tiff2016 - it's what we do

American Pastoral

Directed by: Ewan McGregor
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning

Based on the novel by Philip Roth, American Pastoral tells the story of a family torn apart by the choices of their daughter.  Ewan stars and makes his directorial debut here, in what I felt was a well paced think piece.  Acting was standout, especially from our two female leads - honestly, Jennifer Connelly really has the market cornered on playing tortured wives - and I really liked this (insofar as  you can 'like' a disturbing film).  Overall, the film was not well received and I'm unsure why.  A friend tells me critics are "often very hard on actors directing themselves on what could be perceived as overly self-serious semi-vanity projects especially when the source material has such a prestigious pedigree as it smacks of a too overt bid for artistic self-importance" (my friend is very smart) Well, okay - I don't think Ewan's that guy.  And this film wasn't that film.  I'll stand behind this one and only offer a mild critique that Jen & Ewan didn't really seem to age at all in the 20 year timeframe of the movie.  But, then again, neither have we in the real life, right?  So, never mind ...

Tramps

Directed by: Adam Leon
Starring: Callum Turner, Grace Van Patten, Mike Birbiglia

The problem with many "meet cute" rom-coms is they're just so .. dumb.  Full of cliches, tropes and predictability.  In simply genre terms, Tramps is a "meet cute" rom-com without all that.  Our unlikely couple are thrown together by their respective shady pals to pull off a classic "drop", what transpires in the action is rather fun and what transpires between them is quite charming.  I enjoyed this one for its dialogue and winsome duo.  It's not going to knock your socks off, but it won't make you poke your eyes out with a chopstick like most rom-coms do these days.  This is winning.

I am the Pretty Face That Lives in the House

Directed by: Osgood Perkins
Starring : Ruth Wilson

I've called his movie many things in the weeks leading up to the screening.  I've put this pretty face under the stairs, in the closet, sometimes there's more than one face, other times it's just a thing - holy crap, what a terrible title!  Was the movie any better?  I'm going to say, not much.  Based on the synopsis, it's the story of a hospice worker (Ruth) who comes to look after an aged former horror writer.  It soon becomes clear that things are not as they seem in this old, abandoned house.  I thought this was going to be a spookier  Misery.  Nope.  Aside from one scene it wasn't very spooky - and remember, I hate and never watch horror movies so don't have a baseline for spooky.  This was not at all spooky!   All around disappointing, aside from stellar work from Ruth who carried what was basically a one woman show. Incredible performance in a rather meh film.

The Bleeder

Directed by: Philippe Falardeau
Starring: Liev Schreiber, Elizabeth Moss, Naomi Watts

Full disclosure: I love sports movies.  The underdog fighting against the odds mythology is incredibly powerful especially if the payoff, in great sports movies, is rewarding and delivered without cliched predictability.   Boxing movies take this mythology to the next level - there's only one guy taking all the punches, and usually in these films the punches aren't only flying in the ring.  The Bleeder is indeed a boxing movie, and also the true story Chuck Wepner, a boxer not known for his talent or skill, but more so for his simple ability to take a punch. This tenacity made him the the inspiration for Stallone's Rocky.  Oh yeah, that little boxing movie.  Overall, this film is standard biopic fare - we move through Chuck's life as he takes on fight after fight, lives his life in Bayonne New Jersey, gets in trouble, loses and wins life's lotteries and tries to find a place for himself outside the ring.  It's not earth shattering stuff, but it's compelling as a character study (how many punches can you take before you just can't get up again) and an acting master class.  Liev was incredible.  Elizabeth astounding.  Naomi brilliant.  You need the best to deliver simple stories and we absolutely got the best here.  Capping off the night was probably one of the best Q&As I've ever been to at TIFF where, of course, Chuck regaled the crowd with his larger than life personality and true love for the people who brought his life to the big screen (again, but for real this time).  This one wasn't perfect, but I loved it all the same.

tiff2016 - it's what we do

Catfight

Directed by: Onur Tuket
Starring:  Anne Heche, Sandra Oh, Alicia Silverstone

Telling the story of a chance reunion between 2 former college friends that goes wrong, way wrong Catfight is a unique black comedy which delivers pointed commentary on the haves, have nots and what happens when the haves become the have nots and vice versa.  Playing the college friends - splintered by an unknown incident back in the day which fuels all their subsequent interactions - Anne & Sandra are bitter, cynical, angry and mean.  Their interactions are shocking and jarring, based on physical violence which becomes the cause of these transformations of class.  In a nutshell, they pummel the shit out of each other and lose it all.  The pummelling is completely over the top and cringe worthy.  I react to most violence on screen today with a bit of a shrug.  Okay, an explosion.  Yeah, that building collapsed.  Ah, machine guns.  But physical violence in its most base form - simply punching each other to almost death - is so cringeworthy.  Anne & Sandra were great in this and were completely girl crushing on each other at the Q&A.  Give this one a whirl if you can handle some punches.

