Sorority Row

SORORITY ROW (2009) - Sept. 30, 2009
A mediocre slasher film that feels like it came out ten years too late, this was about a group of sorority sisters who cover up a murder when a prank goes seriously awry -- a few months later, they start getting killed one by one on the last night of school. Though the film actually starts out fairly strong, it just isn't very well written, and so I found myself seriously losing interest during the film's lengthy midsection. Once the killer sprung into motion I was basically entertained for a while, but the film's climax went on far longer than it should have (Carrie Fisher pops up towards the end and livens things up considerably, though her part was lamentably small). **

Messages Deleted

MESSAGES DELETED (2009) - Sept. 28, 2009
A surprisingly shoddy film about screenwriting teacher who gets a couple of messages from murder victims just before they are killed, and soon finds himself the prime suspect for their murders. Everything about this film feels ridiculously low-rent, from Rob Cowan's bland, downright incompetent direction (which is a big reason that this film doesn't work -- a lot of sequences that are clearly meant to be suspenseful or exciting just fall completely flat) to the score to the second-rate performances (even Matthew Lilard, who I like, did his best but was clearly miscast as a leading man type). It's surprising, given that it was written by Larry Cohen, who recently wrote the above average thrillers Cellular and Phone Booth -- this probably would have been quite a bit better with a better director and slightly higher production values, but it still wouldn't have been on the level of those two films. Oh well. *1/2

The Time Traveler's Wife

THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE (2009) - Sept. 27, 2009
Though not nearly as good as the book it is adapted from, this was an enjoyable and well made film about the romance between a man who periodically and uncontrolably time travels, and the woman who has known him since she was a child. The film sort of feels like a really simplified version of the book, which I guess was probably necessary given how dense the novel was -- it's a shame to lose the intricate nature of the book, where a lot of the time travel stuff was woven in in a really ingenious way, but for what it was the film pretty much succeeds. Certainly, both Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams gave stellar performances, which went a long way towards making up for some of the film's deficiencies. The movie's chick-flickiness felt more overt towards as it went along, and my attention did wane slightly towards the end, but for the most part this was a decent enough adaptation, if not at all on the same level as the novel (but I have to say, jeers to the filmmakers for replacing the book's melancholy, pitch-perfect ending with something a bit more upbeat and generic). ***

Jennifer's Body

JENNIFER'S BODY (2009) - Sept. 26, 2009
About a high school girl who starts eating her classmates after she's turned into a demon of some sort, this was a pretty mediocre film. Featuring ineffectual direction from Karyn Kusama, who does a pretty terrible job of generating any kind of suspense, and who seems to flinch away from any real violence -- I'm not sure why she even directed a horror film, since it seems like she's uncomfortable with the genre. Diablo Cody's quirky, super-stylized dialogue doesn't work nearly as well here as it did in Juno (it feels almost like Cody is parodying herself in parts, though I'm sure that wasn't the intention), though I did get used to it after a while. The film's main problem was that the horror stuff was pretty lame, it wasn't funny enough to work as a comedy, and the characters weren't really interesting enough to carry the film on their own (they were basically just variations on characters we've seen in a million other high school movies). **

[REC] 2

[REC] 2 (2009) - Sept. 19, 2009
An awesome follow-up to the original [REC], which is definitely just as good as that film if not even a little bit better. Taking place just after the events of the first film, this one finds a group of soldiers entering the apartment with a doctor in an attempt to figure out just what the disease is all about. Featuring some amazingly tense sequences as well as some seriously sweet action, this was definitely one of the more flat-out enjoyable films I've seen in a while. ***1/2

Road, Movie

ROAD, MOVIE (2009) - Sept. 19, 2009
A surprisingly boring film about a young man who decides to take his uncle's truck, a beat up old truck from the '40s that's been outfitted as a traveling movie theatre, and drive it across India's desert. He picks up some quirky characters along the way. There are so many problems with this film I don't even know where to start. It's visually not compelling at all, as the protagonist quickly leaves the city and spends the rest of the film driving across the barren desert. The main character was completely bland and not even nearly interesting enough to carry the film. The two main supporting characters are ridiculously quirky and are never developed beyond their initial quirkiness. There's a subplot about mobster-controlled water wells that feels out of place and goes absolutely nowhere. Blech. The official TIFF guide called this the "new Cinema Paradiso," which as far as I'm concerned is a crime. *1/2

