Laremy rolls through Toronto in his fly sports car!
I was sitting around the other day, licking my Taco Bell loco taco fingers while thumbing through the “missed connections” portion of the paper when a call came through on the land line. It was Vince, the guy who runs the jam you’re currently reading.
“LEGEL!” he grumbled, his voice still throaty from the scotch and cigar party he’d hosted the night prior.
“Yes, sir?” I said, trying to put my pants back on (for optimal professionalism).
“You were just in Toronto, weren’t cha, kid?”
It was true. I’d hitchhiked to the airport, stowed away in first class, and tipped and sipped my way through the skies. Because I’m a big-time “cream of the crop” critic I was met at the airport by half a dozen ladies, only two of whom were desperately unattractive. After a limo ride into downtown, I was asked to throw out the first pitch for the Orioles-Jays game. Perfect strike. Get drunk, high hat. Then I went to 15 movies in four days, crushing ‘dem reviews like an OG. Then I came home, then I answered the phone, then I used a highly questionable* intro technique to a “Best and Worst of The Toronto Film Festival” column.
*Still, you should be grateful, because the column originally started like this: “The Toronto International Film Festival is a veritable proving ground for potential Best Picture nominees.” Yeeps. That’s terrible.
So here you go, 12 semi-cogent thoughts on TIFF 2012, all for you!
Didn’t Make either List, But Worth Talking About
Cloud Atlas
Best Part
It feels like the sort of film you attempt on a dare, six concurrent plot devices that span around 500 years. As such, you’re going to see the word “ambitious” used about 1000 times in every review of the film.
Worst Part
Like a 5’4″ guy trying to dunk, it’s tough to say if all that effort is going to lead to anything. Yes, they pull off the concurrent storylines, but all of them say the same thing, occasionally back-to-back, with the exact same phrasing. Thus, the films feels repeatedly repetitive (yes, I did that on purpose).
The Master
Best Part
Watching Joaquin Phoenix’s character make moonshine out of household cleaning products. I kept trying to jot down the recipe, if only to avoid potentially blinding my friends.
Worst Part
The realization that Paul Thomas Anderson now has enough cachet that he doesn’t have to care about the audience. Only he’s decided to use this power to make obtuse art-house films.
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… Sooner or later Anna Karenina will be shown on TV, and I will watch it. Half-watch it, while playing old computer games or doing the ironing or whatever. But I will watch it, and I will probably enjoy it, and not just for Keira Knightley.
I can admit this, here and now, because none of you know who I am in real life. Also, I’ve already seen Dredd, and loved the drokk out of it. And I will probably be seeing Seven Psychopaths in the cinema, because that’s one hell of a pedigree.
Your real name is Reginald Dunbarton. You live in Maida Vale, two skips from the birthplace of Alan Turing. You trudge to work every day at BBC Studios where you shuffle papers, tap out memos and generally suffer through your day unnoticed, constantly staring at the pictures of John Peel on the walls, wishing you were born 30 years prior. If only Marivel over in editorial knew of your encyclopedic knowledge of Proust. The pins on that one…
After work you nurse a pint (traditional) before climbing the stairs to your modest but well apportioned flat in Little Venice. Moving here to be closer to work and your girlfriend was a good idea in 2005, but now that she’s gone you wonder what the use of such a large living space is, especially with that astronomical rent. This isn’t a place to meet people, it’s a place to settle down. The last thing you need to do right now is settle down.
You pop in a DVD of Shakespeare In Love and drift off to sleep on a chair in the corner of the room, the lamp light softly illuminating the frayed seams in your trousers.
Billybob, we know who you are. We know exactly who you are.
@mattyj2001 Just wonderful.
Macaulay Culling wearing lip stick and longingly staring at Ruffalo is going straight into my spank bank.
Dredd does look like it could be awesome. And suck the comedic blood out of the film? (Zing Detector explodes)
Look, I’m not trying to start shit, but pie > cake.
I don’t mean that as a criticism of Seven Psychopaths, though. Just in the literal cake vs. pie sense.
Cheesecake, not cake, no cheese, pie shaped. The androgynous, gender confused Glee cast member of the confectionery universe, but > pie or cake.
Eh, I dunno. If I was going to pick a cake, it’d have to be caramel cake.
+1
Pie>Cake all day.
Since we’re on the clock, Blizzard > McFlurry.
The best pie is Key Lime Pie, which is actually a cake.
Theory rejected.
@Jacktion, I reject your rejection. The best pie is Pecan Pie, which is a proper pie.
“Pumpkin pie” are the two most delicious words in the English language.
