Entertaining Posts: 09/09/11

Friday, September 9, 2011

Documentaries steal spotlight at Toronto Film fest

TORONTO | Fri Sep 9, 2011 4:37pm EDT

TORONTO (Reuters) - They're not exactly squeezing Brad Pitt and George Clooney out onto the street, but documentaries are grabbing a larger share of the spotlight than usual at this year's Toronto International Film Festival.

In addition to festival opener "From the Sky Down" -- the U2 documentary by Davis Guggenheim -- documentary royalty such as Werner Herzog, Morgan Spurlock, Wim Wenders and Alex Gibney will all unspool premieres over the next week.

"We've opened up more seats in our theaters for documentaries than ever before and put them in bigger venues than ever before," said Thom Powers, documentary programer for the festival.

"It reflects the ever growing presence and importance of documentary in the culture on a number of different levels."

Several blocks away from U2's red carpet premiere on Thursday, more than one thousand people crammed in to a festival theater for the world premiere of "Into the Abyss", a documentary by "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" director Herzog.

Spurlock, who gained fame with 2004's "Super Size Me", will premiere his latest offering, "Comic Con: Episode IV - A Fan's Hope" about the wildly popular annual pop culture conference in San Diego.

Wenders will unveil "Pina" about influential dance choreographer Pina Bausch, while Gibney will premier "The Last Gladiators", which examines the world of hockey fighters.

With the U.S. election year looming, Nick Broomfield's "Sarah Palin - You Betcha!" -- billed as a quest for the "real" Sarah Palin in her home state of Alaska -- promises to be a big draw.

Once largely relegated to public television and repertory theaters, the nonfiction format has enjoyed increasing commercial popularity in recent years, giving celebrity status to documentary directors who in the past would likely be toiling in obscurity.

Past box office hits such as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and Guggenheim's Al Gore film "An Inconvenient Truth" have shown the commercial possibilities of the format, while the relatively low budgets are appealing to producers.

"INTO THE ABYSS"

Herzog, one of the true rock stars of the format, received a standing ovation even before the lights dimmed on Thursday.

"Into the Abyss" follows the filmmaker as he interviews the main players in a triple murder that took place in tiny Conroe, Texas, ten years ago.

Initially focusing on the two men imprisoned for the murder -- including one scheduled to be executed 8 days after the interview -- Herzog broadens his focus to include family and friends of both the victims and the killers, as well as prison officials who deal closely with the condemned.

Unlike many crime documentaries, Herzog does not seek to right a perceived injustice, and while his opposition to capital punishment is made clear early on, he insists the film is not meant as a call for change.

"It's not an issue film. It's an underlying thing going on throughout the entire film, but it's not an activist film against the death penalty," Herzog said in an interview.

Rather, he uses his conversational interview style -- which can veer into bluntness, such as when he tells the condemned Michael Perry that "When I talk to you, it does not necessarily mean that I have to like you" -- to uncover telling details about both the victims and killers' pasts, and the often harsh realities of rural life in east Texas.

"That's one of the aspects of the film: the crimes are monstrous, but the perpetrators are not monstrous, they're just human, and I allow them to be very human," he said.

Herzog, who has alternated between documentary and fiction films for nearly 50 years, said he thinks the rising popularity of documentaries is tied to the increasing use of technologies and trends that blur the line between fantasy and reality.

"We have unbelievably powerful new tools (like) virtual reality, video games, imaginary personalties on Facebook... We have digital effects in movies which create credible dinosaurs... and so-called reality TV, which of course is all scripted," he said.

"Documentaries have a capacity and have a task to redefine our relationship with reality and this is why probably a lot of people are moving in the direction of documentaries."

(Reporting by Cameron French, editing by Christine Kearney)

Venice film festival wins on points, lacks knock-out

By Mike Collett-White and Silvia Aloisi

VENICE, Italy | Fri Sep 9, 2011 9:29am EDT

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - The Venice film festival launched a series of strong movies in 2011, including several early Oscar contenders, but critics said the cinema showcase lacked a standout contender for the Golden Lion award.

Madonna, George Clooney, Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon were among the A-listers to walk the red carpet, giving Venice the visibility it needs to compete with other festivals around the world.

There was positive buzz around Roman Polanski's "Carnage", Tomas Alfredson's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", Clooney's "The Ides of March" and Steve McQueen's "Shame".

As Hollywood's focus moves from summer blockbusters to potential prize winners ahead of the Academy Awards in February, William Friedkin's "Killer Joe" also proved popular.

Outside the English-language world, Hong Kong entry "A Simple Life" and "Faust" from Russia were also in the mix for the Golden Lion for best picture at Saturday's closing ceremony.

"We came here with great expectations and high hopes and I don't feel it has quite lived up to that, no film has blown me away," said Jay Weissberg, a critic at trade publication Variety, reflecting the view of many in Venice.

In recent years, movies like "Brokeback Mountain", "The Queen", "The Hurt Locker" and "The Wrestler" wowed viewers, and while not all won the top prize, they gave the festival the talking points it needed.

POLANSKI, CLOONEY IN FRAME

In an informal poll of film critics published by Variety, Polanski's Carnage was marginal favorite for the big prize.

The comedy of manners is based on a play, and the big screen adaptation is set in real time in a New York apartment, giving it a stage-like effect.

Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly play two couples whose children are involved in a brawl, and what starts off as a civilized discussion descends into a drunken slanging match.