Trespass Against Us

Directed by: Adam Smith
Starring: Brendan Gleason, Michael Fassbender

As a complex character study of a man trying to break free from the life he was born into, Trespass Against Us hits all the right notes for me.  Michael is the oldest son born to father Brendan, the head of an outlaw British crime family - they're thieves and thugs, living in a communal trailer park of sorts working jobs as directed by patriarch Brendan.  Michael is married, he has two kids.  He wants to be done.  He wants out.  But we all know this isn't easy.  The core of this film is Michael - his portrayal of the hardened criminal and soft hearted Dad who wants more for his family, but whose own family, and circumstances, will not make this possible is nuanced and real.  As every chance he takes to break free is thwarted he loses hope, gains frustration and our sympathy builds.  This one issn't perfect, it did drag at times, but if you keep your eyes on Michael you won't be disappointed.

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.)

Look.  I don't want to talk about where I've been or what I've been doing or why I haven't been writing.  I have reasons - not excuses, REASONS - but I just don't want to get into them right now.  What I want to get into is I'm here now and that's all that should matter.  Okay?  Okay.  We can get to all that other stuff later, whether you want to or not.

tiff2016 - it's what we do

Oh, yeah it is.  It's the eve of what is undoubtedly the best time of year to be a resident of Toronto, and as usual my crew of monkeys is locked and loaded for what is shaping up to be a pretty fantastic festival.

Looking at my roster, 24 films deep,  I'm pretty certain that I'll be high level depressed for the next 10 days.  Why year after year I continue to pick engrossing tear jerkers is beyond me, but perhaps we can explore that a little more later too.  

So tomorrow it is.  Stay tuned - as they say - for reviews, observations, musings and hopefully not too much sleep deprived blather.   I'm excited, and happy to be back.  

Got Style? Get Style!

Got Style?  Get Style! *

Finally!  Spring is here and alongside warmer weather and patio season comes a mild panic as you try to navigate through the fashion establishment’s trends for what’s in this season.  It’s okay to admit it fellas - we’re all in the same boat here.  Rifling through fashion magazines often leaves me shaking my head as I try to figure out how to make outfits remotely suitable for Planet Earth, let alone my own closet.  

What’s more important than following the latest trend is feeling comfortable in your own skin and marking your own type of individuality onto the look of the moment.  This credo saves those who are both too lazy or too poor to reinvent their wardrobe every season - and, seriously, who isn’t?  It also helps you steer away from following trends that are just damn silly (recall the shorts suit trend of last year?).  

Aside from massaging the what’s in & what’s out for your own comfort zone, there are a few things you must do every season and all the time to make sure you’re in style and fashionable.  It has nothing to do with what you’re wearing, but everything to do with how you’re wearing it.  To wit:

Tailor Me, Tailor You!

There’s nothing worse in the world of style than sloppiness.  Sure, grunge was a thing, but thankfully it’s not anymore which means you have no excuse for wearing clothes that don’t fit properly.  Pants should be hemmed.  Suit sleeves too.  Please don’t buy your dress shirts too short - your wrists want to wear your shirt too!  Common sense stuff that isn’t too hard to do.  So do it.  

Sock ‘Em!

Pity the working stiff who goes to work in a suit and has only the sock as his outlet of fashion creativity.  I love socks.  Stripes, polka dots, splashes of fun colour - go wild!  Just make sure the socks you’re wearing are appropriate for what you’re wearing.  I’m talking white, short gym socks with your suit.  NO.  Just.  Don’t.

Shoe’s the Thing!

I could write a PhD dissertation on men’s footwear, but for the sake of brevity  and your own boredom I’ll keep it brief.  Fellas, your shoes tell your story.  I do not overstate.  Do you want your story to be ultra-casual-not-a-care-in-the-world-lets-grab-a-bud Teva’s or i’ve-sort-of-got-it-together scuffed Brogues?  Unless you’re auditioning for a part in Jesus Christ Superstar, trust me when I say no one wants to read your Birkenstock story.   Be deliberate.  Choose wisely.  I am available for consultations.

Ultimately, much of what many consider stylish or not does amount to personal preference.  Unless you’re Jake Gyllenhaal (and if you are, Hi!  Huge Fan!  Can’t wait for Southpaw!), I’m not much of a beard person.  I don’t really like guys in shorts.  I prefer solids to patterns.  The list goes on, but it goes without saying that I’ve seen many a fine fella rocking all of these looks and more.  What makes them stand out from the crowd is a touch of swagger and, of course, the essential fashion staple for any season:  a sexy smile.  

*Originally published April 17th, 2015 in Ego Magazine Online.

Be Normal

Be Normal*

Look I get it.  I really, really do.  Dating, for the most part, can be pretty terrible.  It’s hard enough meeting someone in the cold hard city, let alone having that someone be a someone that you want to date. But let's just say you did find this person, and you want to date them and maybe you sort of get the feeling that they kind of like you and want to date you.  So,  what do you do?   How do you not screw it up?   How do you make sure that you don’t assume they’re screwing it up as you both try to figure out what to do when and how to say it?

