Linha de passe (film review)

Went to see Linha de Passe with my wife tonight. Set in Brazil and co-directed by Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries), the story is not always an easy one to watch. The film depicts the daily struggles of a family trapped in Brazil's invisible class. While an expecting single mother tries to keep her family afloat, her 4 sons all have their own ways of surviving the harsh realities of poverty. Each of the main characters has a different mode of escapism, ranging from football to alcohol to Christian fundamentalism. At times they compromise their values and make choices that lead to more dire circumstances. It's hard to watch people make poor decisions.

Daniela Thomas was present at the screening and spoke both before and after the film. On being asked about the limited use of music/sound during the film's more tense moments, Thomas informed the audience that although she didn't realize it during the shoot, the film is in many ways a suspense. If I had posed a question to Daniela I probably would've asked her about how the cast was put together. She had mentioned prior to the film's showing that a number of cast members were not professional actors. The cast was impressive. I was not surprised to later read that Sandra Corveloni (who played the maternal role of Cleuza) had won best actress at Cannes earlier this year.

Still Walking (film review)

We are now in the midst of the 32nd annual Toronto International Film Festival. Believe it or not it's already Day 3. Before I speak about the film I enjoyed this evening I'm going to provide a bit of a logistical backdrop. Bear with me, I promise it'll be brief. Where should I begin? In the summer. That's it. Okay, because I wasn't quite together enough to order tickets in advance during the summer (what's new?) I'm going to make use of the main box offices this year. Well, to be more precise I should say I'm going to use the main box office located in the Manulife Centre. While tickets are a tad pricer if you buy them individually, the good news is that this whole purchasing process has become much easier. Now, instead of going to the venues themselves to strictly buy day of tickets, film goers can go to a main box office and buy tickets for any day of the festival (as long as the film isn't sold out). That's enough of my logistical chit chat.

In the late afternoon yesterday I sent out an email to see if anyone was interested in checking out a film this evening. Here's how my email read:

I'm trying to set up another film festival outing & here's how it could unfold. There are a number of very interesting films showing at the festival tomorrow. Because I have to put a shelving unit together for a closet I can't get out of the house until this task (which hopefully won't be more taxing than the sort labours Hercules had to complete) is done. So, I've examined the festival schedule and found some fillms showing at the Varsity in the evening. There's:

• Cold Lunch (a Norwegian film, not to be confused with the John Lennon song, Norwegian Wood);
• My Mother, My Bride, and I (a German film); &
• Still Walking (a Japanese film).Cold Lunch starts at 8:15, My Mother, My Bride, and I starts at 8:45, and Still Walking starts at 9:30.

Now, and here's the complicated part. I'm happy to see any of these three films. My 1st pick is Still Walking, but the time is pretty late. So, if you want to go to a film as a group, tell me, and I'll grab tickets for everyone, and then we could perhaps meet up for dinner before the show & possibly have a coffee (I'm pretty much only drinking Americanos these days) afterwards. I know this is short notice, but the film festival always creeps up on me. I'm going to try to organize another outing for next Friday or Saturday as well.

I ended up going to see Still Walking with C, C, & H (it was a 3-1 landslide). The film was languid. Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, the story focused on a 24-hour period in the life of a family. Kore-eda wrote a moving story that explores the theme of loss with food, family traditions, and regret/disappointment in the backdrop. Following the film, Hirokazu fielded questions from the audience (and, in case you were wondering, he does in fact enjoy corn tempora). I was going to ask Kore-eda to speak a bit about the soundtrack and how it was put together, as I found that the music punctuated the plot and images quite well. Unfortunately though, before could actually formulate my question in a somewhat concise way the Q&A finished. Oh well.

