Toronto Film Festival Coverage… from Fresh Air

This year, Fresh Air is sending two producers – Ann Marie Baldonado and Lauren Krenzel – to the Toronto Film Festival, to find great movies, and hopefully great future guests.  Ann Marie will be checking in periodically with her thoughts on particular films, trends, quotes from Q&A sessions, blurry photos, etc.  Here are a few films both Ann Marie and Lauren are looking forward to checking out. From Ann Marie:

The Master: This is the Paul Thomas Anderson film that seems to be loosely based on L. Ron Hubbard and the story of Scientology. Director PT Anderson says although there may be similarities, the story is really about men struggling after WWII.  Either way, it is on the top of our lists.

Silver Linings Playbook:  David O. Russell’s follow-up to the 2010 film The Fighter is also about family.  This time presumably there is less fisticuffs between son Bradley Cooper and father Robert De Niro.  But I guess we will see.

Cloud Atlas:  We have no idea what this movie is going to be like.  Based on the book, this film – directed by siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The Princess and The Warrior), stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant as various characters at various points in time and place.

Hyde Park on Hudson:  I like to think of this film as Herman-Blume-and-Miss-Cross-become-president-and-first-lady.  Bill Murray and Olivia Williams play Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in this film about a weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of England visit the President and his wife in upstate New York.  It also stars Laura Linney.

The Place Beyond the Pines: Director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) teams up again with Ryan Gosling. This film looks decidedly more action-y and thriller-y then their last film – I mean, here Gosling plays a motorcycle stunt rider – but I am still interested in what they come up with.

Much Ado About Nothing:  This film looks a lot different from Joss Whedon’s last film, bagillion-dollar-making The Avengers.  In less than two weeks, Joss shot this modest film at his own house (!) using Shakespeare’s words and members of the Joss army (meaning actors from his many TV shows and films) including Nathan Fillion, Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof.

Also on our lists are: Argo (directed by and starring Ben Affleck), No (starring Gael Garcia Bernal), Frances Ha (directed by Noah Baumbach, starring Gerta Gerwig), Ginger & Rosa (directed by Sally Potter, starring Christina Hendricks, Elle Fanning, and Annette Bening), Imogene (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini who directed American Splendor, starring Kristin Wiig, Matt Dillon and Darren Criss), Quartet (directed by Dustin Hoffman), Amour (directed by Michael Haneke), Jayne Mansfield’s Car (directed by Billy Bob Thornton), and The Hunt (directed by Thomas Vinterberg, starring Mads Mikkelsen), Rust & Bone (starring Marion Cotillard), and on and on.

Bruce Springsteen, in a conversation with Ed Norton, on the timing of Darkness on the Edge of Town’s release:   “I think Darkness came out of a place where I was afraid of losing myself. I had the first taste of success [with Born to Run], so you realize it’s possible for your talent to be co-opted and for your identity to be moved and shifted in ways that you may not have been prepared for. I was the only person I’d ever met who had a record contract. None of the E Street Band, as far as I know, had been on an airplane until Columbia sent us to Los Angeles.”

Ann Marie Baldonado: An Update on Distribution at the Toronto Film Festival

The Toronto Film Festival ended this weekend with the top award,The People’s Choice Award, going to The King’s Speech, the film about King George VI (father of Queen Elisabeth) and the speech therapist who helped him get rid of his stutter.

The awards at Toronto don’t mean as much as say the awards at Cannes or Sundance, but the winners of the audience award usually end up doing well at Oscar time.  

Two years ago, Slumdog Millionaire was a clear crowd pleaser and audience award winner, and last year it was Precious.  Coming out of the festival, The King’s Speech is a talked about favorite for a best film nomination, as well as acting awards for Colin Firth as the King and Geoffrey Rush as his trusted friend and advisor.

In other updates, a number of films I wrote about here have gotten distribution deals.  In fact, industry insiders are calling this the most-active Toronto market in years.  This weekend, Beginners, Mike Mills’ second feature film, was picked up by Focus Films.  No official word yet on when they will release the film in the US, but some speculate it will come out the middle of 2011.  

Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions purchased the Will Ferrell film, Everything Must Go, as well as the Robert Redford directed historical drama, The Conspirator, and Lionsgate alone will be distributing Rabbit Hole, starring Nicole
Kidman and Aaron Eckhart.  

