Friday, September 9, 2016

tiff16 - it's what we do

Things to Come 


Directed by : Mia Hansen - Love
Starring : Isabelle Huppert

I hate it when this happens.  You start your festival full of hope and promise and end up on movie one with ... a dud.  Things to Come chronicles the life of a tightly wound philosophy teacher in Paris as she manages things life throws her way.  Well, all right.  Unfortunately, nothing much really happens by way of plot or narrative and I NEED NARRATIVE so this felt so flat to me.  I spent much of my time wondering when Isabelle Huppert was going to have some mad sex with her hot protege.  Sadly for both of us, this never happened.  Huppert was quite solid overall in this one, though and with 4 other films at the Festival let's hope this is the only dud for her too.

Free Fire

Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Starring:  Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy,  Armie Hammer, Sam Riley

Midnight Madness at TIFF is complete wild vibes.  The audience skews younger than your average TIFF audience, they are jacked and ready for the edgy fare coming their way.  Generally speaking, films programmed for MM are of the horror, supernatural or all together weird variety.  This is decidedly NOT my jam, but a few years ago I stepped out of my comfort zone with a MM film as I figured if I'm going to Festival I need to MM too and I've been selecting a film from this program ever since.  That said, my picks are generally the mildest on the roster as life is scary enough who needs to be scared at the movies?!  Ben Wheatley's Kill List popped by MM cherry that first year,  and I've been oddly following his films ever since.  He brought High Rise to the Festival last year, and has returned now with Free Fire.  Free Fire is manic, hilarious and 90 minutes of pure fun.  Set in one location and taking us through a weapons deal that goes awry this movie is tight, tight tight.  Crisp, crackerjack script.  Over the top action.  Nuanced acting.  Killer soundtrack.  Not much wrong with this one in my books.  I'm a fan for life Ben!

1 out of 2 ain't bad for Day 1, but let's work on those numbers, shall we?  Today's roster takes me to a reunion of old high school friends gone wrong and a tale of a family of outlaws (i.e the mob.  I love the mob.)



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