Tuesday 25 August 2015

Filmmakers & Celebs attending TIFF's 40 Anniversary Festival

Want to know who's coming to TIFF this year for their 40th Anniversary?

Well they just released the press release with the extensive list.  It seems very international this year to me.

The following filmmakers, creators and artists are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Marc Abraham, Lenny Abrahamson, Hany Abu-Assad, Evgeny Afineevsky, Pablo Agüero, Chantal Akerman, AKIZ, Emin Alper, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, George Amponsah, Laurie Anderson, Faraz Anoushahpour, Parastoo Anoushahpour, Joko Anwar, Danielle Arbid, Myrsini Aristidou, Gillian Armstrong, Harrison Atkins, Jacques Audiard, Nabil Ayouch, Jason Bateman, Joe Begos, Mateo Bendesky, Roxanne Benjamin, Amy Berg, Bergur Bernburg, Fabienne Berthaud, Thomas Bidegain, Wayne Blair, Matthew Taylor Blais, Anna Boden, Andreea Cristina Bortun, Mir-Jean Bou Chaaya, Leyla Bouzid, Salem Brahimi, Pietra Brettkelly, Sue Brooks, Matthew Brown, David Bruckner, Robert Budreau, Jayro Bustamante, Sean Byrne, Paco Cabezas, A.D. Calvo, Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, Jon Cassar, Michael Caton-Jones, Sylvia Chang, Soi Cheang, Mabel Cheung, Andrew Cividino, Elaine Constantine, Scott Cooper, Julio Hernández Cordón, Catherine Corsini, John Crowley, Jonás Cuarón, Maris Curran, Andrew Currie, Jamie M. Dagg, Ely Dagher, Terence Davies, Tammy Davis, Álex de la Iglesia, Salvador del Solar, Samuel M. Delgado, Gaby Dellal, Julie Delpy, Yuval Delshad, Nick DenBoer, Diastème, Drake Doremus, Christopher Doyle, Igor Drljaca, Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, Stephen Dunn, Barbara Eder, Guy Édoin, Jussi Eerola, Robert Eggers, Atom Egoyan, Adil El Arbi, Halima Elkhatabi, Danae Elon, Jihan El-Tahri, Roland Emmerich, Anne Émond, Can Evrenol, Lawrence Fajardo, Philippe Falardeau, Bilall Fallah, Kasra Farahani, David Farr, Jean-Loup Felicioli, Pablo Fendrik, Ryan Ferko, Simon Fitzmaurice, Ryan Fleck, Federica Foglia, Davy Force, Maïder Fortuné, Stephen Frears, Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Cary Fukunaga, Alain Gagnol, Florian Gallenberger, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Geeta Gandbhir, Cesc Gay, Tom Geens, Beatrice Gibson, Nitzan Gilady, Helena Girón, Amos Gitaï, Fabrice Gobert, Tim Godsall, David Gordon Green, Paul Gross, Guan Hu, Ciro Guerra, Davis Guggenheim, Meghna Gulzar, Patricio Guzmán, Ido Haar, Lucile Hadžihalilovic, Du Haibin, Andrew Haigh, Hermon Hailay, Grímur Hákonarson, Catherine Hardwicke, Sterlin Harjo, Owen Harris, Brian Helgeland, Oliver Hermanus, Gavin Hood, Tom Hooper, Patrick Horvath, Eva Husson, Nicholas Hytner, Anders Thomas Jensen, Brian