Air Doll

AIR DOLL (2009) - Sept. 19, 2009
An odd misstep for Hirokazu Koreeda, this wasn't bad by any means, but it definitely wasn't on the same level as Koreeda's previous films. About a sex doll who comes to life and then begins to see what life is like as a human, including working at a videostore an starting a romance with one of her coworkers, this was definitely well made, but it was kind of odd and something about it just didn't quite work. It was just as slow as Koreeda's previous films, but unlike those I definitely felt the slowness -- the usual richness of character typical of a Koreeda film seemed lacking. It probably didn't help that the film focused mostly on the air doll, who just didn't seem to be an interesting enough character to carry the entire film. **1/2

Ong Bak 2

ONG BAK 2 (2009) - Sept. 19, 2009
A disappointing follow-up to the awesome Ong Bak (and a sequel in name only, as the presence of Tony Jaa is the only thing tying this to the original), the muddled story involves a young prince (or at least I think he was a prince) who escapes after his family is murdered and subsequently joins a group of bandits and trains to fight. The movie itself was pretty poor, but at least I was never entirely bored. However, there really wasn't enough really good action -- there were exactly two above average action sequences, including a final action scene that was pretty awesome. So it wasn't bad, I guess, but it was certainly nowhere near the instant classic that the first one was (but it is pretty hard to go wrong with a movie in which someone does a somersault off an elephant and then kicks someone in the head). **1/2

The Good Heart

THE GOOD HEART (2009) - Sept. 18, 2009
It's pretty much impossible to go wrong with a film starring the great Brian Cox, and this was certainly no exception. About a cantankerous old bartender who befriends a down-on-his-luck young man and decides to train him to take over his bar once he dies (he has a bad heart and expects to go at any moment). The film was kind of oddly quirky but it was well made and quite enjoyable throughout. ***

Leaves of Grass

LEAVES OF GRASS (2009) - Sept. 18, 2009
Featuring some above average writing and direction from Tim Blake Nelson (his first film in about eight years), this was a really good movie about an esteemed professor who returns home only to find himself embroiled in a scheme cooked up by his drug dealing twin brother. Edward Norton, playing both brothers, was superb, as were all the other actors. ***1/2

Phantom Pain

PHANTOM PAIN (2009) - Sept. 18, 2009
About a cycling enthusiast who loses his leg after an accident, this was a decent film featuring a really good performance from Til Schweiger. The direction was okay (despite an almost comical overabundance of musical montages set to cheesy soft rock songs), and it was definitely well acted, but I can't say I was ever particularly into it. **1/2

Last Ride

LAST RIDE (2009) - Sept. 18, 2009
A really well made and well acted film about a father and a son traveling across Australia. Featuring a really good performance from Hugo Weaving, the film was exceptionally slow-paced but quite enjoyable throughout. It helped that both of the main performances were so good, and that the father and son dynamic between them seemed interesting and real. ***

Vincere

VINCERE (2009) - Sept. 18, 2009
A good looking but otherwise fairly crappy film about a woman who had a romance with Mussolini before he became Prime Minister of Italy, had his kid, and was subsequently cut out of his life entirely. She later wound up in an insane asylum when she continually insisted that Mussolini was her husband. The film started out pretty well, but it's clear almost immediately that Mussolini is a much more interesting character than this woman, and he leaves the film at about the forty minute mark, never to be seen again. The film then gets more and more dull as it essentially just consists of the woman trying to convince various people that Mussolini is her husband. The cinematography was quite good, but a keen sense of style just wasn't enough to save this film. *1/2

