TIFF: Michelle, Andrea and Felicity in buzzy films.

Paolo here. Day 6 of TIFF brings movies about love and passion crossing borders and oceans or trying to, despite the difficulties. Ladies and gentlemen, bring your handkerchiefs or roll your cynical eyes.

THE LADY (Luc Besson)

Most of you must already know about detained Burmese President-elect Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh), but her unlikely entry into political life happened so long ago that we, especially the younger generations, forget a few facts. First, that she lived in Oxford and bore two boys for her husband Michael Aris (David Thewlis), a professor of Southeast Asian studies and that the reason for her untouchable status in a military dictatorship is her ties to England. Second, that the reason the university intellectuals have chosen her as the figurehead of the Burmese democracy movement is because her father, a general, fought for the same goals after World War II.

The story of her adult life is now adapted to the screen as The Lady directed by Luc Besson. This movie allows Besson to diversify his CV but I personally couldn't avoid looking for his trademarks. Suu is Besson's female heroine, Michael his the Tati-esque old man, and a superstitious general is the campy, quirky villain. Besson keeps the violence to a reverent level this time, even if Suu's father becomes a martyr in the film's first scene. The Lady also has a few montages which chronicle the news of Suu's planned rallies spreading throughout the streets of Rangoon. They went on a bit longer than necessary.

As biopics go, The Lady has a surprsing lack of naturalism. Take this paraphrasal of one of Suu and David's conversations:

'The world reveres you as someone with no negative qualities.'
'I will list my negative qualities right now.'
'Your negative qualities made me fall in love with you.'

But because I like this, I'll call it 'classic English dialogue', pulled off well by Thewliss and especially Yeoh who has perfected a politician-style elegance; in a festival full of misanthropy, characters who are 'too nice' are a welcome change.

W.E. (Madonna)

The title of Madonna's much-discussed new film, is an acronym for the most gossiped marriage in the past century between Wallis Simpson (Andrea Riseborough) and King Edward VIII (James D'Arcy). The couple belong to a story within the story, which is an obsession for  fairytale-stricken Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), who comes close to the couple's property six decades after their exile. Wally is bored of her neglectful husband while befriending a foreign Sotheby's security guard (Oscar Isaac). I'll assume that Madonna took on this story in engender her own so-called feminist perspective, and she brings a sympathetic and sometimes humorous light to the maligned woman. I would have preferred to see a movie based on "Famous Last Words," Timothy Findley's novel about Wallis.

More on what I liked about W.E. and disliked about Like Crazy after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Links: Fiennes' Shakespeare, Moviegoer's Etiquette, Freddy's Bio?

So EDDIE MURPHY it is for Oscar host. I said a few words about that here but it is now confirmed. The one time nominee (Dreamgirls) and legendary standup star will be your host for the Oscars in February. 

Ralph Fiennes © Alastair MuirYour Movie Buddy Kurt unloads about bad theater etiquette springboarding from a recent incident at the Alamo Drafthouse. Seriously, what is wrong with people these days in movie theaters? Don't come if you don't wanna be there!
Playbill Guess his directorial debut Coriolanus (coming to movie theaters soon) is not enough Shakespeare for star actor Ralph Fiennes this season. He's currently playing Prospero in The Tempest in London (pictured left).
The Lost Boy Michael Fassbender talking about Shame in Venice. 
Alt Screen looks at modern critical takes on the brutal gay film Cruising (1980).  
Kenneth in the (212) 'Correction of the Year' from a scandalous book about Vanessa Redgrave and that acting dynasty.

Cinema Blend Lars von Trier wants his frequent actor Stellan Skarsgård for the male lead of his upcoming pornographic epic. 
IndieWire on the top ten hit box office indies this summer season: Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life, and Beginners lead the pack. (They'll all fight it out for Oscar nominations, too, obviously.)
Clothes on Film on Patricia Norris's amazing character-exposing and era-milieu-specific work on Scarface (1983). Since it's not even close to being one of my favorite 80s movies you may wonder why I link to every good piece on Scarface. And my answer is...

 Duh! Any excuse, you know.

Screen Rant Hawkeye and The Black Widow in their Avengers costumes. Did Joss Whedon set every sequence in the great outdoors for this movie? I bet the actors miss the privacy of soundstages.
My New Plaid Pants Xavier Dolan seven times 
Nick's Flick Picks Nick's annual check list of fall film anticipation. This one with Mariah Carey as theme.
Awards Daily Sasha on A Dangerous Method's Oscar hopes. 

I kind of loved Knightley in this ultimately, even though she might be off-putting to some.  That is precisely what makes it a Cronenberg-strange movie.  Her facial expressions represent the grotesque. 

Finally...

 Did you see today's Google Doodle celebrating the late Freddie Mercury's birthday? Here it is below. It begs the eternal question: why does his biopic never get made? Wasn't it supposed to be a Sacha Baron Cohen project at one point. When was the last time we heard any news on this one? The Show Must Go On filmmakers.

Oscar Predix Updates: Costumes, Make-Up, Visual F/X, Sound

Have you seen the Vanity Fair gallery of costumes from Madonna's W.E. designed by Arianne Phillips? Will she be Oscar nominated this year? Hmmmm.

James D'Arcy and Andrea Riseborough modelling the costumes

That's always a tough call given that the costume branch of the Academy sometimes goes their own way entirely, embracing films no one else cares about or have forgotten, and sometimes they just stick with general Oscar buzz or their default choices (Seriously you won't find someone who loves Sandy Powell more than me but that Tempest nomination was ri-dic-u-lous).