D. Johnson, Duke Johnson, Evan Johnson, Kent Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Marie-Ève Juste, Tolga Karaçelik, Paul Katis, Charlie Kaufman, Shambhavi Kaul, Naomi Kawase, Yaelle Kayam, Alexandra-Therese Keining, Eric Khoo, Sebastian Ko, Sandra Kogut, Barbara Kopple, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Baltasar Kormákur, German Kral, Lars Kraume, Tim Kring, Joachim Lafosse, Patrice Laliberté, Yorgos Lanthimos, Hicham Lasri, Daniel Leconte, Emmanuel Leconte, Sherren Lee, Claude Lelouch, Michael Lennox, Mark Lewis, Sergei Loznitsa, Guy Maddin, Michael Mann, Pietro Marcello, Alejandra Márquez Abella, Justin Martinez, Gabriel Mascaro, Mai Masri, Erik Matti, Steven McCarthy, Tom McCarthy, Bruce McDonald, Sam McKeith, Tom McKeith, Julio Medem, Isiah Medina, Deepa Mehta, Piero Messina, Takashi Miike, Rebecca Miller, Roberto Minervini, Josh Mond, Caroline Monnet, Dito Montiel, Michael Moore, Jocelyn Moorhouse, Nanni Moretti, Radu Muntean, Ilya Naishuller, Pan Nalin, Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser, László Nemes, Morgan Neville, Eva Neymann, Gaspar Noé, Bahar Noorizadeh, Rufus Norris, Ryan J. Noth, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Kwon Oh-kwang, Marcel Ophüls, Louise Osmond, Luis Ospina, Ivan Ostrochovský, Stephen Page, Kire Paputts, Jennifer Peedom, Nicolás Pereda, Osgood Perkins, He Ping, Leanne Pooley, Natalie Portman, Corneliu Porumboiu, Robin Pront, Lucía Puenzo, Nicolás Puenzo, Radio Silence, Kazik Radwanski, Behrouz Rae, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Nick Read, Patrick Reed, Rob Reiner, Jason Reitman, Arturo Ripstein, Ben Rivers, Jay Roach, Ariel Rotter, Patricia Rozema, Rúnar Rúnarsson, Zack Russell, Seung-wan Ryoo, Adam Salky, Jeremy Saulnier, Matthew Saville, Mark Sawers, Lorene Scafaria, Elisabeth Scharang, Sebastian Schipper, Kerstin Schroedinger, Grant Scicluna, Ridley Scott, Florin Serban, Michelle Shephard, Howie Shia, Mina Shum, Nick Simon, Jeremy Sims, Hanna Sköld, Marko Skop, Mark Slutsky, Peter Sollett, Paolo Sorrentino, The Sporadic Film Collective, Simon Stone, Todd Strauss-Schulson, Thomas Stuber, Corin Sworn, Malgorzata Szumowska, Mika Taanila, Kimie Tanaka, Terrarea, Johnnie To, Pablo Trapero, Joachim Trier, Athina Rachel Tsangari, André Turpin, Yermek Tursunov, Jean-Marc Vallée, Joost van Ginkel, James Vanderbilt, Ana Vaz, Federico Veiroj, David Verbeek, Lorenzo Vigas, Denis Villeneuve, Magnus von Horn, Charlie Vundla, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wim Wenders, Ben Wheatley, Alice Winocour, Frederick Wiseman, Anthony Wonke, Marcin Wrona, Leena Yadav, Zhang Yang, Martin Zandvliet, Shemi Zarhin, Yared Zeleke, Jia Zhang-ke, Christian Zübert, and Alan Zweig.

