Sunday, September 13, 2009

Post-Venice/ Telluride/ Toronto Articles, Reviews and Updates coming Friday

Im sorry about the two week hiatus, things have been hectic with school and I am currently in Toronto attending the film festval, so i hopefully will soon be able to write about The Informant!, Men Who Stare At Goats, Up in the Air, Precious, The Road, A Serious Man and many of the other films I have seen so far at the festival. Regrettably this will not include Antichrist, Broken Embraces or Get Low all of which i missed.
Just to hold you guys over until friday here are 5 thoughts on how Toronto has affected the Oscar race so far..

1. Up in The Air is hands down the best film I've seen this year so far, and I feel confident in predicting it as the front runner for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Best Actor and possibly 2 supporting actress nods. Just a beautiful effort from Jason Reitman, and suffice to say, my reaction was somewhat akin to Drew McWeeny's: utter disbelief.
2. A Serious Man is better than No Country for Old Men, and is possibly not only the Coen Brothers most personal work to date, but there best since Fargo. Stuhlbarg is excellent, possible a darkhorse best actor contender, Richard Kind however will not recieve a nod, his part is a bit too small.
3. Precious is a work of art. Mo'nique might as well have her speech written as well, and Gabourey Sidibe will get nominated for Best Actress. The direction is very good, the editing is great, Precious is just an all around fantastic movie.
4. The Road was a misfire. Viggo could still get into the best actor race, but it will be tight. Kodi Smit-McPhee was shrill and in my opinion miscast as the son. Robert Duvall's cameo was handsdown the best part of the film, he had me in tears, and from the buzz ive been hearing, he might have a best actor shot with Get Low which I missed.
5. Matt Damon lives up to the hype in The Informant! He is just wonderfully funny, and the movie itself is a great effort from Soderbergh who created a film that was funny without being laugh out loud, smart without being to obvious about it, and the best adaptation I've seen in a while. Scott Z. Burns could see an adapted screenplay nod for his work.

So..till Friday, have a great week!

1 comment:

Matthew Starr said...

Hey how do you get to go to the Toronto Film Festival you pay to see all those movies or are you able to get some sort of press/media pass?