oscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz) (08/20/83)
For those of you who can afford the time off and a trip to Toron-
to, the 8th annual Festival of Festivals is coming up real soon
(Sept 9 to 17). This will be the third time that I've bought a
pass to totally burn out on movies for a week (up to 4 or 5 films
a day). I have found the festival to be *very* worthwhile, and I
recommend it to anyone who is able to attend.
A full pass is $95 (Can), $70 for students and seniors. The
Video series is $30. Single tickets are $3 and $4 (daytime &
evening). (There are also Gala passes @ $50, but these are gen-
erally a waste of time, since you can see the same movies without
the "stars" after the gala.) This year you can also get 6 admis-
sions for $20, useful for those who don't want to go the whole
hog. Write to:
Festival of Festivals
69 Yorkville Suite 205
Toronto
M5R 1B8
In the past years I have been able to see many unusual films that
have never been picked up for general distribution in North Amer-
ica. Even in Toronto where there is a fine selection of films to
choose from on almost any night of the week, you will never see a
movie that simply isn't available. Some of the highlights:
GALAS:
"Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence", dir. Nagisa Oshima ("In the Realm
of the Senses"): David Bowie & Ryuichi Sakamoto in a POW camp in
Indonesia during WWII.
"Vertigo": re-release of the 1958 Hitchcock classic.
"La Lune Dans le Caniveau", dir J-J Beineix, with Gerard Depar-
dieu: from the director of "Diva" (!).
"Carmen", dir Carlos Saura.
DOCUMENTARIES
"Volcano: An inquiry into the life and death of Malcolm Lowry",
dir Don Brittain.
"Chicken Ranch", dir Nicholas Broomfield: about a legalized
brothel in Nevada.
"God's Angry Man", dir Werner Herzog: about California TV preach-
er W. Eugene Scott.
"Filmmaker: A Diary by George Lucas", dir Lucas: about the making
of Coppola's "The Rain People" (1968).
CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA:
"Der Stand der Dinge", dir Wim Wenders: winner of the 1982 Venice
Film Festival Golden Lion; from the director of "The American
Friend".
"Angelo, My Love", dir Robert Duvall: (I didn't know Duvall was
directing!) About a gypsy boy...
"The Eyes, the Mouth", dir Marco Bellochio.
"De Vierde Man", dir Paul Verhoeven: New Dutch Cinema.
SCIENCE FICTION REVISITED
A retrospective (organized) by David Cronenberg, including: "The
Bed Sitting Room" (Richard Lester), "Duel" (Spielberg), "The
Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me but Your Teeth are in my
Neck" (Roman Polanski), "Hour of the Wolf" (Bergman), "On the
Beach" (Stanley Kramer) and "L'Age D'Or" (Bunuel). (and *lots*
more!)
There is also a BURIED TREASURES series and a VIDEO series. You
may be able to get the (free) Sneak Preview schedule (where I got
this info from) by simply writing the address above.
I highly recommend this film festival as an excellent way to ruin
your health. Do it now!
Oscar Nierstrasz @ utzoo!utcsrgvoscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz) (09/23/84)
Here's a bunch of capsule summaries of the films I saw at this year's Toronto Festival of Festivals : Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch, Jim; USA; 1984; 95m) Decidedly strange. Very funny series of blackout sketches involving a slimy low-life who reluctantly puts up his visiting cousin for a few days. In black & white, and shot entirely in long takes with no cutting. This one won't get much distribution, so see it if you can. De Witte Waan (Ditvoorst, Adriaan; Netherlands; 1984; 100m) Lazlo, a heroin addict and a mediocre painter, comes to help his mother after she has had an auto accident. Lots of beautiful photography and good acting can't rescue this basically silly and empty movie. Surrealist claptrap masquerades for social commentary. Dumb. Mickey One (Penn, Arthur; USA; 1965; 93m) An early Warren Beatty film. Unusual study in paranoia. Beatty is a comic who believes the mob is after him. He leaves town and changes his name and identity. Endless digressions make the whole thing fall apart, however. Courage of Others, The (Richard, Christian; Upper Volta; 1982; 92m) A Christ-like figure helps an oppressed tribe that has been captured for the slave-trade. Fascinating, though there isn't a word of dialogue. Where the Green Ants Dream (Herzog, Werner; West Germany; 1984; 101m) Myth-meister Werner Herzog has set this film in Australia where a tribe of aborigines tries to prevent a mining company from blasting and developing a sacred region. Definitely not Herzog's best film. Rather short on good ideas. Old Enough (Silver, Marsia; USA; 1984; 91m) Excellent film on two young girls growing up, if you like that sort of thing. I don't. Boy Meets Girl (Carax, Leos; France; 1984; 105m) Off-beat movie about a morose young man whose girl-friend has left him. Black humour galore. A bit too long, and too much of a build-up for a rather pretentious ending, but worth seeing nonetheless for a great deal of highly original material. Blood Simple (Cohen, Joel; USA; 1984; 97m) Bizarre and totally enthralling film about murder gone wrong. A wife leaves her jealous husband. He hires a hit man to murder her. Then things get interesting ... This film will undoubtedly be released theatrically, so keep an eye out for it. Burroughs (Brookner, Howard; USA; 1983; 86m) A documentary on writer William Burroughs. Memed My Hawk (Ustinov, Peter; GB; 1983; 105m) This is *horrible*! I am bewildered at how Ustinov ever got a reputation as a film director. Self-indulgent is the only way to describe this film. (To tell the truth, I only lasted ten minutes, but I think I could easily predict the last hour of the film.) Three Crowns of the Sailor, The (Ruiz, Raul; France; 1983; 117m) Beautiful to watch, but utterly opaque. Something to do with a sailor who had to find three Danish crowns to pay back his captain. Lots of strange surrealistic nonsense. It's probably best to watch this one on drugs, since you're not going to be able to follow the story-line. Banana Cop (Leong, Po-Chick; Hong Kong; 1984; 90m) Great trash from Hong Kong. A police inspector from Hong Kong brings a dangerous (but loveable) criminal to London to help him solve a murder. Everything imagineable crammed into ninety minutes. Brother from Another Planet, The (Sayles, John; USA; 1984; 104m) Not to be missed! A black alien crashes just off New York city and finds his way into Harlem. He cannot speak, but his strange power to fix things helps him make friends. Meantime, two white aliens are searching for him, apparently wanting to do nasty things to him. Some great satire. Season in Hakkari, A (Kiral, Erden; Turkey/West Germany; 1983; 111m) Oh no! Not *another* Turkish pseudo-documentary about sheep-herders in the mountains. more ...
oscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz) (09/23/84)
(more capsule summaries ...) Notre Histoire (Blier, Bertrand; France; 1984; 111m) Entertaining, but overlong comedy about a man who meets his ideal woman. Lots of boxes within boxes, dreams within dreams and fantasies within fantasies. (Nathalie Baye is gorgeous as ever.) Funny Dirty Little War (Olivera, Hector; Argentina; 1983; 80m) A satire about a mini-revolution staged in a small town in Argentina. The movie vacillates between slapstick and serious commentary. Though North Americans will probably have trouble catching all the references, its message is clear. At the same time, the film has the virtue of not lecturing us. Voyage, Le (Andrieu, Michel; France; 1984; 100m) More nihilist fantasies from directors with nothing to say. A drug-pusher is blackmailed into smuggling explosives into Egypt. His girlfriend accompanies him, without knowing at first the real reason for the trip. Though the whole affair is shrouded with vagueness and mystery, the film's ending is as inevitable as it is pointless. Outback (Kotcheff, Ted; Australia; 1970; 105m) A school-teacher in Australia's outback gets stranded in a small town when he loses his savings in a gambling game. From there, things go downhill. A downer, but a fabulously well-made (and virtually unknown) film. Donald Pleasance plays an alcoholic doctor who befriends the school-teacher. Skip Tracer (Dalen, Zale R.; Canada; 1977; 94m) A character study of a `repo man' for a loan company. Despite the film's incredibly low budget (it looks like it was shot in Super 8), the lead's acting is strong enough to make this movie interesting from start to finish. Shot in Vancouver. Full Moon in Paris (Rohmer, Eric; France; 1984; 100m) Another talkerama from Eric Rohmer (My Night at Maude's, Claire's Knee, Pauline at the Beach). In this film, Louise tries to make the best of an unsatisfactory relationship by taking a second apartment in Paris, in addition to the one in the suburbs she shares with her boyfriend. All the usual twists and turns of a Rohmer film. Next of Kin (Egoyan, Atom; Canada; 1984; 72m) An interesting low-budget film about a young man living with his middle-class parents, who decides to `adopt' a new family. He stumbles across an Armenian family who had given up their son for adoption when they arrived in Canada many years before. He returns as their `long-lost son' ... Not as bizarre as one might expect from a plot summary, but interesting throughout nonetheless. Maudite Galette, La (Arcand, Denys; Canada; 1972; 100m) Off-beat thriller in which there are no good guys, and all the bad guys get killed. Illusionist, The (Stelling, Jos; Netherlands; 1983; 90m) Truly inspired nonsense from Holland. A ``silent'' movie without a word of dialogue. The hero (and script-writer) is a thick-glassed overgrown boy who lives with his twin brother and his parents in a wind-mill. The hero sees a magic show and wants to become a magician. Everything happens, and then some. An extended Salvador Dali dream-sequence. Places in the Heart (Benton, Robert; USA; 1984; 111m) Great schlock from Hollywood. Sally Fields is a gutsy woman who has to make it on her own after her husband dies. (This one was voted most popular film of the Festival.) Man Without Memory (Gloor, Kurt; Switzerland; 1984; 90m) One day in Switzerland the police find a man without any identification sitting outside a car park. He says nothing. After drawing a blank card, they turn him over to a psychiatric institution for ``assessment''. (Some superficial similarities to ``Knife in the Head''.) Fascinating. Improper Conduct (Almendros, Nestor; France; 1984; 115m) Documentary about the maltreatment of intellectuals, homosexuals and other ``misfits'' in Cuba. Voro Nova (Rijneke, Dick; Netherlands; 1984; 100m) Tedious plotless droning. Salome (Guillen, Laurice; Philippines; 1981; 105m) Campy melodrama about an unfaithful wife who murders a ``rapist''. Rashomon-like retelling of the murder gets ridiculous after two or three times. more ...
