different levels of accredidation like there is at the Cannes Film Festival. But guess whose press pass is stamped with a coveted black "P." That's right, mine. So no worries -- getting into the hottest of screenings shouldn't be a problem, meaning The Screening Room has got you covered, dear reader.
The screening will likely run past deadline for the paper, but be sure to check back here Friday morning for our take on Lee's follow-up to the film that scored him a directing Oscar, Brokeback Mountain.