Solomon Kane

SOLOMON KANE (2009) - Sept. 17, 2009
A mostly entertaining if somewhat routine adventure movie about a greedy plunderer and mercenary who renounces his evil ways when he finds out that the devil wants his soul; he is forced back into action when a young girl he has befriended is kidnapped by evil forces. Reasonably well made and featuring an expectedly good performance from James Purefoy, I was pretty much entertained all the way through, though it did lose its momentum at times, and I was never a hundred percent into it. **1/2

Kamui

KAMUI (2009) - Sept. 17, 2009
Slow-paced and somewhat underwhelming, this was a kind of mediocre film about a wandering rogue ninja who finds respite in a small fishing villiage. The movie didn't really have much of a plot, and most of the time there really wasn't all that much driving it forward -- it felt pretty meandering, so my interest was seriously waning at times, particularly in the middle of the film. The movie does, however, begin and end with some really good action. But for a movie with both pirates (who hunt sharks) and ninjas, this was definitely a disappointment. **

High Life

HIGH LIFE (2009) - Sept. 17, 2009
A basically enjoyable if somewhat aimless film about a group of dim-witted criminals who decide to rob an ATM. Timothy Olyphant was quite good in the main role, and the direction was decent enough, though the film's origins as a play are fairly apparent -- it's quite dialogue heavy, with the type of self-aware, writerly dialogue that's hard to pull off, which sort of works and sort of doesn't. Also, the washed-out, poor man's Kaminski cinematography was really unappealing to look at. Other than that, the film was decent enough (I particularly liked the classic rock soundtrack). **1/2

Cell 211

CELL 211 (2009) - Sept. 16, 2009
A surprisingly enjoyable film about a young prison guard, on the day before his first day of work, who ends up getting stuck in the prison during a riot, and who passes himself off as a prisoner to get by. The film was well directed and quite enjoyable, though it faltered a bit in the third act. Aside from that, it was fast-paced, and I really wouldn't be surprised if it wound up getting remade by Hollywood. ***

The Angel

THE ANGEL (2009) - Sept. 16, 2009
Well, I guess it has to happen at least once per festival -- the film wasn't exactly fast-paced, and I was tired from waking up so early every day, and I fell asleep. For pretty much the entire more, other than the first twenty minutes or so. It seemed decent from the first twenty minutes, if somewhat slow, a bit overly gritty in its visuals, and with a somewhat tired premise (a young mother tries to overcome a heroin problem). NO RATING

The Front Line

THE FRONT LINE (2009) - Sept. 16, 2009
A dull film about a group of extreme left wing Italian terrorists who operated in the late '70s and early '80s. Decently directed with a hand-held, though thankfully not overly-shaky style (which seemed similar to the style of the Dardenne brothers, who produced this film), the film isn't particularly interesting despite the seemingly fascinating subject matter. Meh. **1/2

The Loved Ones

THE LOVED ONES (2009) - Sept. 15, 2009
A better than average horror film about a guy who is knocked out, only to wake up and find himself the prisoner of a seemingly meek but actually psychopathic girl that he rejected -- things just get worse and worse from there. Featuring solid direction from first-time director Sean Byrne, the film did a really good job of establishing and maintaining a pretty high level of tension. Good stuff. ***1/2

