Not a Trace of Irony

For unknown reasons, I own and also appreciate the random play of The Bellamy Brothers' Let Your Love Flow in public. It's all the fault of the end credits in that damn Little Darlings movie with Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal. Little Darlings, for the record, is essentially The Facts of Life at summer camp minus Tootie, Natalie and Mrs. Garrett, plus teenage sex and smoking, with dopey Matt Dillon as dopey George Clooney and wee Cynthia Nixon (long before her Miranda days) for extra weirdness.

Captain Mike Across America Vanishes

Michael Moore is offering his new film, Slacker Uprising, as a free download. Just in time for the Obama/McCain showdown later this year. In 2007, he screened a cut of the film at TIFF under the title, Captain Mike Across America. M and I were waiting in line for another movie and saw Moore being escorted into the Scotiabank Theatre for the premiere. M recently asked me what happened to Captain Mike and I told him I didn't know. Well M, this is what happened to it. Should be an interesting experiment for the new frontier of no cost, full-clip Internet entertainment. Would love to know how many people download it. Stats, anyone?

On a Completely Unrelated Note, I Am Stealing Tina Fey's Phrase "Turkey Burger of a/an..." About Everything

Nice to know that old books are not forgotten but when will there be enough time to read them? It's already nearly impossible to keep up with current titles and contemporary or classic classics. Somehow I haven't read any of Miriam Toews books yet. Her new one, The Flying Troutmans, sounds appealing and Pickle Me This' praise certainly helped pique my interest. More on Toews here. Paper Cuts reports that Rolling Stone recently asked comedians to select the funniest ever novels, movies, etc. Finally, this woman is living one of my dreams. Normally, having other people do things for you is a treat, except when your thunder is stolen in the process and you are reminded how very non-thunderous you've been about the thing being done on your behalf.

Word on the Street

Coast to coast, we celebrate reading on Sunday the 28th. Scads of books and magazines to be had. Goodness.

IMDb Does One Better...Sort Of

As if IMDb wasn't already the source of all things helpful, the site is now going to be offering streaming video of films and TV shows for free. I don't want to sound ungrateful, but let's hope they put up some good stuff. What we don't need is an Internet version of the 'Under $5' bin in retail stores. Oh, and let's hope they change their minds about restricting content to users outside the U.S. It's not called the Worldwide Web for nothing, folks.

Discreet Adulation

The Scotiabank Giller Prize nomination process is shrouded in mystery. The nominees list is not.

TIFF Roundup: My Mother, My Bride and I

My Mother, My Bride and I tells the story of mama's boy Erwin (Matthias Brandt) who shakes up his sheltered existence by bringing a fiery Romanian woman (Maria Popistasu) home to his native Germany. The film contains a number of small, charming moments expertly handled by the three excellent leads. The quirk factor is above average in a good way and the story is engaging. Unfortunately, the tonal shift, two-thirds of the way through drains much of the movie's vitality. Surprises are nice in that they subvert the tedium of telegraphed plots, but occasionally stories are better when they stay the expected course. Worthwhile viewing for parts-are-just-as important-as-the-whole-types because many of the parts are wonderful. Not so much for types who require consistency as an absolute requirement for enjoyment. Variety gives an accurate summation with slightly more spoilerific detail than is ideal here.

The Line Between Bizarre and Intriguing is Fine

A nod to J for the wonkiest cover of the day (likely wonkiest for the foreseeable future) - W. Shatner does Pulp's Common People as spoken word.

TIFF Roundup: Kisses

Kisses deserves accolades and wide distribution. It has much to recommend, from the beguiling performances to the shifting colour palette to the score. The story unfolds as two Irish kids run away from their dysfunctional homes into Dublin. Writer/director Lance Daly creates a film that is both starkly realistic and playful. Kylie and Dylan lighting out for freedom is exhilarating for them and for the audience. But Daly knows that whimsy is easily interrupted by unpleasantness and the consequences of Kylie and Dylan's escape eventually intrude on the pair's fun. Though the film flirts with implausibility a couple of times, Daly largely avoids the trap of movie contrivance (e.g. a Bob Dylan-related scene is cleverly handled). Throughout he crafts a series of mini-adventures that are thoroughly enjoyable and sometimes unexpectedly so. Two otherwise dreary locales are invigorated in sequences where the kids tear up a shopping mall and climb aboard a river dredger.

Kelly O'Neill (Kylie) and Shane Curry (Dylan) are wonderfully natural and compelling. If the post-screening Q&A is any indication, they are much like their characters - Kylie, the adventurous, vivacious spitfire and Dylan, the reluctant, taciturn accomplice. This film is the first for both and O'Neill, particularly, should end up with a busy career if she wants one. Kisses is Daly's third outing. With luck he will make many more films of its quality.