The following guests are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Christopher Abbott, Maisa Abd Elhadi, Alon Aboutboul, Abdelkarim Abu Baraka, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Waris Ahluwalia, Anajosé Aldrete, Vladimir Alexis, Sarah Allen, Joan Allen, Mathieu Amalric, Robert Amjarv, Jesuthasan Antonythasan, Benjamin Arthur, Ascot Royals, Kate Ashley, Mohammed Assaf, Hiba Atallah, Qais Atallah, Kevin Bacon, Jag Bal, Sofia Banzhaf, Tara Lynn Barr, Drew Barrymore, Joel Basman, Sean Bean, Jonny Beauchamp, Monica Bellucci, Tim Beresford, Bernardo Bernardo, The Big Sound, Luke Bilyk, Rougalta Bintou Saleh, Emily Blunt, Alexis Bonogofsky, Devon Bostick, Rachida Brakni, Adrien Brody, Erika Brodzky, Josh Brolin, Bruce Peninsula, Daniel Brühl, Sandra Bullock, Lindsay Burdge, Emil Buschow, Oskar Buschow, Will Butler, Win Butler, Rose Byrne, Michael Caine, Deragh Campbell, Michael Caton, Josh Charles, Régine Chassagne, Jessica Chastain, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Ricardo Chavira, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Suzanne Clément, Kristine Cofsky, Emory Cohen, Toni Collette, Common, Tom Courtenay, Bryan Cranston, John Lloyd Cruz, Penélope Cruz, Jimena Cuarón, Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, Mackenzie Davis, Benicio Del Toro, Monica Deol, Johnny Depp, Rajshri Deshpande, Tommy Dewey, Agyness Deyn, Steve Dhillon, Fariborz David Diaan, Sarah Jane Dias, Garret Dillahunt, Ma-Anne Dionisio, David Disher, Ryan Donnelly, Jean Dujardin, Willonson Duprate, Francesca Eastwood, Joel Edgerton, Jean Romane Edmond, Dennis Edney, Patricia Edney, Jesse Eisenberg, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carmen Ejogo, Idris Elba, Viss Elliot Safavi, Greg Ellis, Cary Elwes, Elle Fanning, Feng Xiaogang, Dominic Flores, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Ben Foster, Jeremy Gara, Gael García Bernal, Maxim Gaudette, Filip Geljo, Jasmin Geljo, Greta Gerwig, Domhnall Gleeson, Donald Glover, Cad Gold Jr., Caroline Goodall, John Goodman, Topher Grace, Greg Grunberg, Pavleen Gujral, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Hardy, Allan Hawco, Ethan Hawke, Salma Hayek, Liam Hemsworth, Aksel Hennie, Tom Hiddleston, Randeep Hooda, Sacha Horler, Christine Horne, Nicholas Hoult, Patrick Huard, Rhys Ifans, Reef Ireland, Jeremy Irons, Jeremy Irvine, Christopher Jacot, Stephan James, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Connor Jessup, Wang Jiajia, Jillea, Harvey Keitel, Anna Kendrick, Richard Kerr, Irrfan Khan, Kirin Kiki, Jack Kilmer, Tim Kingsbury, Burghart Klaußner, Naomi Klein, Johannes Krisch, Diane Kruger, Peter Kurth, Kutiman, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Lamassonne, Martin Landau, Caleb Landry Jones, Diane Lane, Brie Larson, Gilles Lellouche, Alban Lenoir, Dave Liang, Marilyn Lima, Maša Lizdek, Kayla Lorette, Yo-Yo Ma and members of the Silk Road Ensemble, Amrit Maghera, Anushka Manchanda, Kate Mara, Jackson Martin, Steve Martin, Rachel McAdams, Anthony McCoy, Katelyn McKerracher, Chad McKinney, Baya Medhaffer, Alyx Melone, Tyler Messick, Dounia Mikou, Helen Mirren, Susan Misner, Jessica Mitchell, Reece Moffett, Roland Møller, Ali Momen, Julianne Moore, Elisabeth Moss, Sandhya Mridul, Axelle Munezero, William Nadylam, Jean Baptiste Nazaire, Navid Negahban, Sophie Nélisse, Cynthia Nixon, Tom Noonan, Dean Norris, Kim Novak, Michael Nyqvist, Chris O'Dowd, Alvaro Ogalla, Dean O'Gorman, Elizabeth Olsen, David Oyelowo, Ellen Page, Hunter Page-Lochard, Dev Patel, Michael Peña, Ron Perlman, Terry Pheto, Christopher Plummer, Clémence Poésy, Imogen Poots, Keith Poulson, Tara Pratt, Princess Shaw, Ahmad Qassim, Dennis Quaid, Eddie Redmayne, Richard Reed Perry, Callum Keith Rennie, Ryan Reynolds, Keith Richards, Julian Richings, Emma Roberts, Nick Robinson, Sam Rockwell, Scott Rodger, Géza Röhrig, Sandro Romero, Saoirse Ronan, Chloe Rose, Sakis Rouvas, Louis Roux, Geoffrey Rush, Andrew Ryder, Alain Saadeh, Gia Sandhu, Susan Sarandon, Morgan Saylor, Aliocha Schneider, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mike Scott, Nick Serino, Gingger Shankar, Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Kiernan Shipka, Sarah Silverman, J.K. Simmons, Julia Simpson, Goran Slavkovic, Sarah Snook, Sebastian Stan, Kristen Stewart, Patrick Stewart, Yunfan Sun, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, Rossif Sutherland, Theo Tams, Juno Temple, David Thewlis, Tory N. Thompson, River Tiber, Karelle Tremblay, Jacob Tremblay, Ulrike C. Tscharre, Peter Vack, Marine Vacth, Chantal Vaillancourt, Erwin Van Cotthem, Željko Veljkovic, Alicia Vikander, Vinay Virmani, Christopher Walken, Michaela Watkins, Naomi Watts, Matt Watts, Andy Weir, Rachel Weisz, Chase Williamson, Rachel Wilson, Kate Winslet, Letitia Wright, Fouad Yammine, Anton Yelchin, Odessa Young, Zhao Tao, and Elsa Zylberstein.