Other films that were purchased include the new Kelly Reichart film, Meek’s Cutoff, starring Michelle Williams, Passion Play starring Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox, the films Peepworld, Beautiful Boy, and Dirty Girl, as well as 3 films that have gotten positive reviews that I unfortunately didn’t catch at the festival — Werner Herzog’s new 3D documentary Caves of Forgotten Dreams, Submarine, and Incendies, which won The City of Toronto Award for Best Canadian Feature, and got a distribution deal from Sony Picture Classics.

Ann Marie Baldonado on Mike Mills: Beginners

With the Toronto International Film Festival drawing to a close, I wanted to catch up and fill you in on a few films that I caught during the festival that as of yet, don’t have a US distributor:

What would you do if your father came out of the closet at the age of 75?

Well, director/artist Mike Mills decided to use this question as the starting off point for his lovely 2nd feature film, Beginners, which premiered here in Toronto earlier this week.  It’s the follow up to his debut Thumbsucker, which premiered in Toronto in 2005.

What makes the film so lovely, what makes it feel so authentic and dear, is the fact that it’s based on Mills’ own experience.  His father came out in his 70s after the death of his wife, Mills’ mother. His dad ran an art museum; his mother worked on houses.  Mills is an artist whose whimsical artwork have graced album covers and art gallery walls, just like the main character, Oliver, played beautifully by Ewan McGregor.  And just like Mills, Oliver is dealing with the semi-recent death of both his parents, and how to grieve for them and continue on.

Although the splashier element of the plot is the bit about the old man (and his son) coming to terms with his sexuality, the film is really about the grieving process after a father’s death.  We see Oliver cleaning out his family house and going through his parents books and clothes. And we see flashbacks of Oliver’s youth, where we see his parents interact (with the sense of a growing distance between them.)

While we mostly see Christopher Plummer’s character after he has come out — happily learning the ropes of his new gay life — our encounters with Oliver’s mother are seen through the eyes of little boy Oliver; we see mother and son poking fun at high-faluting museum goers, or taking long car rides to nowhere.  

It is clear that the whimsy and the sadness found in Oliver’s art and Mill’s art, by extension, can be traced back to his artistic, funny and odd mother (In a Q&A after a screening of Beginners, Mills revealed that the drawings from the film were done by both him and McGregor but anyone familiar with Mills’ work will notice his particular style.)

So the film ends up being a love story, about a departed father, a departed mother, and a new love, Anna, played by French actress, Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds).  As a viewer you will fall in love with Anna, just as Oliver has.  

But will these crazy kids, both of them unsure of what a real, true love and marriage are supposed to look like, be able to work it out?  Hopefully, someone will pick up this film and you can see for yourself.

[Update: Focus Features purchased Beginners.]

Fresh Air Producer Ann Marie Baldonado on Rabbit Hole

Will people want to go see a film about a couple dealing with the accidental death of their 4-year-old son?  That question is probably on the minds of film distributors, deciding if Rabbit Hole is worth purchasing.  The film premiered last Monday with stars Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, and director John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus) in attendance.

This may be Kidman’s best performance in years.  Her pale, almost motionless face serves her well as a mom, so rattled by her grief that the only outward manifestations she can muster are perfect posture and the constant baking of pies and cakes.  She waits around in her perfect house, but she doesn’t know what she is waiting for.  

Meanwhile her husband, played by Eckhart, goes to work and plays squash — while still coming home every evening to watch a 20-second video of his son that is still on his iPhone.  

It’s a tragedy no one wants to think about and one that seems unlikely that a parent can ever recover. But by never making us really see or experience the exact moment of tragedy, the film shows a bit of self restraint that I appreciated, especially in these ‘show everything in movies’ times (I did just see a guy cut off his own arm, after all.)

The film, based on a play that won Cynthia Nixon a Tony Award, was not as exploitatively heart wrenching as I thought it might be (another film about the death of a son at Toronto, Beautiful Boy starring Maria Bello and Michael Sheen,  was more so.)

There were even surprising moment of laughter, some of them provided by supporting cast members Diane Wiest, who plays Kidman’s mom, and Sandra Oh, who plays a mom Kidman and Eckhart meet through a grieving parents support group.

A few critics have talked about this being a role that could get Kidman another Oscar nomination, but a distributor would have to buy the film and put it on a fast track to premiere in theaters before year’s end, in order for it to qualify for the next Oscar round.  

Which brings me back to my first question: Would people want to see this movie?  I am not sure I would want to go through the experience of watching a film like this, if I wasn’t doing it for you, dear listeners.  And remember I kind of liked the film. We will see what answer those distributors come up with.

[Update: Rabbit Hole found a distributor. Lionsgate will release the film by year’s end, making it eligible for Oscar nominations.]

