A Film With Me In It

So I’ve been volunteering at the Toronto International Film Festival since Wednesday (and will be there every day until Saturday) and aside from the fact that I’m totally exhausted (I’m also working early mornings at IKEA) and that I’m bored to tears during my shift, it’s been pretty good.  Basically, I get to sit a desk (table) in the offices of the film festival (in the hallway outside of the boardroom) and hand out tickets to donors and friends of the festival.  No, I haven’t been giving tickets to anyone famous, and really, aside from Thursday (opening day) it’s really not been that busy.  That being said, I have managed to see two films thus far.

Me and Orson Welles was great fun, and proved to me that Zac Efron can actually act.  It follows the story of a young man growing up in New York City (Efron) who manages to impress Welles enough that he’s cast in the upcoming production of Julius Caesar.  What follows is part love story between a young man and a “more experienced” woman (Claire Danes) and part love story between the same young man and the theatre.  Naturally, he learns that there is more to theatre than just the smell of the greasepaint, and the roar of the crowd.  Christian McKay as wells is spot on.  There was a Q&A after the show, and I had no idea he was British, which makes the fact that he nails Welles’ intonations and inflections so well all the more impressive.  The Q&A with Danes, Efron, McKay and director Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed & Confused, School of Rock, Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly) was pretty fun – and (of course) there was a My So-Called Life question for Danes.  I enjoyed this picture and felt that there was a good chemistry and comic timing from the cast.  Arbitrary rating scale: 4 out of 5.

Burn After Reading was excellent.  I had read some of the early reviews about “inconsistency” and the fact that it just wasn’t all that good, and was a little worried, but I really enjoyed this flick as well.  John Malkovich, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand all deliver killer performances as an over-the-edge, just fired/quit CIA Analyst (Malkovich) and two hapless gym employees, obsessed with the “intelligent shit” they just found on a burned CD in the locker room.  George Clooney and Tilda Swinton round out the main cast, and while their performances are a little more understated, they offset the other three delightfully.  I have to agree with whoever said it, but JK Simmons (who is only in two small scenes) as a CIA supervisor steals the show.  Naturally, because it’s a Coen Brothers comedy of errors (which, I maintain, nobody does it better) there a couple grisly deaths at the end of the film, and even a “moral” (though the usefulness of said moral is debatable).  All told, I walked out thoroughly satisfied, and this will join the other Coen Brothers pictures on my shelf in time.  Arbitrary Rating System: 9 out of 10.

Also, I managed to run into Peter Scrietta from /film and say that I really like the site.  I asked him how he was enjoying the festival, and he told me that he hadn’t been getting up early enough in the morning to see enough films, but had seen Miracle at St. Anna that morning.  Miracle is Spike Lee’s three and a half hour WWII picture, so that would be an understandably intense morning.

Alright – it’s 5:38 am and I have to be at work in 22 minutes.  If you’re in Toronto, go see a film or three.  It’s a lot of fun.