PRIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICS (FIPRESCI PRIZE)

The Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) is awarded to Rodrigo Pla’s LA ZONA. This prize is annually bestowed upon a feature film directed by an emerging filmmaker, and making its world premiere at the Festival. The Festival welcomed an international FIPRESCI jury for the 16th consecutive year. The 2007 jury consists of jury president Gregory Valens (France), Pamela Bi�nzobas (Chile), Scott Foundas (USA), and Katherine Monk (Canada).

CADILLAC PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

The Cadillac People’s Choice Award is voted on by Festival audiences. This year�s award goes to David Cronenberg’s EASTERN PROMISES. Cronenberg reunites with his A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE leading man Viggo Mortensen for a new thriller. EASTERN PROMISES follows the mysterious and ruthless Nikolai (Mortensen), a Russian gangster tied to one of London�s most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is shaken when he crosses paths with Anna (Naomi Watts), an innocent midwife who accidentally uncovers potential evidence against the family. First runner-up is Jason Reitman’s JUNO and the second runner up is Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro’s BODY OF WAR. The award offers a $15,000 cash prize and custom award, sponsored by Cadillac. The Cadillac People’s Choice award was presented by Norm Sawula, Cadillac Marketing Manager.

The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (dir. Andrew Dominik): Seeing No Country For Old Men early in the day – and admiring the way that it kept moving forward with nary a wasted shot or scene – may have fed some of my occasional impatience with Jesse James, which is languorous by design. In delineating the intertwined fates of an outlaw and his assassin, Dominik doesn’t always choose wisely between what’s important to show and what’s not. Partly that’s due to the mood he’s trying to strike: an immersive old west experience that includes all the idle conversations along with the gunfights. Westerns of the past 40 years tend to be either “ratty hat” (revisionist and dirty) or “natty hat” (iconic and pristine). Jesse James tries to be a little bit of both, and as a result it doesn’t feel stock or familiar. It’s a movie to get lost in, even when the movie gets a little lost itself. (B).

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Source: A.V. Club

Saturday night marked my first film of the 2007 TIFF, the world premiere of the offbeat dramedy Juno from director Jason Reitman. Playing to a packed crowd at the Ryerson theater, I knew it was going to be one of those nights when I found myself walking in alongside Jason’s dad (and Hollywood heavy) Ivan Reitman.

I’ve gotta say, in settings like this, it’s got to be nice to be a famous director. While the majority of people may know and love your work, not as many are necessarily familiar with what you look like, so you can walk around relatively unnoticed.

Which was most definitely not the case when another kind of Hollywood royalty entered the building.

A few minutes before the screening began, the crowd started buzzing – more so than usual. When my girlfriend and I turned around to see what all the fuss was about, none other than Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner were being escorted down the aisle (Jen’s a principle actor in Juno).

Turns out, their handlers had mistakenly brought the famous couple in the wrong entrance, and now they had to be paraded in front of the entire theater to get to their seats. “This is a disaster,” Jen whispered to Ben as they passed right by us in the front. (I was surprised to see that Jen, who’s never been a favorite of mine, is actually quite pretty in person).

“Affleck, you were the bomb in Phantoms,” somebody shouted. Dammit, why didn’t I think of that first?

Once everything settled down, Juno was actually quite good. Reitman’s follow-up to 2005’s Thank You for Smoking, it focuses on the titular teenager (Ellen Page of Hard Candy fame) who unwittingly gets pregnant by her friend Paulie Bleeker (Superbad’s Michael Cera). But when Juno can’t stomach an abortion, she decides to go through with the pregnancy and give the tyke up for adoption. Enter the aforementioned Jennifer Garner who, along with Arrested Development alum Jason Bateman, make up the yuppie couple who’ll be adopting Juno’s baby.

Much like Reitman’s last flick, Juno is heavy on style, a slick and witty piece of filmmaking. You’re going to hear “the next Little Miss Sunshine” claims bandied about a lot in the coming months, but in truth, they don’t have much in common other than that they’re both funny, and they’re both very good.