Key lime pie is delicious, but it definitely doesn’t beat pecan.
Actually, the best pie is Momofuku’s crack pie. It’s quite possibly the greatest dessert ever.
The cake bell curve is flatter than the pie one though they have about the same median.
::rides by solo on a tandem and throws banana cream pies at everyone::
There can be only one!
i don’t really wanna get into this cuz im starving and hungover and all i have in my fridge is kiwi yogurt and roman meal bread, but cake can go fuck itself in the shitcunt.
Patty, you ignorant
slutprude, Momofuku’s Birthday Cake Truffles are a billion times better than the crack pie.*went to Momofuku last night and has birthday cake truffles sitting in his fridge right now*
Blizzards > everything
I win.
Boom.
[twitter.com]
Every time a killer-for-hire in a movie says, “I don’t do women or children” I hear a 16-year-old interviewing for a fast food job declaring they don’t mop floors. It’s part of the job asshole. Get the fuck out. I’ll employ a professional.
“Without question? No, I’d ask how much.”
That made me laugh. Then again, I kill people’s pets for a living.
The more you talk about MBFWE, Laremy, the more I wish it were a real thing.
Best, Barbara, maybe Leviathan.
Worst, knowing that the sperglord who followed you and your special lady onto the subway afterwards is probably the only one who wants to talk about it.
She’s not my special lady, she’s just … something something … screw it, I’m staying home from the theaters and watching The Big Lebowski again.
Wise choice.
Also, is the make-up in Cloud Atlas really as ridiculous as everyone says it is? Because it looks pretty hard to ignore.
So does Dredd ‘reverse the polarity’ at any time?
and the crickets agree…
Maybe this has been addressed elsewhere and I missed it, but why the hell doesn’t Joseph Gordon-Levitt look like Joseph Gordon-Levitt?
They tried to make him look more like someone who would more believably grow up to look like Bruce Willis. It is creeping me out.
Question: Where do your loyalties lie if someone hires you to kill Uggie, that skateboarding dog from “The Artist”? The mind of a dog-assassin/film blogger seems like an interesting (if not completely terrifying) place
I’d like to say “I wouldn’t do it,” but not much is lucid anymore. My killing and reviewing are all mingled in there together, like a Hunter S. Thompson book.
Or the plot of a Steven Seagal movie.
So that he looks more like an italian Owen Wilson instead of that cute kid from 3rd Rock.
I saw Dredd. It’s fucking legit. No homo.
I’m more pumped for Dredd than I am for Looper. Was it filmed in 3D or was it a post job? I think I remember reading it was actually filmed in 3D.
That should always be your poster quote.
Shot with a 3D rig using Red cameras. If anything, it should look pretty snazzy.
Needs more Stallone.
Needs less Schneider
I’m legit impressed that you can keep 15 movies in four days straight. I’ll watch three movies on a seven-hour flight and only remember the last 30 mins of the last one.
Reespek.
i don’t know why, but i laughed mad hard at “reespek.” i think it’s the extra “e” that does it for me.
What about The Place Beyond the Pines? Did you see it? Does it look good?
I gave it a solid B. Excellent acting, but a punishing watch overall, a bit like We Need to Talk About Kevin in that respect.
Am I the only one that didn’t realize that was Chris Tucker in the Silver Linings trailer until his name showed up next to his face?
They should have made Looper with Tom Hanks and Colin Hanks. . . .
said nobody ever
So Looper isn’t a 3rd Bass documentary?
Man…I’d like to think I know 3rd Bass pretty well, but I’m just not getting the reference.
…you looped it you looped it…..
Yea, that was all I could come up with….a bit of a stretch there, no?
Now you gettin sued kinda stupid.
Ray Liotta should only be allowed to star in films that take place in the 70′s.
Cloud Atlas looks like someone stepped in dog shit, then stepped in a different dog shit on the way to clean off first dog shit, then tracked those dog shits all over a shag carpet that spent the last 20 years being soaked with cat piss.
But what do I know? I still can’t figure out why Tokyo Gore Police didn’t sweep the Oscars.
Don’t worry Paul Dano, I’ll make sure that Daniel Day Lewis doesn’t mess with you.
-JGL
I’m confused…you didn’t like The Master? Is that legal to not like a Paul Thomas Anderson film and be a film critic? Not a clown question. No Homo
You can, but only if you’re on the record as loving most of his other stuff. Magnolia, Boogie Nights, and Punch-Drunk Love are awesome, but he’s getting a bit unapproachable with his films.
great article, the majority of these films look unreal. Cant wait to see them.