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| The Day Q&A |
The last two days of the Toronto International Film Festival were probably my busiest of the entire week. Within a 48 hour people, I saw about seven films, including my second Midnight Madness screening – the world premiere of The Day.
There’s a lot of films to cover, so I should move straight into things.
The Moth Diaries
This will probably end up being the film to beat when it comes to my least favourite film of this year’s festival.
The story of the film, which apparently involved vampires at an all-female boarding school, sounded intriguing. However, I quickly realized that the film was obviously aimed towards females and film is full of what I call “chick lit melodrama”. Heck (without spoiling too much), there aren’t even any real vampires in the film.
This film was definitely not my thing.
4/10
Paul Williams Still Alive
Now this film was a joy. The film features the director tracking down, way past his prime, singer/actor Paul Williams and follows him around for a couple of years to document his life and career.
This film was definitely a very candid look into Williams’ life and it was filled with much tongue-in-cheek humour as the director played around with documentary conventions. Definitely very enjoyable.
9/10
Generation P
This one I admit was a bit confusing. It’s a Russian film about a man, who goes into advertising and comes up with this outrageous ads with the help of drugs. It was definitely a surreal and interesting film, but I found that it ran a little longer than it should and I found myself dozing off a bit towards the end (though I gladly didn’t miss anything do important – just a line or two of subtitles).
7/10
Jeff, Who Lives at Home
This film was a joy. The film stars Jason Segel as a live-at-home slacker, who comes to believe that everything that happens in his life must have a greater purpose. Ed Helms co-stars as his older and more cynical brother and both go on an adventure, during one hectic day. Quite enjoyable.
8/10
Lovely Molly
One of the Midnight Madness selections, this is pretty much a film about a newlywed, who slowly goes crazy while staying alone in her parent’s old house. Based on how you interpret the film, she is either being haunted by her abusive father or she is just suffering from the psychological trauma from the abuse. Either way, after a slow start, the film become quite chilling. It should also be noted that the film was directed by the co-director of The Blair Witch Project and I suppose he couldn’t resist including a few homages to that film (through man scenes shot with a handheld camcorder).
7/10
Billy Bishop Goes to War
This film was a blast. It is an adaptation of the play of the same name and the film has a very theatrical quality to it. I would have to say that it was probably the most enjoyable film I’ve seen at the film festival and it was definitely something unique and different.
10/10
The Day
This Midnight Madness selection is an action-drama that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. The story is quite simple – a group of wanderers take shelter in an abandoned house and they are attached by a group of cannibals, who want them for food. The film moves back and forth between gripping drama and very violent action and it was definitely a quite entertaining film.
8/10
Only three more days left of the festival. I’ll probably combine the films I see during those days into one report, before I do my all-round wrap-up.
