Month: September 2016

TIFF 2016 Movie Review: (re) ASSIGNMENT (USA/Canada/France 2016) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

re_assignment_poster.jpg(re) ASSIGNMENT (USA/Canada/France 2016) ***
Directed by Walter Hill

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Rodriguez, Caitlin Gerard

Review by Gilbert Seah

From Walter Hill, the director of classics like 48 HOURS, THE LONG RIDERS and THE WARRIORS, (re) ASSIGNMENT is a revenge action thriller with a difference. Michelle Rodriguez plays a lowlife killer put through full male-to-female gender reassignment surgery by a score-settling surgeon (Sigourney Weaver).

The surgeon is first seen straitjacketed in an interrogation room. Calmly, and not without pride, she recounts to her psychiatrist (Tony Shalhoub) how she got there.

The film unfolds in multiple layered flashbacks, one occurring before the previous one. The film is also appropriately framed by comic book graphics.

A lowlife killer named Frank Kitchen (Rodriguez) killed her brother, so she took her ultimate revenge. She captured him and conducted full gender-reassignment surgery. Now Frank is forced to face the world as a woman.

Confused, pissed off, and as macho as ever, she’s out for her own vengeance.

Rodriguez plays both the male and female roles but it is Weaver who steals the show as the straightjacketed surgeon with her extremely snide remarks. Seems that the movie was written for Weaver.

 

 

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TIFF 2016 Movie Review: RAW (France/Belgium 2016) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

raw_poster.jpgRAW (France/Belgium 2016) ***
Directed by Julia Ducournau

Starring: Garance Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella

Review by Gilbert Seah

As a first time director of a horror feature, Julia Ducournau gets her facts straight. At the introduction of RAW at TIFF Midnight Madness, she told a full house that when she asked a fellow filmmaker about Toronto audiences, she had been told which she did repeat, to huge cheers, that Toronto has the best audience in the world.

Her film about a new graduate in a vet medical university reminds one immediately of Dario Argento’s SUSPIRA. The vet school environment is fully utilized with the blood of animals constantly splattered on the freshies, sights of bottled carcasses as well party happenings (the music track from the club is amazing!). Shy 16-year-old Justine (Garance Marillier) is following in the footsteps of her entire family when she enrols at veterinary college, where she finds herself in the shadow of her distant and dismissive older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf ).

To make matters worse, she is thrown into the humiliating traditions of the school’s wild and vicious hazing rituals. A strict vegetarian like her parents, Justine is confronted with a moral dilemma when she must eat a raw rabbit liver as part of an initiation rite.

When she does, her tastes transform to the desire for more flesh including human ones. The film traces her roots and transformation. A neat subplot has her falling in love with a gay Arab. French FX master Olivier Afonso (who was also responsible for Midnight Madness horror favourite À L’INTERIEUR) again does marvellous work.

The paramedics had to be called during the screening. The most gruesome segment is the finger eating scene.

Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.

Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

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TIFF 2016 Movie Review: CITY OF TINY LIGHTS (UK 2016)

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

city_of_tiny_lights_poster.jpgCITY OF TINY LIGHTS (UK 2016) **
Directed by Pete Travis

Starring: Riz Ahmed, Billie Piper, James Floyd

Review by Gilbert Seah

The city referred to in the title is London. And Travis’ moody film about a brooding detective is a film noir set in this city.

A down-at-heel private eye, Tommy (Riz Ahmed) is drawn into a dangerous world of religious fanaticism and political intrigue as he investigates a missing persons case. (What other cases are there for Private Investigator film noirs?) One day Melody (Cush Jumbo) walks into his office, like the typical classic femme fatale. Her friend Natasha has gone missing. Tommy helps and the rest is the rest of the story.

Based on his own novel and writing the script, Patrick Neate shows the solution to the mystery is just as important as the atmosphere created of the city. But Travis’ over serious film is too ponderous, with this genre done so much better in countless films. Riz Ahmed’s performance, however is excellent as is Roshan’s Seth’s.

Seth plays Tommy’s cricket obsessed father who saves the day a the climax.

Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.

Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month: http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

TIFF 2016 Movie Review: FOREVER PURE (Israel/UK/Norway/Ireland 2016) ***

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Movie Reviews of films that will be playing at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) in 2016. Go to TIFF 2016 Movie Reviews and read reviews of films showing at the festival.

forever_pure_poster.jpgFOREVER PURE (Israel/UK/Norway/Ireland 2016) ***
Directed by Maya Zinshtein

DOCUMENTARY

Review by Gilbert Seah

Sometimes you have to show that racism wins in order to put it down. Zinshtein’s controversial documentary does just that. The audience will be disgusted at how the Israeli Beiter football club got its way.

The title FOREVER PURE refers to the Beitar Jerusalem Football club that the fans said lost their purity when they brought in two Arab footballers.

This is the true story of the club, which became a flashpoint for controversy in 2012 when the signing of two Muslim players brought down the racist wrath of the team’s long-time fans. Team owner Arcadi Gaydamak, a Russian-born billionaire and failed mayoral candidate in Jerusalem, signs two Muslim players from Chechnya.

