Day 3: September 11

Slow and painful recovery from last night's wedding. Bleary eyed and with the cold sweats of fest fever, even the aesthetic concerns continue to plague. Do I go see David Gordon Greens' Undertow, a filmmaker who I met a few years back and I swore I'd see anything he made? Or do I check out Don McKeller's latest. I felt patriotic, and was not disappointed. Still, it does hurt after a while. These are the Sophie's Choices of fest going. Well, not really, but it sounded dramatic. Fests are not for the feint of heart, or for the clear of brain, after all.

By four or so, I had a crushing headache, nausea, a sore neck... basically, festival fever, the physical kind, had hit and hit hard. I dashed home for an hour long nap between screenings, in the hope that I'd live another day. I felt worse crawling on the subway after the respite, my head throbbing, my stomach a mess. All this to see the much-anticipated Ray. I mean, I was near death, but I wasn't going to miss that film. I sat in the Varsity screening room, holding my head and pulling out my hair... Then, the music started. As the film unfolded, the joy of songs, the exuberance of the performances lifted my spirits. By the end, swaying to the music, my head cleared, my neck soothed, I had been healed by the power of Ray's life and music. Hallelujah, brothers and sisters, my pain had been released.

Childstar
Directed by: Don McKeller

So, how does McKeller's followup to Last Night hold up? Wonderfully.

My fear was a repeat of last year's Made in Canada, a smirky, amateur affair that tried to deal with the unsettled condition of "runaway production". With Childstar, McKeller has crafted a sweet, witty film without employing cliché characterizations and pat plot points. The photography is top notch, at it quite simply looks and feels like a "real" movie, an honest to goodness work of great cinema that can compete with any in the world. May Canada make more of these (AND NO MORE "PHIL THE ALIEN"s!). The wait was well worth it.

Grade: A

Notre Musique
Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard

Grade: A

Oh, you. Sure, you're a legend. I mean, with all that "du Cinéma" stuff you used to do. And those crazy jump cuts you sometimes employed that now gets used by everything from commercials to MTV. What you got left, old man? I mean, is it going to be a rambling, didactic look at life, love and politics? It the conceit of splitting into heaven, hell and earth going to be a mere contrivance? Hell, is using the Israeli chick just sooo 1986?

No, you bastard, genius bastard. It's glorious. Musical. Amazing and lovely and smart and stylish and fascinating. I wanted to hate it, to think you couldn't do it anymore, to think that it would be incoherent, arrogant, annoying. It was lovely, and it was a lovely, lovely time watching it unfold. Keep going, old man.

Gunner Palace
Directed by: Michael Tucker

I'm not quite sure with the whole "embedding" thing that the U.S. expected films like this, but, to the credit of the U.S. military, Tucker was given pretty much unlimitted access to follow a small band of guys as they fight in Iraq and sleep in one of the Hussein family palaces. The DV footage is pretty spectacular, and with a couple visits Tucker does manage to craft a "story" of these guys to give the doc shape. On one level, it feels really intimate, that he became a part of this band, on the other I was left with the feeling that some of the bigger questions regarding their beliefs in their mission, the justification for the war in the first place - all the tropes that characterize Viet Nam-era docs - were somewhat muted. Still, a powerful film, going beyond the casualty statistics and minute-long news clips to provide a sense of what it must be like for the guys and girls over there.
Grade: B

Ray
Directed by: Taylor Hackford

Grade: A

Give Jamie Foxx the damn Oscar already, it's done. This isn't acting, it's pretty much channeling, almost as complete as Val doing Jim, but more, well, musical. The pleasure in the film isn't simply the incredible music (duh), or the uncanny recreation of Charles' shakes, rattles and rolls, its that the film is so darn fun to watch, a biopic that is actually interesting, stylish and enjoyable. I feared some sort of A&E biography by wrote, but by flipping back and forth through time (and film stock), Hackford plays with the form just enough to keep it cool while not seeming slick. This is an art house film for the masses and should be seen by all. Clearly a labour of love that transcends all the potential pitfalls and simply shines.

Off Beat
Directed by: Hendrik Hölzemann

Grade: C

I guess I don't really like Paramedics on film, as even Scorsese's Bringing out the Dead left me cold. There's enough to keep Off Beat interesting, complete with skateboard scenes for, you know, the kids. In the end, despite a pretty decent soundtrack but in the end I felt like I didn't really care.

The Machinist
Directed by: Brad Anderson

Grade: B-

Christian Bale starves himself to near-death proportions in this trippy, creepy film about insomnia in the workplace. The mood was well set, the performances uniformly great, and there were enough twists and turns to take this genre pick to a pretty decent level of enjoyment. Once again a bit slow for a MM film, but enjoyable nonetheless.