Still Walking is a film I could watch numerous times, and so it qualifies for a DVD purchase. I'll probably get my hands on a copy of the soundtrack as well. To learn more about the film check out this link: http://tiff08.ca/filmsandschedules/films/stillwalking.

ray davies, part 2

Whisking into HMV, K & I asked a worker where Ray Davies was due to perform. We were directed to the second floor. As we stepped off the escelator we turned right and saw Ray's equipment being unpacked by a mini-roadie team. I took some photos of K by the equipment. One turned out really nice, as it has a close up of K with Ray's name visible on a nearby amp case. For the first half hour the floor was pretty empty. I spoke to a couple of Kink fans who were also waiting for the performance. Eventually the area in front of the escelator/stairs was set up with a small aresonal of cords, amps, and speakers with two chairs (one for Ray and one for his sidekick). As more people started to come upstairs K & I found a spot on the floor right in front of Ray's chair. The escelator and stairs leading to the second floor were corded off at around 5:30. At about 5:50 K told me she had to go to the washroom. I tried to convince her to wait but this was not up for negotiation. So, I spoke to a sympathetic HMV employee who offered to help. Nervously, I set my gear on the floor to save our spots and the kind worker (who has very good karma) took us down to the staff washroom in the basement. He walked us back up too and our front row spots were patiently waiting for us.

Ray materialized about 6:15, and with a smattering of audience interaction he played three songs from his new album - Vietnam Cowboys, Working Man's Cafe, In A Moment - followed by Lola (with energetic audience participation). K & I both took photos of the Godfather of Britpop. K's photo includes his sidekick while mine includes his Asics running shoes. The performance lasted about 20 minutes. K and I were third in the autograph line up. I gave Ray the Orson Welles book I had brought for him (Don't worry, I have doubles of that book) and he was quite excited. Somewhere I remember reading he is an Orson Welles fan (and he references Citizen Kane on his Think Visual album). Ray chatted with K a bit. He asked her if she's a fan and of course she said yes. He asked her name and personalized a CD booklet for her. Then, he opened a red box he had on his table & said to K "Would you like a chocolate? These are very nice. Very expensive." K said thank you and took one. There were two left and Ray recommended a diamond-shaped white chocolate, but K wanted the star-shaped chocolate. Ray then signed a CD booklet for me and the HMV worker who had helped us earlier took a couple of photos of us with him. Feeling very happy K and I went to the a market in the Eaton Centre for pizza and soup and then took the TTC home.

ray davies, part 1

After being rivited by the latest episode of LOST last night I tiptoed (S is an incredibly light sleeper) over to my office to check out the scoreboard on nhl.com. Before heading to bed with a book (BFI Guide to Lawrence of Arabia) I surfed over to the Unofficial Kinks website to read over some reviews of Ray's new album and see if he had any tour plans. While on the website I noticed that Ray was rumored to perform an acoustic set at Toronto's HMV Superstore this evening.

Before heading to work this morning I pulled a book off of my Orson Welles bookshelf (Orson Welles: A Critical View, by Andre Bazin) and grabbed a bunch of Ray Davies & Kinks CD booklets. Shortly after work SJ picked me up, sped downtown, and dropped K and I off across the street from the HMV Superstore. We got there around 4:30pm. Ray's show was due to start at 6pm.

rehearsal & ray

Strolled down to Koreatown after work & had a rehearsal from 6:30-8pm (in a cafe). With a cast of 2 playing 11 different roles, transitions are crucial. We're getting a better handle on the characters and the transitions. We've got to map out the scene & character connections.

Before getting to the cafe I popped into Sonic Boom and picked up a copy of Ray Davies' new album, Working Man's Cafe. I've only listened to the first half so far. It's vintage Ray - thoughtful, wistful, cynical, and melodic.

6 mts later ...

Yikes! Has it been 6 months since my last post? I'll have to newsreel myself back-up-to-date in a series of fleeting words: start work new school (which happens to be K's school), work on thesis proposal, teach TESL course on weekends in Sept, celebrate K's birthday (she's 5), read lots of Shaffer (both Peter and Anthony), rework plays, celebrate SJ's birthday, read lots of Stoppard, prepare term 1 report cards, teach TESL course on weekends in Dec, work on a project for JR (not Ewing) during winter holidays, read lots of hockey books, teach TESL course on weekends in Jan, apply for the fringe festival, achieve a certain degree of enlightenment in watching the season premier of LOST (what's up with these freighter people anyway?), get accepted into the fringe festival, await booking of thesis proposal hearing, begin term 2 report cards, cast the play (quite painless), and begin readings/rehearsals for fringe festival ... whew! That was busy.

busy summer

Busy summer. I'll have to add some posts about the summer when I'm able to put things in a witty way (which means, dear readers, we may have to wait an eternity for my next post).