Screening Toronto: The Critics Speak

Some of today's New York movie news of note from around the Toronto International Film Festival:

--Ever the romantic, Nathan Lee begins his TIFF coverage in The Voice by musing about which he prefers more: "gorging on cinema or getting up at noon." If only my own paradoxes were so innocent. In any event, Lee has a run through his festival faves to date, the most emphatic of which are the Argento/Romero horror tandem Mother of Tears and Diary of the Dead and the "auspicious grindhouse omen" of a drunk girl collapsed in her own vomit. Christ, I always miss the good stuff.

--The Post's Lou Lumenick has been blogging from TIFF as well, and of late he's down on Haynes and Allen and way up on that festival war criminal Alan Ball. To each his own, but remember, Lou: Hell is a lonely place.

--Reeler contributor and NY Press critic/blogger Eric Kohn chimes in on Ball-sack today as well, doing much heavier lifting than he really has to: "The only way to really read the movie as though it contains any valid insight is to consider everything -- I mean, EVERYTHING -- as symbolism (characters, situation, and so on). Like, you know, maybe it’s all about American insecurities and cultural barriers and shit like that bubbling to the surface and coming of age at the end of the millennium...ergh. That pseudo-critical analysis requires a bit too much bending over backwards, and I suspect that most audiences don’t go the movies for yoga practice."

--Earlier this week Manohla Dargis had perhaps my favorite piece of the fest, a tribute to Jodie Foster that places the grossly underrated and misread The Brave One in the career and cultural context it deserves. I really do love this woman.

Posted at September 12, 2007 5:41 PM