TIFF: Festive Arrivals & Frightening Omens
Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 5:38PM 
The signage that tempts me each time I walk from hotel to movie theaterDear Readers,
I am happy to report that I have arrived in Toronto. Wednesday night went smoothly (but for "Best Shot" posting -- delayed. My apologies!) though the long trip to get from the airport to my hotel and press office gave me shudders thinking about Monday night when salivation-worthy titles like August: Osage County & Under the Skin can't really be done unless I miss my flight. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
After arrival had yum dinner with Amir who I think you'll agree is doing a bang up job organizing those "Team Experience" events each month. We then hit a "welcome to TIFF" style critics party hosted by Calum Marsh with so many great writers (fun putting faces to bylines) that I probably shouldn't name any because I'll leave someone awesome out. But you should follow me on twitter for more of that sort of thing.
The topic was so often "what are you planning to see?" which should be the easiest question when you hit a festival but had me flustered each time because I keep changing my schedule. I always tried the safest answer "well, I'm starting with..." but then kept forgetting the title of the movie "Undefebeatable" "Indestructabeatable?"
It's my first time. Be gentle.
Isn't it a beauty? That's the press pass. I consider it a very good omen that snatching it upon arrival was easy as can be. And that it's both green and purple, which are literally my two favorite colors and the ones I always wear (though not at the same time because that's too Arkham Asylum).
But just as I was feeling super confident and excited for the festival, I saw this:
Two of the three Oscars won by Crash (Best Picture and Best Screenplay) prominently displayed at the Festival HQ. Ill omens! O Canada... nobody wants to be reminded of that! The festival is also celebrating David Cronenberg this year but sadly his is not the Crash we're talking about.
First Round of Movies Next!
Crash, Oscars (00s), TIFF, Twitter, film critics
Reader Comments (18)
Be our heroe and set those Oscars on fire!
I still really admire Crash and take no issue with it. The hate is kinda ridiculous.
Fingers crossed for August Osage County soaring beyond all the negative
expectations...
UPS them to Diana Ossana and Woody Allen, STAT!
Are those Haggis' trophies, then? Or from 2 different people from Crash?
Hope you have a BLAST!
"I am happy to report that I haven't arrived in Toronto. "
Well, that's confusing.
AOC can't be done unless you miss your flight.
You're only spending 2 days at the festival? Confused...
You have to see August Osage County !!!! :(
I cannot wait for the festival coverage on this website, and I am shamelessly rooting for you and Amir to see the big names. Like I know it's dumb to go see movies that are about to come to New York or that are about to open in theaters, but OMG what will y'all think of Gravity?? Blue Is The Warmest Color??? 12 Years A Slave???? Plus there's always Nick on twitter too!
You look so cute in that press pass!
As if people (sorry Morgan) didn't already need reasons to feel irritated with "Crash" (seriously, does anyone even REMEMBER it? Has an "Oscar-winning Best Picture" ever so completely dropped out of everyone's mind with so little impact?). It originally premiered at the Toronto Film Fest in 2004, and was supposed to be an end-of-the-year release (which would have put it up against Haggis' "Million Dollar Baby" which he wrote), but then got bumped into 2005 when the reviews turned out to be wildly mixed instead of uniform raves. One of the ravers, however, was Roger Ebert, and he and his Chicago homegirl Oprah jumped on the bandwagon early and never stopped trumpeting it. But those who claim it was always "the underdog, feel-good movie" that "everyone secretly loved: No. It was a deeply problematic, flawed, and manipulative movie with some stellar acting that always had extremely mixed reviews and divided reactions from the minute it started previewing.
mark -- august doesn't screen until Monday which is the day I leave. I got here wednesday night
You really must delay your flight to screen AOC...
The infamous - optical illusion
@Dback (and fellow travelers) - I, for one, have not forgotten "Crash". I have the DVD and still think it captures the Los Angeles I knew growing up (and then worked in for a decade before moving on to the California north of the Tehachapis) better than any film I have seen before or since. There was a post a short while ago asking folks about films that best captured the view and spirit of Chicago. Well, "Crash" did this for Los Angeles. Its SAG Award and its Oscars were well deserved then and still hold up for me. A truly outstanding film in any year.
I always quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You are entitled to your own opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts." Fact: "Crash" is the worst-reviewed Best Picture in decades (rottentomtoes.com), and didn't even make the top 50 best films on that site for that year; similarly, it couldn't crack the top 30 best films of 2005 for Entertainment Weekly's mass-critical roundup, and has a 69 on Metacritic (didn't make their first page of the best-reviewed films for the year). Those are facts. "Crash" had year-end citations from exactly 2 critic's groups for best picture: the Chicago Critics (led by Roger Ebert), and the African-American Film Critics' group.
If people really liked it--and I have friends who did, very much--I respect that, but what's frustrating for me is when people completely dismiss the Oscar controversy that year, as if something very, very odd just hadn't happened and wasn't worth discussing. The fact is that when you have 4 Best Picture nominees which are all SIGNIFICANTLY better-reviewed and have received significantly more year-end Best Picture citations, and then the Oscar chooses to give it to what is, without question, the weakest of them, that calls to mind the AMPAS' credibility. And when one of the pictures ("Brokeback Mountain") scored 24 Best Picture wins from critics' groups around the country... As USA TODAY critic Mike Clark put it at the time: "That "Crash"-ing sound America heard was the Academy's credibility falling through the ceiling."
I will stipulate to the critical reception facts and argument, so long as you will stipulate that every Best Picture placing tenth out of ten nominees among Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, Entertainment Weekly, and receiving the fewest year-end citations from critic's groups should be dropped from the ballot. Otherwise, let's leave the critics to make their call and the artists, technicians, and other cinema professionals at AMPAS to make theirs.
Oops. In the second line, that's "...every Best Picture nominee placing tenth...".