A TIFF To Remember - Volume 6 - It's the Script, Moron

Ah, glorious life ... today started off with a taping of The Hour.  Guests were Mary Harron, director of American Psycho, Monster and most recently The Moth Diaries.  She's pretty cool, directs some pretty out there stories and looks like your run of the mill suburban mom.  George kills me.  He's super cool, of course, but he's also so very, very good.  Good at his job.  He listens.  Interviews without notes and recounted facts of Mary's years in the NY punk scene, etc without a struggle.  He's prepared, engaged and, well, he has great shoes.  Next up, Michael Fassbender.  You likely don't know much about Michael Fassbender, but you will and you should.  He's just won Best Actor at Venice for his portrayal of a tortured sex addict in Shame, starved himself for the role of Bobby Sands in Hunger, was in XMen and tore it up in Inglorious Bastards.  I saw Jason right after his screening of Shame yesterday and he was almost apoplectic.  Can't wait to see it - Julie, when??  But now, back to Michael.  I'm going to go a bit fan-girly here.  Michael. Is.  Hot.  I know this is completely demeaning to a great talent but I can't help it.  He's not conventionally good looking.  He's long and lean with a perfect gait and an Irish accent.  His jeans, boots, long sleeved T were all fitting quite perfect.  He lifted his arm, exposed his taut tummy, no belt and elastic band of his underwear.  Tease.  ANYWAY.  Anyway.  He's super talented.  Really, he really is.  He's being heralded as the next Daniel Day Lewis for crying out loud!  He talked about the roles he's drawn too, which are tortured and consuming - I worry about him.  He and George bonded over motorcycles.  It was a double wow. After The Hour, rushed it over to ONE for Violet's brunch.  My day of wonder continues as Clive Owen is having a little business meeting at ONE as well.  Julie literally ran into him in the hallway leading to the washroom.  He smiled at her.  I am understatedly jealous.  She was in shock and couldn't really say anything to him.  Came back to the table and her hands were shaking.  She called her hubby to hear his voice on his VM so he could bring her back to reality.  Kinda cute, right?  We spent much of yesterday re-writing Julie's hallway encounter with Clive.  I think we did a damn fine job ... But not as good as these professionals:

Killer Joe, Directed by William Friedkin
Written by Tracy Letts
Starring Emile Hersch, Thomas Hayden Church, Gina Gershon, Juno Temple, Matthew McConaughey

Wow.  Killer Joe is based on a play by the same name also written by Terry Letts.  The guy is a mad genius. He won a Pulitzer for August: Osage County in 2008.  He's got creds.  Friedkin?  Yeah, a few creds too: The Exorcist, The French Connection.  So this little story tells the tale of some really stupid stupid dumb dumb characters who hatch a scheme to get some cash and it all goes kind of wrong.  Simple story.  The best kind.  Because simple stories with kick ass scripts and killer acting make for some pretty perfect movies.  Everyone was simply amazing in this film.   I am happy to say that Matthew McConaughey can now legitimately call himself an actor.  And his shirtless stat remains intact - shirtless +, actually.  There's a lot of crazy shit going on in this movie and some of it involves *spoiler alert* chicken, like a KFC chicken drumstick and Gina Gershon.  On her knees.  Look, that's all I'm going to say.  It was wild and weird and crazy and also pretty fucking amazing.  Go, Go, Go.

Damsels in Distress, Written & Directed by Whit Stillman
Starring Greta Gerwig, Adam Brody

Whit has been away far too long.  It's been 13 years since The Last Days of Disco came out.  13 years?!  Whit!  What have you been doing?  Writing this script I guess?  In the years that have passed since Whit's last masterpiece, his genre of film has actually received a name - thanks Jason! - it's called mumblecore:  movies with heavy dialogue, simple stories made with little money.  It's all here.  In spades.  When actors re-use wardrobe, you know the budget's tight.  The dialogue, the lines in this movie are unreal.  I realize in the real world it would be totally effected, but it's not the real world it's a Whit Stillman movie. It's a parallel universe, but the lines still resonate.  It's absurd, but in the delivery and cadence and rhythm in which they're written and ultimately spoken they somehow ring true.  That's the power of words.  You'll laugh.  And shake your head.  And learn a new international dance craze (because, yes, all Stillman pictures come with a dance number) - sambola yourself to the theatre for this one pronto.

Countdown, Written & Directed by Huh Jong - ho

Okay, what was this movie about?  Everything.  What kind of movie was it?  All kinds.  This was director & writer Huh Jung-ho's first feature and it's like he made all his movies at once. It was a caper, a thriller, a mob movie a comedy a tortured soul drama that came too little too late emotionally for me to care.  Worse - it was so cliche.  Wily seductress?  Check.  Warring criminal gangs?  Check.  Lifeless hero looking for redemption?  Check.  Car Chase Through Open Air Market?  Check.  Enough already.  Making it worse still?  It was sssoooo long!  See what happens with a crummy script?  You get a crummy movie.

Today, today ... Butter and Jeff, Who Lives Alone.  Our 6pm screening was canceled (some regulatory problems in India prevented export of the film) so we're going to do what good girls do: get pedicures and talk about Clive and Michael and the script, moron.  It's all about the script.