Enter the Void

ENTER THE VOID (2009) - Sept. 15, 2009
More of an experience than a traditional movie, this was a strange, haunting, flat-out bizarre and kind of brilliant film. About a drug dealer in Japan, who dies and then begins to float above his friends and his sister, and re-lives some of the highlights (and lowlights) of his life. The entire thing is shot from the drug dealer's point of view (other than the flashbacks, which are shot over his shoulder), from the pre-death stuff with him getting high and having a conversation about death with one of his friends and subsequently getting shot and killed, to all his post-death experiences, all the way to his reincarnation. A technical and directorial tour-de-force, this definitely establishes Gaspar Noe as some kind of crazy genius -- there really never has been a film quite like this before. Powerful and almost always visually stunning, the film feels a bit long, particularly towards the end, but that's almost beside the point. The film succeeds brilliantly at evoking a certain mood and tone, and is almost ridiculously hypnotic -- even when there isn't much happening, there's almost always something bizarrely fascinating about the movie, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching some kind of crazy masterpiece (a flawed one, but a masterpiece nonetheless). Certainly, it's rare that you see a film that's so amazingly unique -- I'm fairly confident that, for better or for worse, this movie is going to be remembered for a long, long time just for trying something that's so dazzlingly unique. Walking out of the theatre, I had the strangest feeling; a strange sort of numbness that I almost can't describe, like my brain wasn't quite sure if the movie had ended and real life had begun. It was an odd sensation, and one that took me a good fifteen minutes to shake. What a crazy, crazy movie. WTF man. WTF. Also: I think, more than any other movie I've seen in my life, this *needs* to be seen on the big screen. I can't imagine that it would have nearly the same impact on a little TV. I think it would be a different movie entirely, quite frankly. It just needs to be witnessed in a dark theatre on a gigantic screen. ****

The Jonses

THE JONSES (2009) - Sept. 15, 2009
A decent film starring David Duchovny and Demi Moore about a "family" whose job is to influence people and make them want to buy certain products. It's a pretty absurd premise, and I never entirely bought into it, but the film was entertaining enough despite a third act that was almost ridiculously soap-operatic. Meh. **1/2

Harry Brown

HARRY BROWN (2009) - Sept. 14, 2009
Featuring yet another amazing performance from Michael Caine (the man is definitely on a roll), this was a really good movie about an aging ex-military man who slowly realizes that something must be done about the escalating gang violence in his neighbourhood when his best friend is murdered by a group of punks. The film did a really good job of setting everything up, and the pacing was pretty much perfect. There were also some pretty riveting sequences here, particularly a scene in which Caine visits a drug dealer to buy a gun. Daniel Barber's direction was quite good, and Caine was obviously pitch-perfect as the titular Harry Brown. ***1/2

Cairo Time

CAIRO TIME (2009) - Sept. 14, 2009
An entertaining film about a woman who goes to Egypt to meet her husband, only to find that he's tied up with work. Instead, she ends up spending a lot of her time with a charming friend of her husband's. The film was well made and very well acted, particularly Alexander Siddig as the husband's friend. In fact, he was so good that I found my interest kind of waning every time he was off the screen. Not that Patricia Clarkson wasn't good, but her character was kind of bland, and so the movie suffered every time Siddig left her alone (which was a good half of the movie). **1/2

A Serious Man

A SERIOUS MAN (2009) - Sept. 14, 2009
A bizarre Coen brothers film about a man having some problems in his life, both at home and at work. I'm really not sure what to make of this movie -- I was definitely quite entertained throughout, but the movie was quite odd and featured an ending that was less than conclusive, putting it mildly. And yet there was something strangely satisfying about that crazy ending; it seemed like the perfect conclusion to this particular film, despite its abruptness. Michael Stuhlbarg was certainly quite good in the main role, and the film was really well directed and featured a surfeit of the memorable dialogue that the Coens are known for. ***

Under the Mountain

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN (2009) - Sept. 13, 2009
A kind of mediocre adventure movie about two twins who find out that New Zealand -- and the entire world -- are at risk of being destroyed if they don't do something. The film was reasonably well made, and it was well acted (particularly Sam Neill as the twins' grizzled mentor) but it just wasn't all that interesting. It was kind of dull and slow-paced, and felt remarkably free of adventure for an adventure movie (there was a LOT of set-up -- most of the film felt like it could have been compressed into about twenty minutes, to set up a much more exciting adventure movie). **

Perrier's Bounty

PERRIER'S BOUNTY (2009) - Sept. 13, 2009
A really fast-paced and entertaining film about a guy, a girl and his dad, who get mixed up with loan sharks and mobsters -- shenanigans ensue. This actually reminded me quite a bit of Intermission, which was Mark O'Rowe's (the writer of this movie) first film. It's definitely just as good, featuring top-notch performances from people like Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, and a scene-stealing Jim Broadbent. O'Rowe had previously collaborated with John Crowley on Intermission and Boy A, while this film has been directed by Ian Fitzgibbon. Thankfully, Fitzgibbon's direction proves to be a good match to O'Rowe's script. ***1/2

