Midnight Madness Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Celeb Sightings: Most of the celebs wave g'bye by Wednesday or Thursday, but as the packed star-hunting masses slowly peter away from downtown hotel entrances, there's still a little gossip and celebrity news coming in. My favorite: Drew Barrymore supposedly skipped out of her film's afterparty to drink some Pabst at Toronto's Sweaty Betty's. And if you happened to catch the "Tiff at TIFF" headlines earlier in the week -- that was a whole kerfuffle with Jennifer Connelly and some pretty massive foot-in-mouth nastiness directed at her. But in more upbeat news: Joan Baez is taking the stage tonight at Yonge and Dundas Square as part of the festival's joining cinema and live performance -- honoring the world premiere of American Masters featuring Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound. And ever wonder what the stars do with their pets during the fest? It seems they get the hotels to go above and beyond.

Our Coverage: I added a review for Chloe to the TIFF mix -- Atom Egoyan's latest starring Amanda Seyfried, Julianne Moore, and Liam Neeson. While buzz amongst many fest attendees centered on the salacious sex scene between Seyfried and Moore, I noted: "while Chloe might not connect on a personal level, it does trap you into these lurid lives that flirt with every notion of bad behavior."

More Blog News After the Jump

It was perhaps indicative of the demographic of tonight's Midnight Madness premiere screening of hotly buzzed JCVD that before the show, the line for the men's' room outnumbered the line for the ladies' considerably. But you didn't have to be a guy to enjoy the film, and especially the vibe of the screening.

Before the show we attended the Pre-screening party for JCVD at Century Club; the party, like most of the parties at big film festivals, was packed with folks vying for the free booze, but unlike a lot of fest parties I've attended, many of the people tonight were enthusiastically pumped up for the screening of a film that most of us knew little about, other than it played the market at Cannes, and garnered considerable buzz at that prestigious fest off its screening there.

With Fall Festival season about to kick off, this week The Rocchi Review features James chatting with Cinematical's Film Festivals Editor Kim Voynar about the strange splendor of the Telluride Film Festival, what the most-anticipated movies will be at this year's Toronto Film Festival and much, much more. Will Zack and Miri Make a Porno make a splash? Will Rachel Getting Married get Anne Hathaway some respect? And does one of the most-anticipated films for Toronto really star Jean-Claude Van Damme? Cinematical's podcast is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



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Among the perks of being a sought-after Oscar-winning screenwriter is, apparently, the ability to fourwall a movie theater for two weeks and play a bunch of your favorite films for an appreciative audience. That's exactly what Juno's Diablo Cody is doing at LA's New Beverly Cinema from today through July 24th, and it won't come as any surprise to Cody's admirers that the lady's got good taste. Her slate includes reliable classics (Stripes, Pretty in Pink), off the wall genre picks (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), some culty fun (Wet Hot American Summer) and the expected shout-out to Juno director Jason Reitman.

Previous guest programmers at the New Beverly have included Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Joe Dante. Cody will introduce some of the films herself, and the theater's MySpace page promises "many guest appearances."

Kudos to Movie City News for coming across this. Check out the entire schedule after the jump -- it's really an inspired slate of picks. She's got a nose for filmmaking that's smart and unabashedly mainstream, as both Juno and this film festival proves.

Have you been reading Cinematical Indie lately? If not, here's what we've been talking about ...

COLUMNS, REVIEWS, and INTERVIEWS

• Killer Bs on DVDs: Matt Bradshaw reviews The Blood Rose and Dead Clowns.
• RvBs After Images: Danny Devito in The Van
• Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows: The Match Game 2007
• Review: Jeffrey M. Anderson on Belle Toujours.
• Cinematical Indie Seven: Asian Flicks You Might Not Expect to Find on DVD
• Film Clips: Fleshing Out the TIFF Foreign Film Selections
• The Rocchi Review Podcast: Summertime Roundup with Cinematical's Scott Weinberg
• Review: Puzzlehead
• TIFF Madness: Scott Weinberg brings you the Midnight Madness Preview

... and more right after the jump ...

Yeah, blah blah blah. Here's the intro paragraph where I remind you (yet again) how much I love horror movies, foreign action movies and bizarre comedies that'd probably never play your local multiplexes. But we've been down this road once before so I'll skip all the foreplay and cut right to the chase: This year's Toronto Film Festival Midnight Madness slate looks pretty damn wild. It's basically a mixture of well-known masters and unknown imports ... all of which I aim to see (and review) at the festival next month. Here's what Colin Geddes and his genre posse have put together for us:


À L'Intérieur (France) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Hailed by Fangoria horror film critic Alan Jones as "the goriest film since Peter Jackson's Dead Alive ... a fresh work of Caesarean terror that reaches beyond the current American horror trend of Saw or Hostel." Yum! Sign me up!

Dainipponjon (Japan) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "A wickedly deadpan spin on the pop image of giant Japanese superheroes like Ultraman, Dainipponjin body slams with a stinging dry wit that ricochets to ever-higher levels of audacity." Ha! And get a load of this IMDb synopsis: "An eccentric man aged about 40 lives alone in a decrepit house in Tokyo. He periodically transforms into a giant, about 30 meters tall, and defends Japan by battling similarly sized monsters that turn up and destroy buildings. The giant and the monsters are computer-generated."