The TIFF Ad

Every year TIFF creates a short spot about sponsors and such that precedes each screened film. It's always accompanied by a bit of music (usually instrumental) and somehow they choose a fabulous tune every time; so fabulous that I look forward to the spots deeply. I can't remember recognizing any of the songs. They've always seemed unique to the ads. This year the Festival is using a song that's definitely not TIFF-specific. Despite the change, TIFF impresses once again with the opening bars of Patrick Watson's socks-knocking off Luscious Life. Piano at its hauntingly loveliest.

TIFF Roundup: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Insight gleaned at Saturday's screening of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: staying out all night is a lot of fun when you're watching other people do it at the reasonable dinner hour of 6:00; offering film-goers the chance to witness the genesis of a romance is like offering catnip to a kitten; Seth Meyers should do more cameos, Michael Cera is a teen heartthrob. Girls were screaming like crazy for him. When N and N is released widely next month, the crushes will multiply tenfold. He's a sweet guy in a sweet and endearing film that follows two teens around NYC as they search for an elusive gig and possibly fall in love. As is obvious from the title, music plays a key role in their tentative bonding. Nick and Norah have the astute musical taste of cool kids, however, they aren't condescending about it. Neither is the movie. The score and soundtrack are excellent (The Submarines! We Are Scientists!) but an uninitiated audience won't be made to feel inferior if they don't recognize it acts like Vampire Weekend. While the film covers conventional territory it's just different enough to feel original. For example, the du jour drunk girl is actually funny and Nick's gay wingmen are more concerned for his heart than his libido. This movie is the kind of movie that puts you in a great mood almost instantly and keeps you there the whole way through. It's worth seeing if you enjoy the state of happiness. It's must-see viewing if you want to understand why Where's Fluffy propaganda is popping up everywhere. Definitely this year's Vote for Pedro.

Thanks to J for the poster.

TIFF Roundup: Country Wedding

My Film Festival began with Valdis Oskarsdottir's Country Wedding on Thursday evening. The premise - a young Icelandic couple spend a day travelling to their rural wedding with oddball family/friends in tow - seemed a good source of outlandish hijinks. Hijinks are plentiful though they are more predictable than you would hope for (the age-deluded grandmother who keeps wandering off, the emotional bride who breaks down regularly at the slightest upset). Near the end of the film, proceedings threaten to go off the rails of reality into comic melodrama. That said, the characters and their plights grow on you as the story progresses and the circumstances of the film's development demand lenient judgment. At the Q&A, the director and several charming cast members revealed that the film was largely improvised. Rehearsals of character backstories had been conducted pre-shoot but none of the scenes on screen were rehearsed. To top off that laudable feat, Oskarsdottir shot the whole thing in seven days. Seven! After hearing that information, I mentally revised my middling reaction upward. You've got to give credit where it's due.

The Friday File

Peter Howell argues that films screened in the Special Presentations programme at TIFF are often better than those that screen as glitzy Galas and I agree. U.K. scientists have linked personality traits to the type of music a person likes to listen to. And the New York Times spent a night out with Elisabeth Shue. Why is that interesting? Because she engendered lifelong goodwill for her role in the teen classic Adventures in Babysitting and she did it in the first two minutes of the film, dancing around her bedroom to The Crystals' And Then He Kissed Me. The babysitting blues are way more fun than they're entitled to be.

Ear Crack

The National - Apartment Story
Sigur Ros - Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur
Nada Surf - Treading Water

Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End was a delight to read. Anyone who's ever worked in an office (or worked at all) will appreciate its humour. Joshua Ferris' novel is aided greatly by his decision to employ first person plural narration. The collective "we" (used to great effect in Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides) draws the reader in as a co-conspirator; just one of many workers enmeshed too closely in the lives of their colleagues. Even when Ferris breaks from the technique for a short section to focus on one character, he maintains narrator/reader symbiosis with observations about recognizable human preoccupations such as this one: "Imagine if one night in a lifetime were looked upon as a scientist might look upon it, or some other life form studying our species, and from that one night, the worth of the entire life were derived. Well, she'd rather hers not be evaluated by the TV she's watched or the closet she hasn't cleaned." Impossible not to be captivated.

Powells interviewed Ferris about Then We Came to the End last year.

Music Gets Analytical

Anything can be turned into a competition. The proof is in the announcement of the annual world air guitar champion. Competition is decidedly less apparent when it comes to the most referenced body part in song lyrics. It's the eyes.