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| TIFF People's Choice winner 12 Years a Slave |
I didn’t cast a vote, however, for the film that the Canadian jury deemed the best Canadian feature of the festival. That film is Alan Zweig’s funny but disposable When Jews Were Funny. I’m surprised I’m not more thrilled about Zweig’s win since his other 2013 doc 15 Reasons to Live was my top pick of Hot Docs earlier this year. There was an embarrassment of riches for the jury to choose from and they gave the prize to Football in the Groin. There’s nothing especially bad about Jews, but it is arguably among the weakest films of the thirteen Canadian features I saw at the festival this year. Gabrielle and Rhymes for Young Ghouls are among the dozen or so superior films.
The Other Awards: The Oscars
I feel as if I can’t weigh in on the Oscars with the same
relish that I would in previous editions of the festival. The buzz was deafening for the films I mentioned in paragraph 1, and will be the subject of the first
round of Oscar predictions following my OIAF coverage, and there are only a handful
of films I saw that could be added to the conversation. Philomena is the most obvious Oscar contender I saw at TIFF, as it’s
a compelling film that manages to be a weepie and a crowd-pleaser at the same
time. It could easily sweep the top five categories with nominations (even
wins?) for Best Picture, Director, Actress (Dench), Actor (Coogan), and
Screenplay. The Screenplay by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope strikes me as the film’s
strongest awards potential in the adapted category. It could bring Dench her
first Lead Actress win, too, if The Weinstein Company plays it right.
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| TIFF Runner-up Philomena |
Dench’s competition comes from my favourite performance of
the festival: Meryl Streep in August: Osage County. Streep’s co-stars Julia Roberts, Margo Martindale, and
Julianne Nicholson are all contenders for nominations (maybe even a win for
Martindale), although Roberts would likely be edged out of the lead category by
the showier and stronger Streep. It’s a Kids
Are All Right situation with both actresses sharing the screentime with
only minutes of difference. It would be fraud (and a disservice to Martindale)
for either to switch to supporting for an easy win. August: Osage County still strikes me as a contender for Best
Picture despite some of the reviews it drew following the press reaction on
Monday night. One would think that TIFF screened two different films on Monday
and Tuesday with the rapturous response that August received during Tuesday’s screening at the Elgin. I haven’t
seen a crowd go that wild during a
screening since catching Precious at
the festival in 2009. August is in
whatever the pundits of snark suggest.
Finally, Labor Day
could bring a third Best Actress contender with Kate Winslet. She is
outstanding as Adele in Labor Day, as
is her co-star Josh Brolin who seems like a shoo-in in the less crowded field
of Best Supporting Actor. Brolin could face off against the festival’s other
strong supporting turn, James Gandolfini in Enough Said, who wouldn’t be headed to the Oscars for sentimental reasons alone.
He’s terrific.
The screenwriters of the latter two films, Jason Reitman and
Nicole Holofcener, are certainly in the running, too, for adapted and original
works, respectively. As should Ned Benson for his outstanding Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, which
might be in the conversation next year. Ditto fellow Weinstein Co. acquisition The Railway Man, which is a flawed film,
but could garner serious attention for Colin Firth if he waits until 2014. Best
Actor is already overcrowded so we don’t need anyone else fighting for votes!
Don’t let Oscar talk be the sole barometer of TIFF though. Three Best Picture contenders is a respectable number from my sampling of the festival since many of the films I saw probably don’t have any aspirations for the Academy Awards. That’s not a bad thing since it was refreshing to approach the films I saw at the festival with a filter that felt less restrictive than the one I normally use.
Don’t let Oscar talk be the sole barometer of TIFF though. Three Best Picture contenders is a respectable number from my sampling of the festival since many of the films I saw probably don’t have any aspirations for the Academy Awards. That’s not a bad thing since it was refreshing to approach the films I saw at the festival with a filter that felt less restrictive than the one I normally use.