Up in the Air

UP IN THE AIR (2009) - Sept. 13, 2009
Featuring what is quite possibly George Clooney's best performance, this was a really good movie about a guy whose job is to fly around the country and fire people. He feels more at home on airplanes and hotels than in his actual home, and he's obsessed with collecting ten million frequent flier miles. However, his friendship with a new coworker and a cross-country romance cause him to start rethinking his life. Surprisingly funny, this was a really well made movie, featuring performances that are uniformly superb. The film does a really good job of mixing drama and comedy -- the laughs always feel organic to the characters and the situations, and the more dramatic moments never feel incongruous with the comedy. Jason Reitman wrote and directed this film; I guess I have to rethink my opinion of him after the enjoyable but way over-rated Juno. This was a really accomplished, well made film, and unlike Juno, if it gets Oscar attention it'll actually deserve it. Certainly, I can't imagine that I'll see a better performance than Clooney's this year. ****

Making Plans for Lena

MAKING PLANS FOR LENA (2009) - Sept. 12, 2009
About the various shenanigans revolving around an unpleasant family, mostly centred on a recently divorced mother, this movie was decently directed and well acted, but completely worthless as a piece of entertainment. I was essentially entertained for the first little while, but as it went on, having to spend time with these thoroughly unlikable characters became increasingly oppressive. Towards the end I was extremely tempted to walk out. There was also a bizarre interlude in which a character tells a story about a woman who wanted to find a husband to dance with, that really only served to sap whatever momentum the film had going (which was very little). *

The Dirty Saints

THE DIRTY SAINTS (2009) - Sept. 12, 2009
An almost comically bad film about a group of wanderers in some sort of post-apocalyptic future. Pretentious almost to the point of parody, if I didn't know any better I would have sworn that this was some kind of satire on bizarre foreign art-house films. The characters, who are all completely underdeveloped, do bizarre things seemingly just for the sake of being bizarre. There is a bit of a plot -- the characters are trying to get to a river, as things are supposedly better on the other side. But it really doesn't go anywhere, or at least not anywhere that makes sense. 1/2*

Rabia

RABIA (2009) - Sept. 12, 2009
A decent and well directed film about a maid who falls in love with a hot-tempered man who, after accidentally killing someone, hides out in the house where she works and lives (unbeknownst to her or anyone else). The film definitely looked quite good, and there were some really compelling sequences, but it started to feel a bit too aimless as it went along, and definitely ran out of steam by the end. Still, the above-average performances and Sebastián Cordero's stylish direction mostly kept things interesting. **1/2

SHE, A CHINESE (2009) - Sept. 11, 2009
About a girl from a Chinese village who moves to a small city, and then later to London, England. Xiaolu Guo's direction was mostly okay, though the aggressively drab, muddy digital cinematography certainly didn't do the film any favours, and Guo's use of music was a tad iffy. Still, it was fairly entertaining for the first little while (mainly because of Lu Huang's compelling performance), but by the last third of the movie (the London stuff, basically) it had really started to wear out its welcome, and by the end I was completely ready for it to be over. **

Like You Know it All

LIKE YOU KNOW IT ALL (2009) - Sept. 11, 2009
About the random exploits of a Korean movie director -- first at a remote film festival, then a few other random places, this was pretty much interminable. It started out decently enough, but the completely aimless, random vibe eventually wore me down. It was essentially just a series of vignettes, completely random encounters, without even the vaguest notion of a plot -- which isn't necessarily a problem, but the main character wasn't particularly interesting, nor were the situations he found himself in. There was actually a point about an hour into the film, when the director leaves the film festival, where it seems like the movie should be wrapping up (I even saw a bunch of people checking their watch at this point). It goes on for another hour. Then there's Sang-soo Hong's bizarre directorial style, which finds him frequently and obtrusively zooming in and out to adjust the frame right in the middle of scenes (and not in that faux-documentary type of way that seems to be a bit of a fad right now, just random zooms). *1/2