Time to start figuring out what films you want to see or your favourite filmmakers or celebrities because they will be all over the place in Toronto very soon.

Fore more info:

Purchase Festival ticket packages until August 26 while quantities last. Individual tickets are on sale from Sunday, September 6 to Sunday, September 20. Purchase packages and tickets online 24 hours a day at tiff.net/festival, by phone at 416.599.TIFF or 1.888.599.8433.

Festival Box Office, located at 225 King Street West, opens on August 25. TIFF prefers Visa.

Social Media:
@TIFF_NET
#TIFF15
Facebook.com/TIFF

Thursday 6 August 2015

Ricki and the Flash - Review

I got tickets to see RICKI AND THE FLASH from She Does the City and was really excited to go and see this films.  How can you not love Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline and bonus of Rick Springfield?  And it's about a Rockstar mom.  Right...

The film is about Ricki / Linda played by Meryl Streep who is an ageing singer songwriter in a house band in a bar.  She left her family to follow her dream of being a Rockstar and kind of lost a lot of things along the way. On the verge of bankruptcy she gets a call from her ex-husband to come to help their daughter who recently split from her husband and had a suicide attempt.  Ricki/Linda was estranged from the family for many years and her ex-husband's new wife stepped in an took care of the mom stuff.  Ricki/Linda arrives when the wife is out of town and she learns about the suicide attempt and does what she knows to try and get her daughter back from the brink.  Her daughter is played by her real life daughter Mammie Gummer.  Her ex husband is played by Kevin Kline who she has great chemistry with.

There are also 2 grown sons in the family and one is engaged which they neglected to tell Ricki/Linda about and didn't invite to their wedding for fear of embarrassment.  Ricki/Linda is hurt but starts to understand the trail she left because of her leaving the family.  Her other son is gay but she thought he was bi-sexual but just made the decision to be only with men.  The only one that seems to be on her side is her ex-husband.   While at the same time her bandmate Rick Springfield is in love with her and very supportive but she doesn't take their relationship seriously.  I love Rick Springfield and think he is the perfect person to play an ageing Rockstar because he is a Rockstar and he is also an actor but the only thing I had a problem with was the chemistry between Rick Springfield and Meryl Streep.  His character was a nice guy rockstar and she was a messed up broken woman but even though in real life there is only a 1 year difference in their age they seemed years apart in life for some reason.  They just didn't seem to have the great chemistry that she did with Kevin Kline.  The kissing scenes seemed awkward and forced.

The film was written by Diabalo Cody and directed by Jonathan Demme who has made some great films in the past.  This film was fun but there were a few things that seemed a little off.

Meryl Streep did a great job singing and I think her on screen persona was supposed to be something like Bonnie Raitt but I guess I know too many musicians and she just didn't come across as cool.   Very surprising for Meryl as she always seems to step effortlessly into any character.  What I can say is that when it came to the mom part she had that part down pat.  Meryl spent something like 6 months learning guitar and getting callouses from all the practice but once again I noticed something amiss when the guitar playing didn't match up too well with the music in the film.  That happens and musicians and movie geeks would notice it but I don't know if regular people will care.

I don't want to bash this film as I enjoyed a lot of it but I would have tweeked a couple of elements I think.   I guess we will have to see how it does at the box office.  I doubt this one will earn Meryl an Academy nomination but that's ok,  I am sure she enjoyed the role and learned some new things and at the same time got to spend time with her daughter.   It's all good in the end.