Their presence turns La Familia into opponents of their own team and initiates an ideological contest with wide ripples. The doc also reveals the owner’s real motive in hiring the two Muslim players and also contains some precious shost of the Israeli Prime Minister having his say.

FOREVER PURE is the most racist themed film of TIFF and likely one that will affect audiences the most. Not a dull moment from start to finish.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/146790418

Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.

Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month: http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

Died Today (September 14th): Alex Rocco (1936–2015)

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alexrocco.jpgAlex Rocco (1936–2015)

Born: February 29, 1936 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Died: July 18, 2015 (age 79) in Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA

[from an interview in 2011] Playing gangsters is great. They usually dress you sharp. And you have a license to pretty much bully anybody. I mean, I wouldn’t dare to that at home. My wife will give me a back hander.

FIND ME GUILTY
2006
dir. Sidney Lumet
Stars:
Vin Diesel
Peter Dinklage

SMOKIN ACESSmokin Aces
2006
dir. Joe Carnahan
starring
Reynolds
Ray Liotta
The Godfather
1972
dir. by Francis Ford Coppola
starring
Marlon Brando
Pacino
THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLEThe Friends of Eddie Coyle
1973
dir. Peter Yates
Cast
Robert Mitchum
Peter Boyle

 

Died Today (September 14th): Jack Hawkins (1910–1973)

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jackhawkins.jpgJack Hawkins (1910–1973)

Born: September 14, 1910 in Wood Green, London, England, UK
Died: July 18, 1973 (age 62) in London, England, UK

Married to: Doreen Lawrence (31 October 1947 – 18 July 1973) (his death) (3 children)

I think that no actor should take Hollywood too seriously; but at the same time it would be wrong to underestimate its professionalism. Really, Hollywood is a caricature of itself, and in particular this is true of the front-office types at the studios. Their enthusiasm towards you is measured precisely to match the success of your last film.

Died Today (September 14th): Jane Austen (1775–1817)

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janeausten.jpgJane Austen (1775–1817)

Born: December 16, 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England, UK

Died: July 18, 1817 (age 41) in Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK

QUOTES:

If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient–at others, so bewildered and so weak–and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are to be sure a miracle every way–but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting, do seem peculiarly past finding out.

[her last words, when asked by her sister Cassandra if there was anything she wanted] Nothing, but death.

[when asked why her heroines always flawed] Pictures of perfection make me sick and wicked.

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Happy Birthday: Howard Deutch

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howarddeutchHoward Deutch

Born: September 14, 1950 in New York City, New York, USA

Married to: Lea Thompson (23 July 1989 – present) (2 children)

[In a 1987 magazine interview] I have a theory that peer pressure doesn’t end with high school. It may be more glaring there because the groups are so distinct socially; but it doesn’t let up as you get older. There’s pressure in any business to choose a safe project, to go with the group. In corporations, there’s pressure to be seen with the right people; to eat in the right restaurants; at all costs to avoid the smell of failure. A case in point was the pressure on me to choose a ‘safer’ title than “Pretty in Pink.” You constantly have to fight to keep everything from being reduced to the lowest common denominator. Standing on your own is not a thing that ends in high school.

Pretty in Pink
1986
dir. Deutch
Starring
Molly Ringwald
Harry Dean Stanton
The Replacements
2000
dir. Deutch
Starring
Keanu Reeves
Gene Hackman		 My Best Friend's GirlMy Best Friend’s Girl
2008
dir. Deutch
Starring
Dane Cook
Kate Hudson

 

Happy Birthday: Michelle Stafford

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michellestafford.jpgMichelle Stafford

Born: September 14, 1965 in Chicago, Illinois, USA

Two-time Emmy (R) Award-winning actress Michelle Stafford starred in the #1-rated The Young and the Restless (1973), viewed by more than 20 million people every day in some 20 countries worldwide. Michelle joined the cast of “The Young and the Restless” in 1994 and has since developed her role of “Phyllis” into one of the most popular and vivacious characters on daytime to date.

(on turning to surrogacy) After a three-year journey through hell, I’m elated, ecstatic and feel ultimately lucky to be able to announce I’m expecting my own child via surrogate in December.

Happy Birthday: Amy Winehouse (1983–2011)

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amywinehouse.jpgAmy Winehouse (1983–2011)

Born: September 14, 1983 in Southgate, London, England, UK
Died: July 23, 2011 (age 27) in Camden, London, England, UK

Musically, Amy Winehouse created a cross-cultural and cross-genre style. She experimented with an eclectic mix of jazz, soul, pop, reggae, world beat and R&B. She had a special ability to channel hurt and despair into her performances. Her voice, phrasing and delivery sometimes sounded like a mix between Billy Holliday, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, and coupled with similarities in personal problems, she at times resembled another incarnation of legendary “Lady Blues”.

Amy Winehouse died at the age of 27, on 23 July 2011, in her London home following a long-running battle with alcohol addiction. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and her ashes were laid to rest in Edgwarebury Jewish Cemetery in London, United Kingdom. Her death caused considerable mourning worldwide.