A Late Quartet (C-)
A lot of talent involved here with Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener, but overall the project lacked a narrative outside of the soap opera-esque material it decided to focus on. With the narrative involving a string quartet there was a lot more room to roam that was eventually left untapped.
A Late Quartet features a solid performance from Christopher Walken but overall is just another soap opera disguised as a feature film.
Smashed (B-)
Smashed is solid for a film dealing with drunks, a narrative topic that tends to make me cringe as they all tend to follow the same path of learning. This one, however, throws a few curve balls that help it along. It also has a great performance from Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who just may find herself an Oscar nominee very soon.
Smashed includes a likely Oscar nominee in Mary Elizabeth Winstead playing an alcoholic first grade teacher that decides to sober up, but I still have a hard time overlooking the narrative pitfalls films such as this must take to tell their story.
Aftershock (F)
I saw some bad films in Toronto, but none worse than Aftershock, a film I almost ended the festival on as the threat of rain almost deterred me from heading out to the theater on Friday morning. I would have hated for this to be my last film of the nine day journey, but probably not as much as I hated the film itself.
After seeing over 20 films at the Toronto Film Festival one of them has to be the worst and I have found that one. Aftershock is a film so awful I was jealous of the critics walking out of my screening as I remained, shackled to my seat.
Great Expectations (B-)
We all know Great Expectations. We’ve read it in school and seen at least one adaptation if not several. The highest compliment I can give Mike Newell‘s is to say it’s good and obsessed Dickens fans should enjoy it.
Mike Newell’s latest adaptation of Great Expectations isn’t anything that’s going to change the way you look at the classic Dickens novel, but it is a satisfying telling of the story with plenty of good and only a dose of drab.
Bad 25 (A+)
I woke up early on Friday morning. Spike Lee’s Bad 25 was going to be the last film of the festival for me. I’d been looking forward to it, hoping after nine days of ups and downs it would end the fest on a high note. I stepped outside and rain clouds were looming on the horizon.
I had been beaten down by Aftershock less than 24 hours earlier and was tired and a bit downtrodden. As pathetic as it sounds, I didn’t want to have to walk back in the rain. I was over it. Then, Kevin Jagernauth from The Playlist told me to “Suck it up!” I did, and ended up seeing one of the best films I’ve seen all year. Thanks Kev!
Spike Lee takes an engrossing look at the life and creative genius of Michael Jackson in Bad 25, a documentary timed to correspond with the 25th Anniversary of the titular album and one you simply must see.
And that does it. I will be doing another look at the festival on Monday, discussion the acquisitions and overall effect it may have had on the Oscar race, but for now I think I’m going to take a step back and rest a bit… Hope you enjoyed my coverage.
