Oscar winner Diablo Cody goes for the gutsy with a ’80s-style horror romp. Megan Fox, right in her tiny wheelhouse, is the titular Jennifer, who’s sacrificed to Satan by emo band Low Shoulder (fronted by Adam “Seth Cohen” Brody!) so the band can hit it big. She becomes a half-demon instead, feeding on boys to […]
Tara Thorne
Posted inArts + Music
TIFF DAY 7: I can’t see and that’s ok
Declarations are being made all over the place: “I’m done.”“I’m running on fumes.”“I’ve got nothing.” An hour into my seventh consecutive 9am film, Don Roos‘ Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, I noticed I wasn’t wearing my glasses. And I couldn’t remember when I’d taken them off… just then, to clean them? Or an hour ago, […]
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TIFF DAY 6: Fatigue sets in, more stars and overpriced water
People are exhausted. The man who runs the press room, a European of some kind (maybe French, maybe English, definitely tan) is upset. “These people could be having drinks by the pool,” he tells the unrepentant photographers. “We bring them in here for you.” Apparently he’s been asking them not to take photos from the […]
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TIFF DAY 5: Pip pippa hooray for Rebecca Miller
Rebecca Miller‘s been building her career on the backs of fucked-up women since her 2002 debut Personal Velocity, a trio of stories—shot in the early age of quality digital—starring Kyra Sedgwick, Fairuza Balk and Parker Posey; and 2005’s PEI-shot The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Camilla Belle in her breakthrough role. In The Private […]
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TIFF DAY 4: Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t see the roller derby!
Berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg Ricky Gervais’ co-directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, opens October 2,and is in the same vein as his first American film, Ghost Town, which premiered here last year and tanked at the box office despite being pretty decent. In this story, co-scripted and -directed with Matthew Robinson, Gervais stars as a scriptwriter for an […]
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TIFF DAY 3: Talk Like a Pirate Day
One of the biggest buzz movies out of Sundance this year was called Push. Then that crappy movie called Push came out and they changed it to Precious. Either way, I know two things going into it this morning (with not enough hours between the film and a sold-out Ra Ra Riot show): it is […]
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TIFF DAY 2: Oscar winners, “sexy” faces and Coen brothers
OH HAI SETH COHEN The best way to get critics out to the dreaded 9am screenings is to fill those slots with critic bait—this year finds names like von Trier, Almodovar, Soderbergh, Herzog and Jeunet kicking off the days. Friday began with a packed house salivating for the new Coen brothers joint, A Serious Man. […]
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TIFF DAY ONE
It’s cool in the shade here and it feels like the whole city is under construction—but then, it always feels like that. I sign my name, as I do every year, under Beverly Thomson from Canada AM. And, as every year, I’ve beaten her to the press office. Blackberry is a major sponsor now and […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Irony vs sincerity: say what you mean
Laptops, DVRs, iPhones, digital cameras, Facebook, Twitter, Google, iTunes: they’ve come to define us, and they’ve come to ruin us. For all of the technology, the constant dick-swinging of newer/faster/cooler and the sheer amount of tools we have to communicate, communication itself has devolved into the worst misinterpretation of carpe diem: all of this now […]
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ADVENTURELAND
Pitched as a wacky comedy for its theatrical run, Adventureland actually has very few laughs—perfectly fine in a sensitive, well-wrought coming-of-age story, which is what it actually is. This film has all the heart and insight erroneously attributed to Mottolla’s first film, Superbad. James (Jesse Eisenberg) is a newly graduated (class of ’86) lit student […]
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Jasmine Oore’s winning ways
“People would say, ‘What’s your film about?’ and I’d say ‘It’s about living glamourously with bowel disease,’” says Jasmine Oore, “and it would make the room silent. And then I would add, ‘It’s a comedy.’ And it would get worse!” The silence-inducing concept, Glamour Guts—a shrewdly timed, freeze-frame-filled laugh riot—was written and directed by Oore […]
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Band-made celluloid: rock film clips
In amongst his 244 soundtrack appearances, Paul McCartney has 23 official credits as an actor, mostly voiceovers and Wings DVD compilations. Of course, he did appear as himself in the Beatles movies of the ’60s, including A Hard Day’s Night, Help and Magical Mystery Tour. And in 1978, McCartney appeared in an uncredited cameo in […]