The honest family drama and clever dialogue actually makes Juno more reminiscent of some of Wes Anderson’s earlier work, most notably the underrated Bottle Rocket – the hipster soundtrack, heavy on the Belle and Sebastian, doesn’t hurt either.

But Reitman’s style is far more busy and manic than anything Anderson’s done… not that that’s a bad thing. Diablo Cody’s script is handled ably by Juno’s stellar cast, and The Office’s Rainn Wilson makes a hilarious cameo in the opening scene that sets the tone from there on out.

Allison Janney is absolutely amazing as Juno’s stepmother, pairing with an always-great J.K. Simmons (Spiderman, Thank You for Smoking) in one of the first roles I’ve seen him in when he’s not forced to scream at the top of his lungs. And Michael Cera actually wasn’t in the movie as much as I had expected, but got by far the loudest applause of the bunch (what can I say? people love this guy).

Be on the lookout for Juno when it hits theaters in December, and keep an eye on Jason Reitman’s career, because this is one Hollywood brat that’s definitely going places.

Source: TunaFlix

Movie Of The Day: My Kid Could Paint That (dir. Amir Bar-Lev)A non-critic friend of mine once gave me a good standard for judging documentaries: If reading a description of the movie tells you just as much as watching it will, then maybe it’s not a very good documentary. For about the first 30 minutes, My Kid Could Paint That seems bound to fail that test. Even though director Bar-Lev elaborates on the comically brief biography of 4-year-old abstract art superstar Marla Olmstead with mini-histories of modern art and child prodigies, the relevance of Marla’s rise to success – from a coffeehouse show to NYC galleries – seems at first a little too mapped-out. Just your basic chin-stroker about what the art world fervor over a kid painter says about the validity of modern art, and so forth.

But right around the time Marla turns 5, the story starts to evolve, keyed by a 60 Minutes report that fuels speculation about whether the kindergartner had some outside help with her masterpieces. In an instant, My Kid Could Paint That transforms into a multi-level study of what original creation means, how parents handle gifted children, the cruel voraciousness of the media, and what responsibility documentarians have to the people who allow them into their homes. The implications of all of these questions become cumulatively unnerving, whether you’re a parent, a journalist or an art-lover. (Or in my case, all three.) By the end, Bar-Lev starts crossing the line from passive observer to investigator, culminating in a direct confrontation with the Olmstead family that almost single-handedly raises My Kid Could Paint That from not-bad to great. (A-)

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Source: A.V. Club

The Orphanage (dir. J.A. Bayona): Bayona and screenwriter Sergio Sanchez deliver a legitimately chilling ghost story, set in a beachfront Spanish mansion that was once an orphanage – and that a young couple and their imaginative adopted son are looking to turn into a boarding school. The Orphanage sags a little at times, mainly because the filmmakers over-explain the premise, and the film suffers -albeit slightly- from some familiar horror movie gimmicks, including the well-worn “kid who sees things that others don’t” bit. But the story is rich and involving, the creep-outs are skin-crawlingly effective, and the ending is pretty devastating. Guillermo Del Toro produced, and his gothic Spanish flavor abounds.(B+)

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Lust, Caution (dir. Ang Lee): This WWII-era espionage drama puts everything it’s supposed to on the screen, from the mixed emotions that Chinese resistance agent Tang Wei feels for her brutish lover Tony Leung (a collaborator with the Japanese) to the westernized milieu that makes `40s Hong Kong and Shanghai such a strange place to be. Lust, Caution’s images are sumptuous, its performances strong, and its plot points carefully strung. And yet the movie just kind of lays there, sucked-dry in ways that are hard to account for. This is a smart movie, but not an especially emotional one. Even the already notorious explicit sex scenes feel more calculated than organic. Call this one a noble misfire from a usually reliable auteur – though I wouldn’t be surprised if some people really go for it.(B-)

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Source: A.V. Club