Toronto and New York film festivals of 2019

'Heimat is a Space in Time' was the best film I saw at Berlin

my hypothetical TIFF schedule:

La Llorona
Wavelengths 2
Vitalina Varela
Instinct
Color Out of Space
The Fever
Bacurau
Martin Eden
Heimat is a Space in Time

So jealous for you getting to see Vitalina Varela and Martin Eden already :(

I just noticed that the NYFF has raised main slate tix prices to $25 each (from $20 last year) for Lincoln Center Film members, $30 for nonmembers. And they can seriously go fuck a duck. If I see anything on the main, it will be via the rush line (as long as that's ~$15).

No movie is worth motherfucking $25, certainly not to a poor person.

That's roughly where TIFF prices have been for years and it fucking sucks.

well, the one year I went to TIFF I saw about 35 films on a pass so it wasnt so bad.

more

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6558-anticipating-the-fall-festivals

lol individual TIFF tickets (advance, not rush) now start at 29 DOLLARS. madness

“throughout the universe, for eternity”...is this optimism? pic.twitter.com/ctDOkSP4Ib

— Vadim Rizov (@vrizov) September 5, 2019

I really liked La Llorona (aka The Weeping Woman), which segues from war-crimes drama to, essentially, Guatemalan J-horror very effectively

Vitalina Varela was my first Costa; I came out of it feeling like I have a good sense of what both his admirers and detractors see in him.

You NEED to watch the Fontainhas trilogy, Simon. That's leftist filmmaking at it's best.

It's on my (very long!) list.

I'll only add for now that for a 124-minute movie where almost every shot is slathered in darkness and the ASL hovers around a minute, not a snore was heard in the house.

Have to admit, I fell asleep first time I saw Horse Money... Film Festivals are exhausting! And it was in the morning, and so forth.

Yeah, I've micronapped at some movies I truly loved.

my friend Kate re: Motherless Brooklyn: "Edward Norton's film has a narcissist for a director and a ham for a leading actor."

also after watching his post-film Q&A I am officially on Team Costa.

Oh yeah, his Q&As are intense. At the one I was at for the screening of Horse Money where I didn't fall asleep, he talked about how much he hated film festivals, and that the only good film he'd seen recently had been Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Saw The Goldfinch tonight (not in Toronto). Very prestige, Roger Deakins cinematography, slow build but it’s all Dickens, all plot, but satisfying when the strands come together. Five bags of popcorn and a J. Press overcoat.

The reviews have been....less than kind.

People lined up ~12hrs early to rush Jojo Rabbit, dear lord.

I saw "Atlantique"! It was good. It was reminiscent of Haruki Murakami novels, a lot of frayed plot ends going in all directions, jarring magical realist touches being introduced without any preamble or foreshadowing, but the performances and the depiction of Dakar were both A+

Didn't stay for the Q&A because my movie buddy had another film to which he zipped

looking forward to seeing it!

I liked the similarly titled Ukranian movie Atlantis, which features a real-time sequence of a guy filling a detached crane bucket with water using a hose, lighting a fire underneath it, stripping down, and taking a bath in it. Cinema!

And Martin Eden hit me so hard I'm pretty sure I never want to discuss it with anyone.

That's one of the films I'm looking forward to the most. 'Lost & Beautiful' was so great.

I think ppl will have mixed reactions - and already have, critically, esp wrt the third act - but I found its take on how social and political forces can corrupt and distort every aspect of life almost unbearably affecting. Not to mention how gorgeous it is.

Has it always been $40 a ticket on the NYFF closing night? That’s crazy.

It has not. (nor has opening night been $85)

not a snore was heard in the house.

lol I fell asleep during the last quarter (thankfully not a snorer) of Vitalina Varela when I saw it. Woke up to the loud scraping of a metal cart being dragged along by the guy who randomly tells her that his wife died in the most offhand manner. That and seeing Costa mumble and fumble in the post-film talk with claptrap like "the people in my film who you call characters" cemented my disregard for him.