So, Toronto International Film Festival—was hoping to attend in person for the first time in six years, but that obviously couldn’t happen. Fortunately, I secured through work an industry pass allowing me to “virtually” attend, streaming from my Macbook an official selection of fifty features. Despite numerous titles frustratingly being unavailable because of my type of pass or country of residence, I still managed to catch 22 features over eight days—the most I’ve ever seen in that short of a stretch, except perhaps when I was a Film Studies grad student.
Needless to say, the real “TIFF” experience is not fully present this way, as half the fun consists of live Q&As, standing in lines, exploring Toronto and scouring the streets for cheap eats between screenings. Still, I’m grateful for even this version of it. My favorite film of the fest was predictably Nomadland and it’s no small thrill that it’s seemingly most other people’s as well. No close second-or-third place contenders, but I was delightfully surprised by Shiva Baby, No Ordinary Man, Limbo, 76 Days and Spring Blossom, and disappointed by Enemies Of The State, Pieces of a Woman and to a lesser extent, Summer of 85. My rankings and reviews are available here.
As for the rest of the month, the best newish title was House of Hummingbird, a South Korean coming-of-age drama that’s a little like Koreeda by way of Mike Leigh, but director Kim Bora clearly has her own voice. The new Charlie Kaufman boasts a great, intimate ensemble and the chances it takes mostly pay off, but it’s a lesser film than Synecdoche, New Yorkor Anomalisa because there is such a thing as being too abstract.
Paused the chronological Egoyan re-watch to take in later work Adoration before it left Criterion Channel—possibly still his best of this century (which isn’t saying much.) A lot of re-watches lately, in fact: Beau Travail (in 4K restoration, looks superb even on a laptop), Staying Vertical (gradually ascending up my best of the ‘10s list), The Gleaners and I (Varda Forever), Support The Girls (let’s all scream!) and Hard Eight, PTA’s least essential feature, but still worth a watch if mostly for a touching lead performance from a never-better Philip Baker Hall.
Films viewed in September in chronological order, with director, year of release and my rating (out of 10); starred titles are re-watches:
Arizona Dream (Emir Kusturica, 1993) 7
Ghost Tropic (Bas Devos, 2019) 7
Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1996)* 8
A Five Star Life (Maria Sole Tognazzi, 2013) 6
Nomad: In The Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (Werner Herzog, 2019) 6
Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)* 10
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman, 2020) 8
Toronto International Film Festival:
One Night In Miami (Regina King, 2020) 7
The Disciple (Chaitanya Tamhane, 2020) 7
Shiva Baby (Emma Seligman, 2020) 9
No Ordinary Man (Chase Joynt, Aisling Chin-Yee, 2020) 8
Gaza Mon Amour (Tarzan and Arab Nasser, 2020) 6
Enemies Of The State (Sonia Kennebeck, 2020) 5
Limbo (Ben Sharrock, 2020) 8
Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo, 2020) 4
Nomadland (Chloe Zhao, 2020) 10
New Order (Michel Franco, 2020) 7
76 Days (Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, 2020) 8
Summer of 85 (Francois Ozon, 2020) 6
MLK/FBI (Sam Pollard, 2020) 6
Concrete Cowboy (Ricky Staub, 2020) 6
Wildfire (Cathy Brady, 2020) 6
Bandar Band (Manijeh Hekmat, 2020) 4
Fauna (Nicolas Pereda, 2020) 6
Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds (Herzog, Clive Oppenheimer, 2020) 7
The Water Man (David Oyelowo, 2020) 7
I Am Greta (Nathan Grossman, 2020) 6
Spring Blossom (Suzanne Lindon, 2020) 8
Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020) 9
House of Hummingbird (Kim Bora, 2018) 9
Adoration (Atom Egoyan, 2008)* 7
Taxi (Jafar Panahi, 2015) 7
A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) 7
Studio 54 (Matt Tyrnauer, 2018) 5
Staying Vertical (Alain Guiraudie, 2016)* 10
Support The Girls (Andrew Bujalksi, 2018)* 9
Defending Your Life (Albert Brooks, 1991) 8
The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda, 2020)* 9
Gregory Go Boom (Janicza Bravo, 2013) 6
Haunted Jukebox 