After the Storm - There's an earnest sweetness to Koreeda's films - particularly with how he frames dysfunctional relationships - that is unlike just about any other director I've come across. He somehow finds a way to showcase their faults from every available perspective and yet we're still somehow sympathetic to all parties involved. I especially enjoyed Kirin Kiki as Ryota's mother. 8/10
Neruda - I went into this expecting it to be another biopic like Jackie from earlier this week and, as such, I was completely caught off guard by the swerve that this would wind up as a manhunt flick crossed with Adaptation. I'm not so sure that the execution went as flawlessly as one would like but the performances from Gael García Bernal and Luis Gnecco and the camerawork from Sergio Armstrong made this watchable even if it did ultimately amount to nothing more than an overblown cat and mouse chase. 7/10
The Age of Shadows - As much as I enjoyed seeing Snowpiercer's Song Kang-ho play opposite Train to Busan's Gong Yoo, this film amounted to little more than a litany of stylish gunfights amidst a string of rebellious faction nonsense that seemed difficult to invest in given that the end game of just about everyone was to kill the other guys first. It was also difficult to invest in much of the cloak-and-dagger antics given that none of these spies and would-be betrayers actively put up much of a believable front.
That said, I did enjoy the tension built during the dining car showdown between our two leads and Um Tae-Goo's Hashimoto. But, outside of that scene, I was left underwhelmed and I have to seriously question the logic behind Korea's decision to back this as their entry for this year's Foreign Film Oscar over the Cannes-favorite Handmaiden. 6.5/10
Arrival - This truly does feel like Contact for a new generation. Amy Adams impressed the hell out of me here. Jóhann Jóhannsson delivers another auspicious mood-setting score for a Villeneuve film.
I peered ahead into the future - specifically next February - before making this post and it revealed to me that Arrival will crack the Top 3 in GAF's Best Movie of the Year polling for 2016. The top prize will still elude Villeneuve and company but that will be rectified a year later with Blade Runner.
My rating is...
/10
La La Land won TIFF's Grolsch People's Choice award earlier this evening. I had the winner pegged as either it or
Lion.
Moonlight did
NOT win the TIFF Platform competition. That honor, instead, went to
Jackie.
I suppose this isn't too much of an upset seeing how Jackie is the #2 rated film on Metacritic for 2016 right now behind only Moonlight.
Here's my Top 10 of the year thus far (heading into festival week; 2016 initial release films only so no The Witch, The Lobster, etc.)...
1) Kubo and the Two Strings
2) Hunt for the Wilderpeople
3) Captain Fantastic
4) Zootopia
5) Weiner
6) Sing Street
7) Star Trek Beyond
8) Eddie the Eagle
9) The Jungle Book
10) The Nice Guys
Most of these won't be hanging around my Top 10 after this month.
My newly-revised (and much different) Top 10 of the year post-TIFF festivities.
1) Moonlight
2) Kubo and the Two Strings
3) The Handmaiden
4) Hunt for the Wilderpeople
5) Elle
6) A Monster Calls
7) Toni Erdmann
8) Indignation
9) Zootopia
10) Paterson