Ann Marie Baldonado: Oscar Shoo-Ins at the Toronto Film Festival

Oscar shoo-ins are continually mentioned at the Toronto Film Festival.  Who are the shoo-ins for Oscar nominations from the films this year?

Some names that people are talking about?  Natalie Portman in Black Swan.  Javier Bardem in Biutiful.  And Colin Firth in The King’s Speech.

The King’s Speech, directed by Tom Hooper (of the HBO series John Adams) is based on the real story of King George VI, the father of the current Queen, Elizabeth II, who became King after his brother abdicated the throne.  

The King lived with a stutter that prevented him from giving public addresses, and this inability to speak made him a very reluctant ruler.  Enter speech therapist Lionel Logue, who begins to get results with the would-be king and manages to befriend him, despite the difference in their standing.  Sounds exactly like the kind of film that would do well at the Oscars, huh?  Well the audiences are loving this film here.  

And they are not wrong.  Colin Firth really does give an excellent, nuanced performance. And Firth is certainly on a roll, since he was nominated last year for his work in A Single Man, which was purchased here in Toronto last year by the Weinstein Company.  Geoffrey Rush may also get a nod, for his turn as the therapist.  

Speaking in a Q & A after one of the screenings, Firth, Rush, and director Tom Hooper, attribute the on-screen chemistry between the two actors to the three week preparation period they had before filming began.  Apparently, such prep time is rare.  

That prep will probably pay off the beginning of 2011, when those Oscar nominations are announced.

Ann Marie Baldonado: Day 3 at the Toronto Film Festival

From left to right: author and adventurer Aron Ralston, actor Clemence Poesy, Actor Kate Mara, Actor James Franco, Actor Amber Tamblyn, Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, Director Danny Boyle

Yesterday, hundreds of press and industry folks waited hours to see a guy cut off his own arm.  Sure, the real life story of Aron Ralston — a young man whose gets stranded in a Utah canyon for 5 days when his hand gets stuck underneath a boulder — is certainly compelling. But I think it is safe to say that the reason people waited was because 127 Hours is the work of director Danny Boyle, a Toronto favorite who showed Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire here two years ago. Also at the screening — perhaps the busiest man in film or anywhere — actor/director/writer/artist James Franco (I mean, the guy is about to start two graduate programs after just finishing two.  Come on now.)  Thankfully for those of us who waited, Boyle and Franco didn’t disappoint.

It’s not suprising that Boyle managed to not turn this into a TV movie, although this tale could certainly be TV movie fodder.  Both Boyle and Franco used the actual tapes that Ralston made during those 5 days to prepare for the film.  And their attention to little details (the way Rolston placed the few items of his backpack neatly out onto the boulder, portioned out the little water he had in his Nalgene, and carefully contemplated his attempts at escape…) created a sort of authenticity that the film needed in order to be successful.  Franco’s great one-man performance, along with the use of flashbacks that get dreamier as the hours pass on, give a lot of movement to a story that is essentially about a guy standing still, talking to himself, trying to keep himself alive.

The real life Aron Ralston is here in support of the film, and is just as compelling in real life as his fictitious counterpart.  127 Hours is scheduled to hit theaters later this year — and James Franco will be on Fresh Air later this month to discuss his role in the film.

Toronto Film Festival (from left to right) Katy Mara, James Franco, Amber Tamblyn. (photo by Ann Marie Baldonado)

The mob scene in front of the press and industry screening of 127 Hours, directed by Danny Boyle, starring the always-busy James Franco.  A problem with subtitles at another theater made a bad situation worse.  The screening is already running an hour late.

Ann Marie Baldonado: Day 2 at the Toronto Film Festival

At the Q and A after the world premiere of Everything Must Go (from left to right) Rebecca Hall (I swear I am not following her around on purpose), Writer/director Dan Rush, and Will Ferrell

Although most of the big films come to Toronto with distribution, there are a handful of films with prominent directors or actors still looking for a way to get to a theater near you (or at least a theater in New York and LA.)  There are documentaries by Fresh Air favorite Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D), and Errol Morris (Tabloid) — as well as new films from Robert Redford (The Conspirator), John Cameron Mitchell (Rabbit Hole), and artist/director Mike Mills (Beginners.) There’s also the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and Passion Play, starring Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Bill Murray.  Rourke and Fox fall in love at the circus; is it a quirky odd film that works or a car crash?  I guess distributors contemplated this during the premiere Friday tonight.

