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TIFF 2007 Picks

So after much delibration, let me present our Toronto International Film Festival picks (a collaborative effort between J. and I). This is by no means a list of the “best” films; it’s more of a strategic list of films that might be hard to see later, and that we have a reasonable chance of getting in to, or that we just felt like including.

First choices:

  • The Exodus. Pang Ho-Cheung, Hong Kong. Because we don’t seen enough Asian movies.
  • I’m Not There. Todd Haynes, USA. Bob Dylan’s life, as defined by the characters he invented.
  • Persepolis. Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, France. A bleak recent history of life in Iran interjected with humour and dreams, animated in stark black & white from the original graphic novels.
  • Short Cuts Canada programme 2. A set of shorts leaning a bit more towards the animated end of the spectrum, with Boar Attack, Madam Tutli-Putli and Dada Dum looking particularly appealing.
  • Silent Light. Carlos Reygadas, Mexico. Mexican Mennonites including Miriam Toews, speaking in Low German? Indeed.

Second choices:

  • Encounters at the End of the World. Werner Herzog, USA. The legendary director does Antarctica.
  • Jellyfish. Shira Geffen & Edgar Keret, Israel. Unsettling Israelis on the brink of emotional chaos, and winner of a Camera d’Or at Cannes.
  • M. Lee Myung-Se, South Korea.
  • The Mourning Forest. Naomi Kawase, France/Japan. An elderly man and young woman contemplating grief amidst stunning nature. Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes this year.
  • With Your Permission. Paprika Steen, Denmark/Sweden. Extreme discomfort, all stiff back and flailing arms. And thankfully not dogme.

Not chosen, but looking forward to:

  • L’âge des ténèbres (Days of Darkness). Denys Arcand, Canada. Following up on the great Barbarian Invasions.
  • Eastern Promises. David Cronenberg, UK/Canada. The History of Violence team are back again, with Mortensen accompanied this time by Naomi Watt in a Russian mobster flick.
  • Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Shekhar Kapur, UK. Not at the top of my list, but probably worth seeing.
  • My Kid Could Paint That. Amir Bar-Lev, USA. Documentary about a 4 year old whose abstract artworks have sold for over $300,000.
  • My Winnipeg. Guy Maddin, Canada. Back with another weird one, I imagine.
  • No Country for Old Men. Joel & Ethan Coen, USA. Highly anticipated, based on its trailer.
  • Paranoid Park. Gus Van Sant, France. With Christopher Doyle as cinematographer.
  • Useless. Jia Zhang-Ke, China. About an artist who criticises consumerism’s effects on China; sounds thematically similar to Manufactured Landscapes, even if the art is completely different.

Reviews will show up in the sidebar of this site over the next few weeks, once we see which picks we get in the draw. It won’t be in the RSS feed, so check back at my site periodically.

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“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma wrote an article for the New York Times describing the major findings of nutritional science for the past few decades. The fantastic seven-word summary is my headline here. He also describes how “linguistic capitulation” mangled this into scientific euphemisms like “reduce saturated fat intake” and ultimately into the more nutritionally ambiguous “eat more low-fat foods.”

The article was very intriguing, and I’m particularly interested by the scientific complexities of nutrient absorption. I’m not ready to trust this author at first blush, but it’s fascinating reading.

Link courtesy of Price Tags.

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Stabbing

So apparently a St. Catharines man was stabbed this weekend in Trinity Bellwoods park, right by my house – by four panhandlers.

I’m not sure about the spin on this story – particularly the label “panhandler.” This took place on Queen West next to a large park around midnight, and the four perpetrators (ages 21-22) asked the victim for money, then a verbal and physical fight followed, culminating in the stabbing. What verb applies? Is it panhandling, mugging or swarming? Last I checked, it’s unusual for panhandlers to sit in groups of four and beg for money late at night… Mind you, I wasn’t there – perhaps they had been “panhandling” peacefully for several hours before this.

The spin allows panhandling to be painted as a threatening act. But it’s also lumping very different groups of people together – it’s a bit ridiculous to place these four 22 year olds in the same category as the 70-year old woman I see panhandling day and night outside the 7-11 one block away.

There are some rough characters in the neighbourhood, certainly. The nastiest area seems to be the northwest corner of Queen and Bathurst, where the native shelter and the youth shelter sit. I frequently see hard drinkers outside the native shelter, but I’ve never seen any violence. I did see a bloody brawl outside the youth shelter in broad daylight, spilling out into several lanes of traffic. All the same, I’m surprised that the violence spilled over to encompass regular passers-by.

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Kid Koala

I saw Kid Koala play last night with Bruce and others. I think this is the fourth time I’ve seen him, but he’s still a memorable performer and I had a great time at the show. He did a longer-format set than I’ve seen before, mostly hiphop mashups with his signature turntablist pieces mingled throughout. I actually quite liked the mashups – he’s incredibly fluid and clearly has a wide range of musical tastes, making for some great mixes. For the Toronto crowd, he threw in a hilarious old “Let’s go to Yonge Street” record, which he seamlessly mixed back-and-forth with some scifi tech-house… very slick.

If you’ve never seen him do his Moon River piece, check out the YouTube video below. I love this performance – it was the centrepiece of his “for the romantic couples set” in a velvety red room in the basement of the Vancouver planeterium I saw a few years back. At last night’s show, the video screens showed him carefully moving the needle around the record to play the right notes in the strings section – so cool. He uses three copies of the same Audrey Hepburn record to put this on, and it looked like the strings part might have been the B side of the same record.

[Update: the original YouTube has been taken down, but here’s a video at Daily Motion]

One of these days, I should check out his latest two albums, I suppose!