Here are my newly updated predictions in the visual categories.

Testify Leo!You'll notice that I've also added J. Edgar to the predicted Make Up Nominees but it wasn't because of this official still of Leonardo DiCaprio. Why then? Well, it was the accompanying text in Entertainment Weekly which read. 

The movie traces Hoover's life from his childhood in Washington, D.C., through his ascent to power in the 1920s, his 50-year reign over the FBI, and his death in 1972 — with Leonardo DiCaprio donning prosthetic makeup to portray the man well into his bulldog-like elderly years.

Prosthetic makeup. Bulldog-like. Elderly. DingDingDing. Though, really before I get to settled on this prediction I need to recall my own words on the Make-Up branch within the Academy. I just copy and paste this every year onto my charts because it never ceases to be true.

About the Make Up Category

Nearly impossible to predict... even up until the last moment. They like werewolf movies except when they don't. They love Rick Baker except when they don't. They admire old age makeup except when they don't. They eliminate films with extensive CGI work except when they don't. They never vote based on awesome period hairpieces and makeup (though that's part of the equation) except when they do. They disapprove of multiple nominations for the same series except when they don't. It's almost as if their membership is entirely dismissed and reformed from scratch each year.

 But back to J. Edgar. I must say that synopsis signals that I have official worry for the movie.  Covering fifty years in someone's life usually means the very traditional kind of biopic. The kind that is all "....and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened", the Greatest Hits Biopics. Those are always the least focused and the most boring kind of biopics. 

Visual Category Prediction Updates
Aural Category Prediction Updates
Unfortunately there's still many films that have not announced their composer so Original Score punditry is still nothingness.

You'll notice that Rise of the Planet of the Apes suddenly, well, rises in Sound categories and Visual FX. (Once films start showing themselves these things always change.) In visual effects in particular it's obviously become the instant frontrunner. You know that Andy Serkis's trailblazing motion capture acting will help the FX team win, though the FX team will not help Andy Serkis get recognition. It doesn't go both ways, though I think we can all agree that they make a beautiful team. 

Links: Thrones, Ratings, Floridians

Ultra Culture has a great post on the British ratings board featuring 10 amusing nuggets from their annual report. Conclusion: at least they're better than America's sex-hating violence-loving MPAA.
Boy Culture is British actor Luke Evans (left) going back in the closet, on the eve of his double-feature blockbuster breakout (The Immortals, Three Musketeers)? Strange story.
Cleveland is very excited to have The Avengers film and wants Ohio to become a big movie-making draw. Between Ohio and Michigan's efforts, the Midwest is really trying to up the "shoot your film here" game.
Google interviews author George RR Martin on his Dance of Dragons tour. It's an hour long but you Game of Thrones junkies will probably want to give it a listen.
Playbill The King's Speech is headed to Broadway in 2012 just as we feared. Ha ha. Not really on the fear part. It's already practically a stage play so it should be fine. 
Inside TV Mad Men is finally shooting again. Woooohoooo
AV Club reports that Friday Night Lights has won a "program of the year" honor from a group called the Television Critics Association (which I'm unfamiliar with but it's a different group than the Broadcast Television Critics Association). Mad Men and Modern Family took home the regular "drama" and "comedy" series prizes respectively and Game of Thrones took home the "best new series" prize. Congratulations to all.

Finally here is Nicole Kidman on the set of Paperboy again. 

Whoa Nelly! and by Nelly I mean up and coming costume designer Caroline Eselin, whose previous credits include Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Ballast and Leaves of Grass. Eselin apparently isn't shy about a riot of color... but then this murder investigation drama does takes place in Florida. 

Review: Captain America The First Avenger

Exhausted by superpowered heroics yet? The summer has already brought us Norse gods (Thor review), dangerous mutants (X-Men review), and intergalactic policemen (Green Lantern review) and we still haven't reached the finish line. Here comes Captain America: The First Avenger, the last superhero to storm the box office beach. Summer's end goal: total world domination by the spandex nation. 

Cappy might be arriving a month too late for his own good, if he was hoping to be greeted by cheers and patriotic parades. The new would be blockbuster would've made a great fit for Fourth of July opening -- damn those giant robots! Given that the studios like to frontload the summer they didn't do this on purpose but I'm pleased to report that they saved the best hero for last. No, really. Cappy is just swell. 

And not just because of that spectacular literal swelling that you've already seen in the TV spots when Chris Evans emerges newly muscled from that sci-fi silly metal cocoon.

... read the rest at Towleroad

P.S. OSCAR POSSIBILITIES?
I didn't discuss this in the review but Oscar hopes for genre pictures are always based on the perceived merits of said pictures only after they're multiplied by box office success. If the film isn't a substantial hit, you can probably count only on Best Original Song, a fun pastiche "Star Spangled Man" by Oscar favorite Alan Menken, which I've included below for your listening pleasure, and some random technical nod. But if it is a hit AND they prefer it to Thor (which I'd bet they will given the World War II period angle IF it's a hit) you could see Make Up due to the Red Skull (that category though... anything goes... impossible to know from year to year what they're actually looking for), Visual Effects if they like Chris Evan's transformation and the shield action... and maybe Sound or even Costume Design. Anna B Sheppard is a true wizard with this time period -- though they weirdly ignored her for Inglourious Basterds -- and the evolution of the good Captain's look is well handled. Can't wait to see how they update this look for The Avengers next year. "Avengers Assemble" and so on. Carry on.

"Star Spangled Man"