Another film premiering Friday night was Everything Must Go.  Based on a Raymond Carver short story, this first film by writer/director Dan Rush follows alcoholic Nicolas Halsey (Will Ferrell) on possibly the worst day of his life.  After being fired from the sales job he has had for over a decade, he comes home to find his wife had not only left him — but she locked the house doors and littered all of his belonging on the front lawn.  He spends the next few days sitting and sleeping in front of his house on his La-Z-Boy, drinking beers, and going through his stuff and consequently going over his life.  He looks through yearbooks, plays his records, and watches old home movies projected on his garage door.  Rebecca Hall plays a sympathetic pregnant neighbor, and Christopher C.J. Wallace, the son of Notorious BIG and Faith Evans (!), plays a neighborhood boy who helps Nick sell all of his stuff.

We all know that Ferrell doesn’t do many films that aren’t comedies (there was Stranger Than Fiction which premiered here four years ago).  During the Q & A tonight he shared that it’s not because of lack of interest; he just doesn’t get offered those scripts.  Although Everything Must Go was at times very funny, it was also quite quietly moving.

At festival’s end, a lot of these unattached films will probably still be up for grabs.  I am wondering though if Everything Must Go might not be one of them.  In the back of the theater, I spied Adam Yauch, Beastie Boy and founder of Oscilloscope, distributor of films such as The Messenger, Wendy and Lucy, and the upcoming Howl.  Is he in a buying mood?  Maybe we will find out in the next day or two.

Fresh Air Producer Ann Marie Baldonado on Black Swan

It’s been about an hour since the press screening of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan ended, and my heartbeat is just getting back to normal.  (See a preview here on YouTube.) Black Swan tells the story of Nina (Natalie Portman), a tightly wound ballerina who has finally gotten her big break — the role of Queen in Swan Lake.  

The ballet company’s director (Vincent Cassell) thinks she needs to let go, focus more on emotion and less on technique, if she really wants to embody both the pristine white swan part of the role — as well as the more seductive black swan part.

With his close ups of knarled ballerina feet and a soundtrack filled with cracking knuckles and labored breath, Aronofsky shows us again that he is obsessed with how people mutilate their own bodies for their ‘craft.’  Is the pressure causing Nina to lose her mind?  Or is she going crazy because of her overprotective mom? (Barbara Hershey) Or is it because the new ballerina (Mila Kunis) is messing with her?  

Is the bleeding and the violence in her head or for real?  And is Black Swan about what artists put themselves through to find perfection in their projects?  You can decide when this film hits theaters this December.

From Ann Marie, a photo from a press conference for the movie The Town. (Jon Hamm will be on an upcoming show to discuss his role in this film.)

From left to right, screenwriter Chuck Rogan, actors Chris Cooper, Blake Lively, Jeremy Renner, Ben Affleck (also the director), Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, producer Basil Iwankl.

Producer Ann Marie Baldonado at the Toronto Film Festival: Part One

Fresh Air producer Ann Marie Baldonado is at the Toronto Film Festival again this year, checking out films for Fresh Air to cover in the coming months.  She will check in with us throughout the festival.

After checking into my hotel room and checking it for bedbugs, I headed out to catch films during the festival’s first day.  Sure both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals began last week. But the Toronto Film Festival seems to officially kick off the Fall movie season and by extension, the Oscar race. (Although making a splash here doesn’t necessarily lead to Oscar glory.  Last year’s Toronto favorite Up In the Air didn’t end up winning any big awards and Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker came out in June of 2009).

Unfortunately, in the next 6 days, I can’t see all 40 of the films on my must see list.  But I will try to get to as many as possible  On Friday alone, I look forward to catching Black Swan, Darren Aronosky’s follow up to The Wrestler, which was a big hit here two years ago.  Swan, about a ballerina competing for a lead role, stars Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel.  There’s also The Illusionist by Sylvian Chomet who made The Triplets of Belleville and I’m Still Here, Casey Affleck’s documentary about his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix.  That interesting (or-car-crash-of-a-movie) will already be playing in theaters in the US this weekend.

Also playing at the festival and coming to theaters in the next few weeks are a few films you will hear more about soon on Fresh Air. First, there’s The Town, the second film directed quite well by Ben Affleck. It’s kind of like Good Will Hunting but about robbing banks.  Affleck plays a reluctant criminal wanting to get out of the family business.  Jon Hamm leaves the 60s ad game, grows some stubble, and puts on some khakis to play an FBI agent trying to track him down.

And It’s Kind of Funny Story, starring Zach Galifianakis, is directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden who directed Half Nelson and Sugar.  And then there’s Never Let Me Go, starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightly, and Andrew Garfield, the new Spiderman.  It’s based on the acclaimed novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.  That’s all for now.  Hope to post some photos soon.