The Devil's Chair (USA) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Evoke(s) John Hough's 1973 paranormal gothic favourite, The Legend of Hell House, fiendishly mashing it together with the crass literary stylings of Irvine Welsh and serving it up with a devilish wink to the audience." And if you'd like to see director Adam Mason's first film (Broken), it hits DVD on September 25. Suffice to say it's not for the squeamish.

Diary of the Dead (USA) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Mixing Romero's brand of social commentary amid all the gut-munching, George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead critiques the media and its place in today's world of disaster and terror." From the little I've read on this flick, it seems to be Blair Witch meets Night of the Living Dead -- which would normally make me verrrrry skeptical. But c'mon, it's Romero.

Flash Point (China) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Hits melodramatic zeniths, ticking off the checklist of cop-flick conventions, but it matches them with fierce kicks and punches. The climactic bout between Yen and Chou will make you wince and hold your breath with every crushing blow." Neat. Some IMDb commenters have called it "awesome."

Frontièrres (French) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Follows close on the trail blazed by Alexandre Aja's Haute tension, serving a vicious head-butt to the often diffident, condescending face of French cinema, a Grand Guignol tale for the twenty-first century." Fantastic. I love Haute / High Tension! Plus the director also has Hitman on the way, so this will be a good chance to see what he's made of. And I could be wrong, but I think this flick has something to do with "cannibal neo-nazis." Which is not something you see every day.

The Mother of Tears (Italy) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Welcome to one of the most highly anticipated events in horror fandom – The Mother of Tears, Dario Argento's finale to The Three Mothers trilogy that started with Suspiria and Inferno." Woohoo! New Argento! I might have to bone up on my giallo before the festival hits!

Stuck (USA) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Stuck is a departure from traditional horror genres, instead taking its inspiration from a true story in which a nurse near Fort Worth, Texas, struck a homeless man and fled the scene with the body sticking out from her car." Director Stuart Gordon is one of my all-time favorites, so I'm definitely down for this one.

Sukiyaki Western Django (Japan) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Miike slices and dices the genre with an Americana-kabuki-baroque style: Buddhist temples sit alongside saloons, samurai swords hang from gun belts, and sake flows with blood." Takashi Miike's first English-language film? And with Quentin Tarantino as a gunslinger? Dang that sounds amusing.

Vexille (Japan) -- TIFF Guide Quote: "Reaches new levels of excellence in the world of animated art, placing expressive characters against a landscape of stunning vistas." Not always my cup of tea, but what would Midnight Madness be without one piece of flashy new anime?

And as an added bonus, here are a few genre-centric titles that are not playing as part of Midnight Madness, but most definitely ARE on my "to see" list:

The Orphanage -- TIFF Release Quote: "From producer Guillermo del Toro comes a film about a woman's return to the abandoned orphanage where she grew up and her conviction that something long-hidden and terrible is lurking inside." Ummm, you had me at "del Toro." Plus this flick has been getting mega-raves on the international festival circuit. Yay!

The Substitute -- A family friendly horror / sci-fi / comedy from Denmark? Sure, why not?

They Wait (Canada) -- TIFF Blog Quote: "There seems to be some back and forth about whether or not They Wait is a bona-fide "horror film," but I can attest to some jumps from the ghosts that inhabit the story." Plus the flick comes from the director of the underrated Cube Zero, so color me curious.

Weirdsville (Canada) -- According to a TIFF release, this one's about "two men who get in way over their heads after the overdose of a friend finds them at an abandoned drive-in to dispose of her body. But things get worse when they discover and disrupt a satanic cult performing a sacrificial ritual, run afoul of a psychotic drug dealer, and incur the wrath of an angry mall security guard." Plus it stars Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman, of all people. Sounds fun.

Lastly (well, until the full festival slate is announced on Wednesday) we have an amusing little tidbit from the very handy website TIFFReviews.com: Although not officially announced yet, the site believes that a movie called Terror Inside will play at the festival. Why is that amusing? Two reasons: It stars Corey Feldman -and- check out the trailer.

When I cover a film festival, I usually do a small handful of interviews for various publications. In nearly every case, the sit-down is with a young filmmaker or some indie actors. When I was asked if I'd like to spend a half-hour with the Midnight Madness Guru for the Toronto International Film Festival, I figured it'd be a whole lot of fun. I mean... the guy's job is to pick through the world's newest wierd movies and pick his ten favorites! Now that's a guy you want to drink a coffee with! Here now is a conversation between Colin Geddes, filmmaker J.T. Petty and yours truly. And I had to snip about 35% of this chat session because it often devolved into a really nerdy conversation between three hardcore genre geeks. Obviously it was a lot of fun.

Cinematical: How important is a "midnight movie" slate to a festival like Toronto?