oscar@utcsrgv.UUCP (Oscar M. Nierstrasz) (09/24/84)
(the last batch of capsule summmaries ...) Room 666 (Wenders, Wim; France/West Germany; 1983; 60m) Wim Wenders gets his Famous Friends to sit in a hotel room during the 1982 Cannes film festival and tell whether they think television is ruining the future of cinema. Includes Godard, Fassbinder, Spielberg, Herzog etc etc. Notes from Under the Volcano (Conklin, Gary; USA; 1984; 56m) Okay documentary on the making of Under the Volcano. No great revelations. Flight to Berlin (Petit, Christopher; GB/West Germany; 1984; 91m) Excellent film about a British woman who goes to Berlin to pay a visit to her half-sister after the London police want to question her about a murder she may or may not be involved in. Things are not all well in Berlin either, however ... Wildrose (Hanson, John; USA; 1984; 95m) Set in a mining town in northern (Minnesota?). Interesting story about a young woman who works in the mines. Somewhat similar to ``Independence Day''. Made by the director of ``Northern Lights''. Fraulein Berlin (Lambert, Lothar; West Germany; 1983; 90m) Ulrike S., porno film star of ``Monster Woman'', is sent by her director to the Toronto Festival of Festivals to present a screening of the film, only to find it has been cancelled by the Ontario Board of Censors. She tries to mingles with the likes of Norman Jewison and and John Cassavettes, to no avail. She moves on to New York and things go from bad to worse. Good looniness. (16 mm black and white, non-sychronized sound.) Paso Doble (Lambert, Lothar; West Germany; 1983; 90m) A middle-aged couple decides their marriage is not working out, so she moves in with her masseuse, and he takes a (homosexual) lover he picked up in Spain, all to the amusement/disgust of their teenaged children. For this movie Lambert had a real budget. The results are inferior, however, to his 16mm B&W films. In Heaven There Is No Beer? (Blank, Les; USA; 1983; 50m) Documentary short about polka-fanatics. Sprout Wings and Fly (Blank, Les; USA; 1983; 30m) Documentary short about an Appalachian fiddler. Swann In Love (Schlondorff, Volker; France/West Germany; 1984; 110m) Arid transcription of Proust's novel. Jeremy Irons is the foppish Parisian (!) Jew who falls in love with a high-priced hooker. Pretty pictures but nothing of Swann's character makes it to the screen. Disappointing film from the director of ``The Tin Drum'' and ``Circle of Deceit''. Embers (Koerfer, Thomas; West Germany/Switzerland; 1983; 109m) Fabulous movie about a Polish woman who, as a child, was taken in during WWII as a refugee by a Swiss family of arms manufacturers. Many years later she meets the boy of the family who has inherited the business. Most of the film is a flashback to her stay in their home. (In many ways this movie felt like some of the best work that Fassbinder has done, but part of that may be due to the music by Peer Raben (?) who did the music for many of Fassbinder's films.) Choose Me (Rudolph, Alan; USA; 1984; 106m) Dumb movie about a collection of oddball characters, including Lesley Ann-Warren as a bar-owner, Keith Carradine as A Man With A Mysterious Past, and Genevieve Bujold as Doctor Love, who advises the lovelorn on radio. Some of the looniness works, but mostly Rudolph does not go far enough, or he just gets too serious. Paris, Texas (Wender, Wim; West Germany/France; 1984; 150m) A classic from the director of ``The American Friend''. A man, missing for four years, is rejoined with his brother and son. He and his son go on a trip to try and find his wife, the boy's mother, who has also been missing. Some may find this movie a bit long, but it's worthwhile for the patient. Script by Sam Shepard. (Some superficial similarities to Wender's earlier film, ``Alice of the Cities'', in which a journalist is asked to babysit a young girl by her mother, who promptly vanishes. The two then go on a long journey to try and find the girl's grandmother -- or anybody.) Company of Wolves, The (Jordan, Neil; GB; 1984; 95m) Good fantasy film about werewolves, based on the Red Riding Hood story. Lots of strange things happening. (Adults would probably enjoy this more than kids.) Secret Honor (Altman, Robert; USA; 1984; 90m) Unsuccessfull one-man movie about Richard Nixon dictating (and reminiscing) to his secretary. The gist is that Nixon offered himself up as a sacrifice to cover up *really* dirty goings on. That's it! My pick of the best of the festival are: (no particular order) Blood Simple The Brother from Another Planet Paris, Texas Embers The Illusionist Man Without Memory Wildrose The Company of Wolves Oscar Nierstrasz @ utcsrgv!oscar