A Whiff of TIFF

As you may have heard on Twitter, it looks like I'll be attending the last four days of the Toronto International Film Festival (i.e. the time when most of the journos have gone home) due to a very last minute window of time and my standard impulse control problems ("But... moviessssss! I must ?!!")

I love TIFF and I haven't been in way too long. So I'm winging it which is not the best way to approach one of the biggest and bestest festivals in the world but we do what we can do in the way that we can do it. If you want to help The Film Experience be on sounder financial footing next year, and help Nathaniel maybe get to Cannes or Telluride for the first time  (I can dream!) please consider the subscription donation in the right hand side bar. If everyone who loved this site spent the price of a cup of coffee on the blog every month, the world would open up to us like an oyster. No... not like an oyster... 

Amir, who covered the festival for us last year, will be doing a bit more this year and I'll pick up the baton in a week for the last few days.  (My regular podcast mate Nick Davis (first timer!) is going, too. TFE friend / podcast mate Katey Rich, and yours truly, will arrive next week.) Then, almost as soon as I return to New York, Michael Cusumano (of "Burning Questions" fame) and I will start covering the 50th annual New York Film Festival (NYFF) for you. Sound good?

TIFF's opening day features an all star live reading of the American Beauty screenplay which we really wish we coulda been there for given that Christina Hendricks is doing Annette Bening's part. The opening film is Rian Johnson's time travel head scratcher LOOPER which is already winning positive reviews, omg!you-gotta-see-this type buzz and even some playful tweetdowns like this...

Are you excited that festival season is here? Which films are you most desperate to have in front of your eyeballs right this second?

And "Guest Starring"...

I'm heading to the airport tomorrow for some much needed time with my mom, but don't fret. In fact, you may have quite an adventure coming up this next week at The Film Experience. The usual members of Team Experience that you know and love like Beau and Jose will be around and we'll also welcome Matt Zurcher of The Family Berzurcher to the blog. Like the rest of us he lives and breathes movies but he's also a musician and plays several instruments so that's, like, going above and beyond.

Plus two very special guests stars direct from the silver screen...

Writer/Director Leslye Headland. Actress Melanie Lynskey.

Leslye Headland the writer/director of Bachelorette (currently on iTunes and opening in theaters on September 7th) and the lovely actress Melanie Lynskey star of Hello, I Must Be Going (also opening Sept 7th) and a frequent face in movies you know and love like Heavenly Creatures, The Informant, Away We Go and Win Win will be here. They will each be taking over the blog for one day !!!

update: Lesley's posts & Melanie's posts

So give these ladies your full attention and pour yourself into the comments once they arrive. It's like we've gone full Mia in The Purple Rose of Cairo and the movies are walking right off the screen and into this blog. Hell, ask them some questions right now in the comments and maybe you'll inspire a sentence or three in their posts.

I'll see you in the comments and I'll be back midweek to snatch back the reigns from these movie muses.

Sharp Funny Obsessive Individual Voices Wanted

Look at this cute photo Glenn took, inspired by my "Ruby Sparks" note-taking post! It's his actual notes scribbled during Ruby Sparks (which he just reviewed)

"Funereal typewriter". "leggings". "Manic Pixie Dream Girl: The Movie" "5 enya candy"

5 Enya Candy??? hee

Which brings me to the next point. Do you like writing about the movies? As we move into the fall film season, The Film Experience is tidying up backstage and getting ready to put on its brand new show(s) i.e. the usual show with a few tweaks and new series, and thinking about Fresh Voices for special one-off articles, temporary short-term guest blogging or more regular contributions. Our Movie (and real life) Buddy Kurt has, as you probably know, been snatched up by Slant. And after two auteurist series ("Modern Maestros" and "Distant Relatives") Robert has retired from blogging. I already miss both of them!

The Film Experience could particularly use fine correspondents who are living in Major Metropolises outside of New York like Chicago, London, L.A., The Emerald City, Atlantis, Cloud City, Mt Olympus, Hong Kong ... you get the picture.