The Best of the Fest: High Points and Low Points
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| Jessica Chastain at the Eleanor Rigby premiere |
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| James McAvoy at the Eleanor Rigby premiere |
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| Thanks Jessica! |
Riding on a high from seeing Jessica Chastain and having a star
live up to expectations, I made my way to the red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall
just around 2:00 to get a spot for Meryl. The crowd was already thick even
though there were four hours to go. There was a buzz as everyone shuffled in
anticipation of the festival’s biggest premiere. However, I got a major buzz
kill an hour or so later when a festivalgoer joined the group beside me and
sadly told her friends that Meryl Streep wasn’t coming. I didn’t want to
believe her so I turned to Twitter—the source of all reliable news—and saw that the
festival tweeted that Meryl had called in sick. It was very disappointing. The
silver lining, I guess, was that I wasn’t able to get a premium ticket for the
event anyways, which would have been doubly disappointing to pay fifty bucks
for a letdown. Streep was certainly there in the spirit of her fans, though: I’ve
never seen a crowd at Roy Thomson Hall that big—three hours before the event,
no less.
Bad news #TIFF13'ers: Meryl Streep will not be attending tonight's premiere of August: Osage County due to illness.
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 9, 2013
If my biggest complaint about the festival is that my
favourite actress got sick, then that is a sign of a good festival. There was
only one major disappointment among film choices for me, which was Atom Egoyan’s
surprisingly hollow Devil’s Knot. What
happened with that one? The biggest letdown, however, might have been the Jason
Reitman Live Read of Boogie Nights,
which just couldn’t hold up to the original. The Live Read was still a one-time
event, though, so it was hardly a night misspent seeing Josh Brolin and company
bring the script to (comedic) life.
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| The Boogie Nights Live Read |
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| Labor Day is the best of the fest |
The runner-up for Best Film goes to The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her, which added a
breath of life to my festival line-up. Rigby
is the most original, daring, and debatable film experience I had at the
festival. It’s an excellent film from any perspective.
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| The Big Chill reunion screening |
Other highlights included two of the extended discussions I
attended. The first was my opening night choice of The Big Chill, which had much of the principal cast and crew in
attendance for a reunion screening. The event brought exactly the kind of hype
and energy to a theatre that one expects to see on opening night. It was a wild
celebration of cinephilia and a great way to begin TIFF by looking back upon
one of the films that brought the festival to the status it enjoys today.
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| Ken Taylor and Pat Taylor at Our Man in Tehran |
The other Q&A highlight was the World Premiere screening
of the documentary Our Man in Tehran,
which looks at the Iranian Hostage Crisis from the perspective of Canada’s
involvement and gives insight into the efforts made by heroes like Ambassador
Ken Taylor. Both the film and post-screening discussion provided an insightful
and comprehensive story of the events that didn’t make their way into Argo. I especially liked how Our Man in Tehran doesn’t give the
Canadians their due at the expense of the story told in Argo—in fact, the film doesn’t even mention Ben Affleck’s Oscar
winner and it was only the moderator who insisted on discussing it—so one can
enjoy both films in their own right.
I think the biggest highlight of TIFF, though, was the
annual event of spending eleven days with people who love movies and the thrill
of celebrity just as much as I do. A big thanks to all the friends who joined me
at screenings and made TIFF ’13 another great festival experience. I’m already
looking forward to TIFF ’14!
To recap:
Top Ten Eleven Films of the Festival (alphabetical)
Festival Prizes:
Best of the fest: Labor Day
Runner-up: The
Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her
Third Place: August:
Osage County
Best Canadian Film: Gabrielle
Runner-up: Rhymes for
Young Ghouls
Best Actress: Meryl Streep in August: Osage County
Best Actor: Colin Firth in The Railway Man
Best Supporting Actress: Margo Martindale, August: Osage County
Best Supporting Actor: James Gandolfini, Enough Said; Josh Brolin, Labor Day (tie)
Best Performance in a Canadian Film: Cara Gee, Empire of Dirt
Best Director: Jason Reitman, Labor Day
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Labor Day
Best Original Screenplay: Ned Benson, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her
Best Cinematography: Norimichi Kasamatsu, Unforgiven
Best Score: Mica Levy, Under
the Skin
Best Short: We Wanted More
Worst Film: A Field in England
I’m sad that another festival is over, but I must thank all
the staff and volunteers for another great TIFF. The silver lining is that as
one festival ends, another begins… so stay tuned for (accredited!) coverage from the Ottawa
International Animation Festival, which starts Wednesday!
More TIFF pictures can be found on the Cinemablographer Facebook page. (Which you should 'like' while 'yer at it!)
More TIFF pictures can be found on the Cinemablographer Facebook page. (Which you should 'like' while 'yer at it!)
What are your
favourite films/moments from TIFF this year?