Waltz had many of the best lines as an attorney whose Blackberry constantly buzzes, while Winslet's spectacular projectile vomit scene was a highlight in Venice.

The Oscar-winning actress described shooting the scene as "absolutely hilarious", adding: "My kids came to work ... for the vomit day and I'm so thrilled that they were there because they literally haven't stopped talking about it since."

Clooney presented thriller "The Ides of March", in which he stars alongside Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman in a popular take on corruption in U.S. politics.

Hollywood heartthrob Matthew McConaughey took a break from romantic comedies in "Killer Joe", a comic modern-day Western about a cop who doubles as a hitman.

Two lead performances were singled out by critics as worthy of awards attention, although both movies in which they starred may struggle to win over Academy Award voters.

Irish actor Michael Fassbender won rave reviews for his portrayal of Brandon in McQueen's Shame, about a sex-obsessed, emotionally isolated New York executive.

Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily described Fassbender as "devastating as the gradually crumbling Brandon; he is worthy of the best actor prize at Venice and many prizes beyond."

But he added that the film's unflinching portrayal of sex as an illness could limit its awards potential.

Also singled out was Gary Oldman, who portrays George Smiley in Alfredson's acclaimed adaptation of John Le Carre's Cold War spy classic "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy".

"This beautifully modulated piece of underacting deserves to make him a strong contender at next year's Oscars," wrote Chris Tookey in the Daily Mail.

Yet some felt that however well acted and evocative the movie was of Cold War paranoia, it may prove too British to cause waves in the United States.

Hong Kong film maker Ann Hui won admirers in her ode to the elderly "A Simple Life", while the well-received Italian entry L'Ultimo Terrestre (Last Man on Earth) would be the first home win in Venice since 1998.

Sokurov, a festival favorite and considered a master by many, brought his strange, absorbing interpretation of Goethe's Faust, a movie which divided audiences in Venice.

The German-language picture featured an impressive performance from Anton Adasinsky as the creepy, aged and obese moneylender/Mephistopheles.

A headline in the Italian La Stampa daily proclaimed: "The devil has put his hands on the Golden Lion".

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

U2 descends onto the Toronto film festival

By John McCrank

TORONTO | Fri Sep 9, 2011 8:03am EDT

TORONTO (Reuters) - Rock icons U2 descended onto the Toronto International Film Festival's red carpet on Thursday for the premiere of new documentary "From the Sky Down," admitting to nervousness over letting fans into their private world of making music.

The movie, which is the first documentary to open the Toronto film festival in its 36-year history, looks at the creative process of making their 1991 album "Achtung Baby," tensions back then in the band.

Singer Bono and guitarist The Edge took to the festival's opening night stage and confessed that even superstars get nervous when entering a new arena -- from music to film.

"We are very protective of our privacy, particularly the creative process, not just because we are precious, which we are," Bono told a laughing audience, before confiding that the fear was in letting audiences see them struggle to make music.

"If you knew what went into the sausage, you wouldn't eat it," Bono said.

The Edge added that it was "shocking" to see a lot of the old film footage from 20 years ago and "to realize how close our band came to disintegrating at that particular moment."

The appearance of Bono and The Edge made the opening night screening one of the hottest tickets in town at the 11-day festival where other rock documentaries about Pearl Jam and Neil Young are getting top billing.

The festival, a widely-watched event often seen as a starting point in the movie industry's annual Oscar race, features a long list of Hollywood royalty, from Brad Pitt and George Clooney to Keira Knightley and Glenn Close.

U2 MAKES TIFF HISTORY

But the opening belonged to a nonfiction film for the first time in festival's history, and organizers noted both the event and U2 originated in 1976.

The band soared to rock stardom in the 1980s, and "Achtung Baby" was seen as a daring reinvention following the huge success of 1987's "Joshua Tree" and 1988's somewhat less-well received "Rattle and Hum."

"This film isn't just about the biggest band in the world," director Davis Guggenheim told the audience. "It's really just about four musicians trying to make music."

"From the Sky Down" opens as U2 is about to play the Glastonbury Festival for the first time this year and is looking to rework older songs. As Bono says: "there comes a time when it is dysfunctional not to look into the past."

It then looks back at the rise of U2 through early film footage and leads up to the making of "Achtung Baby," which was influenced by industrial and electronic music and featured the hits "One" and "Mysterious Ways."

"I had goose pimples witnessing how they did it," said Guggenheim, whose 2006 global warming film 'An Inconvenient Truth' won the Academy Award for best feature documentary.

"I don't think really it's a film about our band in as much as it's a film about the creative process. If you're interested in that, you're going to be interested in this film I think, but I find it excruciating," Bono said on the red carpet.

"From the Sky Down" is just one of a number of high-profile documentaries at the festival. Others offer audiences a look into personalities like Sarah Palin, as well as a murderer on death row and comic book fanatics. There's also a 15-hour epic that chronicles the history of film.

But documentaries will likely be overshadowed by stars such as George Clooney, who will turn out for "The Ides of March," that he directed and stars in, as well as "The Descendants," in which he portrays an indifferent husband and father forced to reexamine his life.

Pitt stars in "Moneyball," based on the true story of Billy Beane, a professional baseball manager who reinvents his team, while David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," starring Viggo Mortensen and Keira Knightley, will be tested for audience reaction after runs at other festivals.

Eyes will also be watching Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs," a drama the five-time Academy Award nominee co-wrote in which she plays a woman pretending to be a male butler set in 19th century Ireland.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kearney and Bob Mezan, Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)