Would also welcome writers who are actual ladies since there are plenty of ladyboys in the house already. If you think your voice is a good match for The Film Experience, and your interested in doing something other than traditional reviews (that's the request I get most often but not a type of writing I need for the blog), send me an inquiry. 

Team Experience: Sight & Sound Poll

There's a lot to parse within the BFI's Sight & Sound poll, a once a decade event in which the [air quotes] greatest films of all time [/end air quotes] are named. Given that the results are a product of accumulation of individual opinions, I enlisted Team Film Experience for a variety of voices to respond to it and you can see their quotes below. The list is a critic friendly and far more international affair than other famous mainstream rankings like AFI's Top 100. How did they determine the rank? According to Nick James 1000 critics, academics, writers, cinephiles, and directors were polled as to what ten films they considered The Greatest Ever, whether great meant "historical significance", "artistry" or something more personal to them. 846 top-ten lists were received which means we would like to volunteer to replace any of the 164 invitees who couldn't be bothered next time!

Every entry on a top ten list received one vote so rank didn't matter, nor should it, given that once you're in the upper echelons of achievement it's like splitting hairs. Or, since we're talking about Vertigo, judging who has the best bunhead.

As you've already heard, Alfred Hitchcock's discomfiting chilly double-identity thriller VERTIGO (1958) tossed the discomfitting chilly and ever triumphant CITIZEN KANE (1941) from its bell tower. Is it lonely at the top? Sure thing. [The list and what Team Experience had to say after the jump]

Click to read more ...

The ½ Way Mark Finale. Best Supporting Actress

Previously: Actress, Actor , Supporting Actor and Picture.

As per usual even with only six months of film releases, not even of the prestige variety, there's more than enough to choose from for a solid Supporting Actress list. Though I'll always be most tied to Best Actress on account of movie star fascination, it's easy to understand why this is year in, year out, many readers favorite category.  

SUPPORTING ACTRESS  January through June Releases
For Your Consideration... my ballot as of July 7th. 

• Eva Green, Dark Shadows (discussed in the review)
• Frances McDormand, Moonrise Kingdom
  Magic. Don't you feel like you know exactly what it's like to be her child, her husband, or her middle aged lover while you're , to be her husband and her lover while watching this? 
• Olivia Munn, Magic Mike
  A textbook example of seizing an opportunity and making the most of a character. Her slumming grad student with an open body, adventurous spirit, but compartmentalized heart is a key foil to reveal Magic Mike's own self-awakening.
• Michelle Pfeiffer, People Like Us (previously discussed)
• Maggie Smith, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
  Could she do this in her sleep? Probably. But that shouldn't negate the joy of watching her work or the affecting reveal of a kind heart buried under a nasty exterior and a lot of ignorance.

With apologies to Charlize Theron who made good on that Young Adult comeback twice over by ruling over Snow White and the Hunstman like a Queen, the royal kind, in Snow White and the Huntsman (maybe she went too big ... maybe... but someone had to keep that film from flatlining!) and an intriguingly robotic ice queen, the figurative kind, in Prometheus. 

Team Experience Votes?

Alexandra says: since I am at a loss, I have to give it to Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables, purely on the strength of the trailer ;)

Michael says: The Five-Year Engagement may have been a minor entry in the Apatow pantheon, but his technique of loading the supporting cast with comedy ringers continues to pay dividends. This time its Alison Brie, sporting an impressive English accent as Emily Blunt's sister, who ends up supplying the film with its most consistent source of laughs. It makes one wish the movie was changed to Five Week Engagement and rewritten to follow her and Chris Pratt's couple. 

Beau says: Eva Green in Dark Shadows. For (finally!) delivering on that promise she showed nearly a decade ago in Bertolucci's The Dreamers. For circumventing the limitations of the script and strutting off with the film in tow. For stealing a picture away from incredible name actors, looking quizzically at you when you mention that and denying it; you can't steal something when it was always yours.

Nicely said, Beau. Green would be my winner if I was forced to vote right now, too. On to the second half of the year! (After we get your ballots in the comments that is.)

And if you haven't seen them... my Current Supporting Actress Predictions