Andrew’s Journey Through TIFF 2013: Episode II

The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the first stops on the journey through film awards season. This year, Andrew was fortunate enough to be in attendance and is now recapping the films and events he attended while at TIFF.

TIFF Day 4

Following the insanely energetic experience of Midnight Madness the night prior, it’s safe to say that I would have benefited greatly from a solid night’s sleep. It wasn’t meant to be however, as the next morning I had a film scheduled for 9AM. Four hours of sleep later I woke up and around 7:30 walked to the Metro station, not even aware that it was Sunday. The station was closed of course and so I did what any intelligent person would do: take the six mile journey on foot. Now that may not sound all that impressive, but when you’re only going on a few hours of sleep and your feet are already blistered up from waiting in endless lines the day prior, it is. I sped walk the whole way and made it in about an hour to the TIFF Bell Lightbox, perhaps the finest movie theatre I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a patron of. I plopped down in the first row, exhausted.

Jason Reitman’s Labor Day

My 9am film that day just so happened to be Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, a total change of pace from the kind of films Reitman’s made thus far in his still young career. Centered on a depressed single mom (Kate Winslet) and her son (Gattlin Griffith) whose worlds are upset upon the arrival of a wounded convict (Josh Brolin) who recently escaped from a local prison, it’s a definitively more low-key drama than Reitman’s norm. Labor Day is a work of extreme confidence without much in the way of Reitman’s usual comedic tinge and although he’s already proven adept at drama, it’s still quite a shock to the system at first. All three of the leads give fine, quiet performances that deliver a sense of intimacy not felt in most awards-player dramas.  One negative note however, is that Labor Day is yet another film featuring Tobey Maguire voice-over. Now I am not a hater of voice-over in general, but here it doesn’t seem to serve the story of the film in a particularly compelling way. Overall, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the film due to my severe lack of sleep, but it’s definitely an interesting drama that I very much look forward to viewing again upon it’s official theatrical release.

Andrew’s Journey Through TIFF 2013: Episode I

One of the first stops on the path to film awards season is the Toronto International Film Festival. Boasting one of the largest and most eclectic selections of films from all over the world, it’s safe to say that a visit to the festival has been on my film nerd wish-list for quite some time. This year, that wish became a reality.

The festival ran this year from September 5th to the 15th and I arrived in Toronto on the eve of 5th with plans to post a series of blog entries running through my various experiences at TIFF as they happened. It’s safe to say that it wasn’t meant to be as I severely overestimated the amount of time I would actually have to sit down and produce actual quality writing. Not discussing one of the greatest experiences of my life at all however, would be a mistake and that brings us to this very blog entry.

Over the course of the festival I attended fifteen events in total; thirteen film screenings, one Q & A, and a live read of a previously produced screenplay. The films I had the opportunity to check out were an interesting bunch, some of which will almost certainly factor in to the Academy Awards next year. With this the first of numerous entries, I plan to discuss everything I had the opportunity to see at the festival, along with random experiences I had during my time in the great white north. Toronto, I hardly knew you.