paprika steen Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Live from Fantastic Fest: Danish Thrills, Friendly Celebs, and Sloppy Seconds
Filed under: Action », Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Horror », Independent », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Festival Reports », Fandom », Family Films », Fantastic Fest », Comic/Superhero/Geek »
Arriving at my place of lodging shortly before 3:00 a.m. very late on Saturday night (or early this Sunday morning), it felt like a short night at Fantastic Fest. That's not to say that everybody parties until dawn, but with three (sometimes four) screens pumping out a steady stream of genre flicks all day long -- some of which don't start until well past midnight -- Fantastic Fest attendees might be forgiven for losing track of "normal" hours.
That's what happened to me on Friday night, which stretched well into Saturday morning. But before that craziness ensued, there were the films, and I got to see a typically odd combination, beginning with Ole Bornedal's Just Another Love Story. One of two productions that the Danish director made last year, Just Another Love Story plays like While You Were Sleeping on acid, which is basically how Alamo Drafthouse / Fantastic Fest programmer Zack Carlson described it in his introduction. A family man is mistaken for the boyfriend of an accident victim in a coma. When she wakes up, the deception ensues.
Rather than romantic comedy hijinks, Just Another Love Story pushes quickly into dark dramatics and the fantasy of a mid-life crisis before circling back around to the territory inhabited by Jonathan Demme's Something Wild. I followed that up with The Substitute, also directed by Bornedal, which was a big box office success in Denmark. It's easy to see why. The terrific Paprika Steen lets her hair down, so to speak, as a farmer's wife who is possessed by an alien life form.
TIFF Watch: Other Fests (AFI, Fantastic) Build on the Buzz
Filed under: Comedy », Documentary », Drama », Foreign Language », Horror », Independent », Thrillers », Toronto International Film Festival », Cinematical Indie »
With hundreds of titles playing at the Toronto festival, which ones will emerge as critical or popular favorites? One way to build popular word of mouth is by screening selected titles at other fall festivals. Festival buzz often leads to sales for films without distribution, and that same buzz can increase awareness of films in advance of a theatrical release. For example, this week AFI Fest announced another 15 titles, according to indieWIRE, of which 11 are screening in Toronto. Bruce MacDonald's The Tracey Fragments and Paprika Steen's With Your Permission will have their US Premieres at the fest, while other buzz titles include Telluride fave Juno, the animated Persepolis, the Romanian 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (which was pulled earlier this year from the Los Angeles Film Festival), biopic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Tamara Jenkins' The Savages and Austrian Oscar entry The Counterfeiters. As an Asian film fan, I'm excited to see Hao Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon and Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine in the lineup. Two documentaries will world premiere: Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome and 1000 Journals. The fest will open with the North American Premiere of Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs; it runs from November 1-11 in Los Angeles, California.
Starting in less than two weeks, Fantastic Fest is filled with exciting titles for genre fans -- I'm going and my schedule is already overflowing. They've just announced their opening night film will be George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, with director Romero in person. The film premiered Friday night as part of Toronto's Midnight Madness program. Other recently-added films include Flash Point (another Midnight Madness title), The Backwoods (starring Gary Oldman) and Nacho Vigilando's Timecrimes. Look for a BIG Cinematical preview coming next week. The craziness begins September 20 and lasts until September 27 in Austin, Texas.
TIFF Review: With Your Permission
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Romance », Theatrical Reviews », Toronto International Film Festival », Cinematical Indie »
It's hard to imagine a film like With Your Permission being made in America, even as an indie film. The film, directed by Danish actress/director Paprika Steen (who appears in another film playing at TIFF this year, Lars von Trier's Erik Nietzsche: The Early Years), deals with the subject of spousal abuse, but it's not, for the most part, an overly heavy film. I know, I know -- there's nothing funny about spousal abuse. And yet, there are very funny moments in this film that allow it to be entertaining, in spite of its potentially weighty subject matter.
For one thing, the spousal abuse in With Your Permission isn't dealt with the way you'd expect, especially at a film fest, where things tend to lean toward the oh-so-serious side of the spectrum. The victim in this case is Jan (Lars Brygmann), a slight, middle-aged man with longish hair who spends his days ruling his workplace, a "gourmet restaurant" -- really, the restaurant on a ferry between Denmark and Sweden -- with a fist so tightly wrapped around the rulebook he makes the bureaucrats at the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles seem downright laid-back by comparison.
World Cinema: Danish Trailers Look Hot
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Horror », Thrillers », Cinematical Indie »
We last visited Denmark to tell you about The Substitute, a so-called "children's thriller" that had a strong performance at the box office in June. Weeks later, The Substitute is still drawing Danes into theaters; it was the top-grossing local film this past weekend. The Substitute has been selected to play in the Sprockets Family Zone at the Toronto film festival in September, which may help it land a US distribution deal. Several upcoming releases also look to have international appeal.Room 205 is due August 10; it's a horror picture about a university student who unwittingly unleashes an angry spirit seeking revenge. The trailer (available at the official site) makes it obvious we're not talking about Casper, The Friendly Ghost: young girl comes to city, is seduced by loud music and sexy dancing, and soon blood and body parts are flying. Two weeks later, Just Another Love Story rolls out. Directed by the suddenly busy Ole Bornedal (The Substitute), it's a thriller that starts when a weary family man causes an auto accident, resulting in a young woman losing her memory. The family man is then mistaken for her new boyfriend and assumes his identity. It looks like a very dark, intriguing twist on While You Were Sleeping.
September takes a comic turn with Thomas Vinterberg's A Man Comes Home, in which a small town kitchen worker's romances get mixed up with the arrival of a famous opera singer. (The breezy, jazzy trailer is NSFW.) Finally, Paprika Steen (star of The Substitute) returns to the director's chair for With Your Permission, scripted by the gifted Anders Thomas Jensen. The film is described as a tragic comedy: "Sometimes you should let go of your dream and let another dream come true." All the trailers are available at one convenient site.
Danish 'Substitute' Scorches Box Office
Filed under: Foreign Language », Independent », Thrillers », Cinematical Indie »
If you cast your eye upon the top 10 most-attended films in Denmark last weekend, you'd spot some familiar titles: Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Fantastic Four 2, Ocean's 13 and even Death Proof (Quentin Tarantino's stand-alone version). You might also recognize the controversial The Art of Crying, which garnered mixed reactions when it played at the Toronto film festival last year. You might try to pronounce Cykelmyggen og Dansemyggen -- evidently a lovely animated family film about a dancing mosquito -- and dislocate your tongue. Or you might idly wonder how that old Tom Berenger mercenary vs. gangs flick The Substitute managed to finish #2. Of course, you'd then wake up and realize it must be another film, and how right you would be! The Danish title is Vikaren, but in any language, it sounds tantalizing. Paprika Steen, wonderful in films as different as Adam's Apples and Okay, stars as a new substitute teacher for a class of sixth-graders. "She wants to train the class for an international competition in Paris," says the description by the Danish Film Institute. "But something isn't right. How is she able [to] read kids' minds? Why is she so mean? And how does she manage to convince everyone's parents she is so great when the whole class knows she is really an alien?" It's categorized as a "children's thriller," but the trailer, even without subtitles, suggests it might also have a deliciously dark sense of humor. Among the cast is Ulrich Thomsen, who was also in the superb Adam's Apples and will be featured in the upcoming Hitman. I'm not familiar with the work of director Ole Bornedal; his previous film, I Am Dina, was released pretty much everywhere but in North America. I'm hoping The Substitute will make it across the Atlantic; it definitely looks like something I want to see.
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