TIFF: Christian Petzold returns with "Transit"

Nathaniel R reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

Fans of the haunting post-war German drama Phoenix (well loved right here), will want to check out the latest from one of Germany's greatest directors Christian Petzold. Like Phoenix, Transit is a story of lives tragically ruined by war and new identities emerging from the rubble. Transit isn't as much of an eery mystery as Phoenix, but it plays with similar themes. Our protagonist Georg played by the arresting, highly watchable Franz Rogowski (Happy End) initially appears to be an opportunist, doing two dangerous jobs for cash involving personal letters or actual transport for desperate people trying to escape attention in Germany on their way out of the country, and stealing another man's identity as his own ticket out. But our first impression is quickly complicated...

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"Get in here and tell me all about it."

by Jason Adams

Why not celebrate the 115th anniversary of the birth of Claudette Colbert today by taking a warm milk bath and then watching Cecille B Demille's infamously lascivious 1932 film The Sign of the Cross? The whole thing is online right here. One of my favorite things about this movie - besides Colbert, and besides Fredric March in short skirts, and besides Charles Laughton as a leering bisexual Nero (that's a lot of besides!), is this story about how Colbert got cast:

“On my way out of the executive offices at Paramount one day,” said DeMille, “I met a young actress named Claudette Colbert. She’d not done much, just playing pansy roles.” Colbert’s most recent part was as George M. Cohan’s daughter in The Phantom President. “I was bored with these roles,” recalled Colbert. “Because I happened to look like a lady, that’s all they wanted me to play.”

“I think they’ve got you wrong,” DeMille told her. “You should not be playing these little girls. To me you look like the wickedest woman in the world. Would you like to play her?” “I’d love to!” replied Colbert. “Claudette’s test was the shortest on record,” said DeMille. He brought her and Fredric March to a soundstage. “You harlot!” said March. “I love you,” said Colbert with a half-smile and a shrug. “That’s enough,” said DeMille from the camera. “You have the part.”

Colbert of course went and became a huge star after this - I just caught some of the 1934 version of Imitation of Life on TV the other day and while I vastly prefer Sirk's 1959 version with Lana Turner (not to mention Peak Hotness John Gavin) Colbert is always worth watching.  

What are your favorite Claudette Colbert moments?

Months of Meryl: Rendition (2007)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep.  

#37 —Corrine Whitman, the ruthless head of U.S. intelligence.

MATTHEW: If the one-two punch of A Prairie Home Companion and The Devil Wears Prada in 2006 represent a high-water mark for Meryl Streep then 2007 might very well be the single oddest year in the actress’ career. How else to explain Streep’s decision to accept secondary and even tertiary parts in four independent-to-midrange projects that not a single Streep enthusiast has ever had the inclination to hold up alongside her most acclaimed or memorable works? Streep spent part of the prior year accepting prizes for Prada and, most excitingly, playing one of the all-time greatest characters in theater history on the outdoor stage of the Delacorte. During that period, Streep also found time to dip her toes into the murky waters of post-9/11 cinema for a second time, following up her monstrous mommy in Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate with an equally vile political puppeteer...

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Queer TIFF: "The Death and Life of John F. Donovan"

by Chris Feil

The party of Xavier Dolan is petering out. Or at least for his crowd of defenders, the noble few who have been willing to see past histrionics for the queer pop opera of his cinema. But for all of the detractive claims of the young director consistently falling down his own rabbit holes, it stands to ask what people want from the cinema if not directors drunk on their own Kool-Aid.

And yet his newest effort, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, is the toughest to defend. Despite some moments when the film really hits its stride, Dolan is mostly merely strident, crafting a trolling work that dares you to not call it as petulant as it is. His films have been called nakedly autobiographical or trite, and this film turns those whiffing dismissals into text. Is one person’s trash the next person’s honesty, in all its cringeworthiness and misguided perceptions? Does what is genuine and true about the thing we deem unworthy still have merit despite our perceptions of its limitations? These are fascinating questions that this film can’t quite elevate or answer, and the results are frequently embarrassing.

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The Love That Dare Not Axe Murder Its Name

by Jason Adams

In the small city of Fall River, Massachusetts in the year of our lord (somebody's lord, anyway) 1892 the father and step-mother of Lizzie Andrew Borden were found hacked about the head and face with a hatchet until dead - the nursery rhyme says they got forty and forty-one whacks respectively but father got eleven while the late Mrs. Borden got a few more, if not quite twenty. The next eleven months after that moment, until the end of Lizzie's trial in June of 1893, were spent speaking of little else - a well-to-do lady murderess! What a lark!

The case of Lizzie has held a dark fascination ever since, inspiring countless plays and rhymes and episodes of Law & Order: SVU, but it's been an especially Borden-full couple of years now what with Christina Ricci's Lifetime-movie-turned- miniseries-turned-movie and now Craig William Macneill's feature film simply called Lizzie. Out this weekend and starring Chloë Sevigny, Lizzie injects a timely dose of patriarchal oppression and same-sex repression to the mix, theorizing that Lizzie was caught up (not to mention just plain caught) in a love affair with the Borden's maid Bridget (played by Kristen Stewart).

If the life not lived between Lizzie and Bridget represents a road not traveled thanks to the impossible time and place that the women found themselves in, the film Lizzie feels like a venture in the right direction...

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