Colin Geddes: The Midnight Madness category was originally devised as a spot for films that didn't really "fit in" with a traditional festival agenda. We're talking back in, say, 1988, when genre films didn't necessarily "belong" at a film festival. So the category gave us a chance to introduce quality genre films to an appreciative audience. Plus these movies often work as a "gateway" for new audience members. With the festival being so huge, it's sometimes overwhelming. And if you're an 18-year-old kid coming to Toronto, like I was, where are you going to start? You're probably going to start in the horror stuff, the weird stuff. The rest of the film festival gets the "art," and I get the "fun." And the art. And what we see now is that, of all the different slates, Midnight Madness is one that almost always sells out, ticket-wise. From an industry standpoint, these are quite often the films that sold -- and seen.

Cine: And they're not always horror films either. You have seven or eight of 'em, but then something like Borat makes the cut as well...

CG: Yeah, it's a mixed bag. Now, Borat is an outrageous comedy, but I also knew it would it would bring a lot of attention, and it's great to have that kind of "hook" sometimes. If I can get an 18-year-old kid who'll come and see Borat, and then he comes back to see The Host from Korea or Princess from Denmark, I've done my job there. Borat is kind of the "anchor." On the other hand, I like to take a chance with one or two selections. Two years ago I programmed Calvaire (The Ordeal), which was ... an out-there film. Half the audience was truly perplexed by that one, but it's an excellent film and precisely the kind of title we like to "introduce" to our viewers. This year we have J.T. Petty's S&MAN, which is in a similar vein. Something that's going to be confrontational; something that might divide audiences.

Cine: Something that's going to get people talking. ...

Most of the celebrities are gone, the parties are notably less funky, and the throngs of jaywalkers on Bloor Street have trickled down to a steady drip -- but the Midnight Madness continues! (Case in point: Even with the festival winding down, J.T. Petty's S&MAN still had a powerful debut and Q&A session!) Update #3 (of 4, in case you were wondering) offers a taste of British slash-stick, French freakiness, and Canadian carnage.

Severance -- Here's a movie I quite enjoyed; I laughed at the funny bits, I cringed at the gooey gore-geysers, and I even got spooked once or twice. So why did I leave the theater feeling slightly underwhelmed? Probably because the early buzz from across the pond (and various other film festivals) was that Christopher Smith's Severance is "the next Shaun of the Dead" -- which it most certainly is not. (Frankly I wish people would stop using the phrase "X is the next Y," but then all the publicists would go out of business.) The flick's about a group of weapon-making co-workers who go on a "team-building" retreat ... only to see their teammates picked off by a rather nastily creative stalker. Suffice to say Severance is broadly amusing, satisfyingly splattery, and just clever enough to appease the demanding genre freaks -- and that's good enough for me.

Back with another genre-centric infusion from the illustrious Toronto Film Festival! I've spent the last several days talking movies with friends, bolting to and from interview segments, and (of course) settling in for some really fine flicks -- most of which come as part of the Midnight Madness slate. My last report was full of opinions on Borat, Fido and The Host, and now I've got another trio to ramble about...

Black Sheep -- By now you've probably already seen the infamous video of me interviewing a bunch of sheep (professional journalist that I am), plus I have an interview with director Jonathan King on the way, but for now let's just focus on the flick itself: It's a whole lot of wool-covered, splattery fun. Take the 'mad scientist' schtick from any of your favorite monster movies, transplant it into the pastoral loveliness of New Zealand's rolling hills, and gather about 2,000 really pissed-off ovines -- and you're still not even close to encapsulating the insanity of Black Sheep. Part Peter Jackson, part William Castle, and entirely entertaining from beginning to end, the flick mixes slapstick with splatter and the result is a midnight movie extraordinaire. Of course it also helps that Mr. King has an excellent cast and some superlative FX work from Weta Workshop. We don't know who'll be distributing Black Sheep stateside just yet, but odds are the gorehounds will have a ball with this lightning-paced piece of shear madness.

As our regular readers know by now, I'm pretty much a ravenous lunatic when it comes to horror movies. So when a big festival comes out and announces their "Midnight Screening" selections, I get pretty geeked out. (Doubly so when it's a festival I'll actually be attending.) Sundance, SXSW, and even the Philly Film Fest deliver fantastic late-night fare, but Toronto manages to kick some serious genre tail every year. (In 2005 they delivered Evil Aliens, Isolation, District B13 and Hostel; in 2004 it was Dead Birds, Creep, Kontroll, The Machinist and Saw -- among others.)

And it's that time of year again! Just yesterday the festival announced all ten of their Midnight Madness selections, and there's only ONE that I've already seen! Yes! (That one, by the way, is J.T. Petty's rather enjoyably disturbing S&Man.)

In addition to some nasty-sounding horror flicks from New Zealand (Black Sheep), Spain (The Abandoned), USA (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), South Korea (The Host), France (Sheitan) and the UK (Severance), Toronto will also offer the epic piece of Danish animation called Princess and the North American premiere of Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat! (Yes!) Last but not least is an anthology chiller called Trapped Ashes, which comes from directors Joe Dante, Sean Cunningham, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman and John Gaeta -- and that's the flick I have a big red circle around. Although I'll try to catch 'em all.

(The pic comes from Weta Workshop; they did the gore effects on Black Sheep -- and yes, it's a movie about man-eating sheep. Cool.)