There is a way, I think, to navigate through these murky waters of dating whether it's online or set ups or a well meaning (yet meddlesome) Aunt:  let’s all just act normal.  And by this I mean real life human being normal, not the kind of normal we think is now normal because we’ve been dating in this cesspool for so long. Real life human being normal where we treat a person who we think we might like and think might like us as a normal human being, and we in turn act like a normal human being.  REVOLUTIONARY!

Is it normal, after meeting someone and having a grand ol’ time, to take their number and never use it?  No, no, it’s not.  Is it normal to never hear from someone again after you've gone on two or three kinda good dates? No, my friends, it isn’t.   What about waiting more than a day to reply to someone's message?  Nope, that’s not normal either.   How about dating someone for a while yet never meeting their friends?  That’s right, not normal!   Of course there may be reasonable explanations to all this behaviour, but death, amnesia or being whisked into a witness protection program, while unfortunate and certainly possible, aren’t really normal occurrences either.  

The basic credo of treating one another as human beings serves us well in all facets of life, so why can’t we extend this philosophy to the one activity where we should really be putting our best selves forward?  Not the super cool player (not normal) self or the I’m so hot and desirable I don’t need to call anyone back (not normal) self, but the normal human being self that you are on the regular.  Come on.  I know you’re in there.  Be normal.  Can you be normal?

*Originally published March 27, 2015 in Ego Magazine Online.

Birthday

Today would have been my Dad's 79th birthday.

While I can't be entirely sure what my Dad would have been like at 79, I'm pretty sure it would have been much like the guy he was a 39, 49, 59 and 69 : a tenacious straight shooter who had the remarkable ability to cut through life's crap, get the job done and give some damn good real talk advice and opinion, even when you sometimes didn't really want to hear it.

It's this real talk that 7 years later I've come to miss the most.  Well, aside from all the other things about him that I miss the most depending on what time of day it is and where the memory of my mind happens to take me.  His skill at talking my Mom off the ledge of worry, or bringing my brother and his big dreams back down to Planet Earth was nothing short of legendary.  A silent pause, hands folded in front of him, concentrated stare and a simple "Cool it, Pat" or "Gus, Slow Down" would snap the both of them back to reality.  Me?  I got "Calm Down" quite a bit.  ;)

I'm sure my Dad would have some (and by some I literally mean 5 or 6 well chosen words) sage advice for my current life situation - Homeless & Jobless 2014, Remember?!   He'd probably have told me to run for Mayor "You know you can do that job, Olga", and he'd have gotten tons of mileage out of his "Suitcase Olga" nickname for me (the best, right?), but I think he'd mostly have said something he told me years and years ago that I'll never, ever forget:  "You, I don't worry about."  When the most hard working, tough as nails dude tells  you something like that, you know you're going to be okay.  I'm going to be okay.

But today is his birthday.  And I miss him.  I miss the FamJam celebrations we used to have on this day as we celebrated his combo birthday and Name Day as a first step to the holidays.  I miss his smile.  His laugh.  And his little brushes of sentimentality which would slay me with their surprise and sweetness.  I'm tortured that my niece & nephews got short changed on having the most doting and fun Papou.  Christmastime now has a slight vibe of melancholy as these thoughts drift in and out of my mind, and I try to forget them but I don't want to because I don't want to forget him.  Tricky.

So I think of things he did that made me laugh and made me happy and after I cry about them, I smile and then cry some more.   He used to put together these ridiculous illustrative notes reminding us to do very simple, responsible stuff like lock the door at night, my favourite one is packed away in the boxes that are my life right now, so of course I'm sad that I can't exactly locate it.   But I did find something that made me happy, because it made him so happy.

When my Dad turned 70 my brother and I put together a little trip for him & my Mom to Halifax, Nova Scotia to see Pier 21 , Canada's Museum of Immigration.  This is where my Dad's ship had docked in 1951 when at the age of 16 he left Greece and embarked on a new life full of hope and tons of hard work.  We had commemorated his passage, as they say, with a brick on the Wall of Honour and we wanted him to see it himself.   The trip was perfect - full of memories, emotions and even a casino!  When they returned, my Dad couldn't stop talking about it - how amazing the museum was, how he found his name on the ship's manifest, his brick,  the videos of other immigrants telling their tales.  He went on and on.  He was so happy.  So appreciative.  So moved.

A few weeks after their return, I found an envelope with my name on it written in his handwriting on the kitchen table.  I remember smiling - I knew what it was, one of his infamous cards.  Painstakingly picked out, writing lined up with a ruler.

The writing's a bit askew on this one - my Mom said he was crying when he wrote it.  So much for the quintessential tough guy.  ;) - and I guess it's really nothing special.  But it is.  Because while we did make the trip possible, he made who we are possible.  Our work ethic, our attitudes, our characters, our everything.

So today, on what would have been his 79th birthday, I'll remember what was and try not to bog myself down on what could have been.  I know for sure that's exactly what my Dad would tell me to do.