Go see it and decide for yourself.

Saturday 1 August 2015

Bikes vs Cars

I went to see this interesting documentary last night.  Bikes VS Cars is a documentary that looks at what seems to be the war on cars but really is more of a war for freedom of choice to drive or bike in large cities.

Directed by Fredrik Gertten he compares how bikes and cars co-exist in major large cities mostly from the cyclist point of view but it also shows a taxi cab drivers perspective in Denmark where bikes rule the roads and make his cab driving very difficult.

Even Toronto's own former Mayor Rob Ford appears in the documentary as one of the opponents of bike lanes and a major factor in Toronto's waste of money and moving backwards in the move to give Toronto riders safe bike lanes to get them around downtown.

The documentary follows a bike rider in Los Angeles where it used to be a bikng mecca but has since turned into one large traffic jam of people just sitting in their cars for hours going nowhere.

Sao Paulo is also focused in the film with their high number of cyclist deaths because of their poor city planning.  The Mayor instigates a radical decision to secretly pave bike lanes overnight without warning to prevent interference from local businesses and removes 400,00 parking spots in one fowl swoop.  

Urban planners need to start thinking about how to design cities that can co-exist with both cars and bikes because cars aren't going away anytime soon and bike riders will never be safe unless they figure out a way for them to both be an option for commuting in busy cities.

I had a car for most of my life and I love to drive but because of financial reasons I recently sold my car.  I don't have a bike because it isn't practical for where I live and I am too out of shape to be able to ride one very far anyway.  My new normal is to take transit most of the time,  walk when I can and get a rental car when I need to go somewhere that is difficult to get to by transit or if I need to haul things.  I think the car share service is a good alternative to everyone owning their own cars.  If you don't drive everyday it makes sense to share/rent a car when you need it.  
In Toronto the city is increasing the bike share share service available downtown so that people have the option to get around on bikes if they don't have one.   With the high number of bikes that are stolen each year this is also a good option for that.  I don't know what happens when a bike share bike goes missing but I am sure it would prevent a lot of actual thefts of bikes that are then re sold.

I like to drive but in the past 5 years in Toronto it has become impossible to get anywhere between the condo construction and the increased amount of cars on the road and accidents and other delays it is just crazy trying to get somewhere in a reasonable amount of time anymore.
I am not a huge fan of the TTC for the fact that it isn't as reliable as it should be but it's the only way to move a lot of people around a congested city that isn't bike friendly.

i remember when I was a kid my mom worked from home and my dad who had a car took the subway to work downtown anyway because of parking.  I think his commute must have taken about 40 minutes.   Now the average commute can be 1-3 hours for some people.  If you add up all that time just trying to get somewhere it's time lost that could be used to spend with friends and family or more productive ways.   No wonder everyone is stressed out.  With commuting sucking a big chunk of your time there is less time to do what you actually need or want to do with your life.

I don't know if the mess large city planners have created can be reversed but small growing cities need to plan more carefully to create cities where there is space for people to live, people to work, people to drive, walk and bike to get around.  Options are the only way.   If I could find a job within walking distance of my house I would.  But it seems like there is nothing but condos for miles where I live so unless I want to clean condos or work for minimum wage in a restaurant there isn't much work available for me in my area.  All of the office jobs are all centred downtown so if I get a job downtown it's an average of about 2 hours a day in commute time.  That's 10 hrs a week just to go to a job and there are so many people that come from the 905 area to downtown and spend a lot more commute time.  It really doesn't make much sense in the long run.  People have to work downtown for the jobs but then they live on the outskirts to be able to afford a decent place to live.  If urban planners planned communities where a certain percentage was housing and a certain percentage was mixed commercial use and another percentage was recreation we might all have a choice to live a much healthier and more productive life.

It makes perfect sense but urban planners don't always operate from the place of common sense but more often because of political agenda unfortunately.  Maybe we need to change the face of politics and how it runs to be able to change our world.

BIKES VS CARS is playing at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto until Aug. 6.   Go see it.