House of Saddam

HOUSE OF SADDAM (2008) - Sept. 8, 2009
A really well made miniseries about Saddam Hussein -- ranging from his seizure of the presidency of Iraq in 1979 to his hanging in 2006. Despite a running time of almost four hours, the film is completely entertaining throughout. In fact, it was so interesting and well made, it could have been longer and I would have been perfectly happy. It helps that it was very well acted, especially Yigal Naor as Saddam himself. His Hussein was brutally ruthless without ever veering into caricature or outright villainy. You could almost sympathize with the guy -- almost. ***1/2

Nobody Knows

NOBODY KNOWS - Sept. 6, 2009
A slow-paced but really well made film about a group of four siblings who are left to fend for themselves after their mother goes away, leaving the eldest -- a twelve-year-old boy -- in charge with only a small amount of money to get by. None of the kids are allowed to go to school, and only the boy is allowed to leave the apartment, as the landlords think that only one child lives in the home. The film is completely plotless and somewhat slow-paced, with a definite neo-realist vibe. However it proves to be compelling throughout, with an emphasis placed on the small details of these children's lives. Featuring really impressive performances from all of the kids, this was definitely another winner from Hirokazu Koreeda. ***

Gamer

GAMER (2009) - Sept. 5, 2009
A mediocre film from Nevaldine/Taylor, about a future society in which death-row convicts participate in a game called Slayers -- in which they are controlled remotely like a videogame, and fight each other to the death like a real-life first-person shooter. The movie is directed with Nevaldine/Taylor's usual in-your-face hand-held style, which worked a lot better for the Crank films than it did here. You can always tell what's going on in the action scenes, but it's just too chopily edited to ever really get into. Some of the action is okay, but a slightly less frenetic visual style would have really helped. Aside from that, one of the main problems with the film is that it doesn't do a very good job of developing the characters -- which is particularly true of Gerard Butler's protagonist. It's subsequently kind of hard to care too much about his quest to reunite with his wife and child. Nevaldine and Taylor also try to throw in some social commentary about the dehumanizing effect of these videogames, which is clunky and really doesn't work. One of the film's few unabashed bright spots is Michael C. Hall as the gleefully sinister billionaire creator of the Slayers game -- he steals every single scene that he's in. I just wish there had been more of him. **

Extract

EXTRACT (2009) - Sept. 4, 2009
A really enjoyable comedy by Mike Judge about a guy who owns a company that makes flavour extracts, and the shenanigans he gets himself into with his wife and a mysterious con-woman. Judge eschews the more broad laughs of his previous two films in favour of something much more low-key, but it definitely works. The film has a really easy-going vibe, and contains a surfeit of compelling characters. Jason Bateman proves that he definitely has what it takes to carry a film, and supporting actors like Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig and J.K. Simmons were just as good. The film kind of reminded me of Judge's TV show, King of the Hill, which is definitely a good thing. ***

Obsessed

OBSESSED (2009) - Sept. 1, 2009
Thoroughly inept right from the first moments of the film all the way through to the conclusion, this was a surprisingly bad film about an executive who finds himself the victim of an obsessive temp. From the cheesy, overbearing, downright grating score to the dull, cliche-ridden screenplay, to the flat direction and low-rent cinematography, this is pretty much a failure in almost every regard. For a movie that purports to be a thriller, there is a distinct lack of thrills here -- which wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except that the movie spends an eternity just setting things up in the most dull and clunky way imaginable, and then seems more interested in terrible melodrama than in thrills. I've seen films that looked worse, or that had worse performances, or a worse screenplay, but it's rare to see a movie that's just so consistently inept on every single level. I think the only good thing I can say about this film is that Idris Elba gave a pretty good performance, or at least as good as is possible given the material he had to work with. So bad... 1/2*