TIFF 2012 Top Picks

5 MUST SEE MOVIES FROM TIFF 2012

Story by Nina Cherry
Images courtesy of Toronto International Film Festival Inc. 2012

It’s time to prepare yourself for celebrity sightings galore, as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) starts on September 6th and runs until the 16th. We agree that catching a glimpse of Ryan Gosling is important, but we suggest you also set aside some time to go and see some of the films that are screening, too.

Opening the Festival this year is Rian Johnson’s Looper; Johnson wrote and directed the futuristic thriller, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a mob hit man who is given the job of killing his future self (oh, and his future self is played by Bruce Willis!). Without a doubt, the Festival opener is not to be missed. Here are five more films you need, yes need, to see.

Anna Karenina

When we first saw the trailer for director Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, it took us a full minute before we realized we had stopped breathing. For two minutes and 33 seconds we were mesmerized, and we’ll probably need to be resuscitated after the full-length feature. Based on Leo Tolstoy’s remarkable work, Anna Karenina is a tale of love, seduction, adultery, societal pressures, compromise, loss, and self realization. Wright, who worked with Keira Knightley on the equally breath-taking film Atonement, has teamed up with the actress once again. Knightley entrances the audience as the arrestingly beautiful, hauntingly tormented Anna. Excited yet? Let’s add to the mix Jude Law and Aaron Taylor- Johnson, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Tom Stoppard, and production designer Sarah Greenwood. How about now? Yeah, that’s what we thought. See you there.

Fitting six different narratives within a timeline spanning centuries into 164 minutes should be impossible. It sounds impossible. Instead, filmmakers Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix) saw David Mitchell’s epic novel Cloud Atlas as an exciting challenge, an Everest to be conquered. Miraculously the threesome has succeeded. The key to their success? Having the six main characters played by a talented cast featuring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, and Doona Bae certainly helped. Deciding to fully embrace the novel’s epic nature was also a wise decision.

The film is a visually stunning, reality-questioning, time bending rollercoaster.  There is no other movie at TIFF that can compare to the epic-ness of Cloud Atlas. Studio execs at Warner Brothers say Cloud Atlas “explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, present, and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave dramatically through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future.” This film will certainly mess with your mind, but we are certain you’ll enjoy every moment.

She’s backA Comedic genius Kristen Wiig returns to the silver screen, and we couldn’t be more excited. We peed our pants during Bridesmaids, but now we’re all cleaned up and ready for round two.  This time we see Wiig play Imogene, a washed-up playwright, forced to move back in with her mother (Annette Bening) and her mother’s boyfriend (Matt Dillon) after she stages a fake suicide attempt in a last ditch effort to hold on to her boyfriend. It doesn’t work out so well.  Moving in with mom recalls Wiig’s character Annie from Bridesmaids, except this time mom has a boyfriend who says he works for the C.I.A, and a cute young lodger named Lee (Darren Criss), who plays in a Backstreet Boys cover band and who (of course) Imogene begins to fall for. We’re already laughing.

Marilyn Monroe created such a persona for herself that now, 50 years after her death, we’re still longing for more. In Love, Marilyn we get a  glimpse into the soul of the real Marilyn — the woman who was desperate for true love, terribly insecure, ambitious, and passionate. Academy Award nominated director Liz Garbus uses Marilyn’s letters, diaries, and notebooks to tell the story of a woman we know so much about, and yet still so little. Marilyn’s words are delivered by a number of actresses, including Marissa Tomei, Uma Thurman, and Glenn Close. Each woman portrays a different aspect of Monroe’s complex, multifaceted personality. The performances are interwoven among home videos, photos, outtakes, and interviews with Monroe’s close companions, giving the film a depth and intimacy we have never experienced with the beguiling American beauty.

Screening:
Wednesday, Sept 12, Roy Thomson Hall at 9:30 pm
Thursday, Sept 13, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema at 12: 00 pm
Sunday, Sept 16, The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema at 9:00 am

 

Midnight’s Children

 

 

In 2005, Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s film Water opened the Toronto International Film Festival. The film was later nominated for an Academy Award in 2006 for Best Foreign Film. Mehta returns to TIFF this year with Midnight’s Children, based on the book of the same title by author Salman Rushdie. A fanciful tale about two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947 (the day of India’s independence from Great Britain) who are switched at birth, Midnight’s Children follows the two young boys who find themselves inextricably linked to one another, and to India herself in her triumphs and failures following independence. The film is majestic. Full of brilliant colour and shot in more than 62 locations with a massive cast, Midnight’s Children also features state-of-the-art computer graphics, stunning design production by Mehta’s brother, Dilip, and a remarkable story spanning three generations. Midnight’s Childrenis enchanting and we’re spellbound.

 

Screening:
Sunday, Sept 9, Roy Thomson Hall at 6:30 pm
Monday, Sept 10, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2 at 9: 00 am

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