Over the last 2 weeks my opinions have changed towards some of the films I’ve seen. Watching up to 4 films in one day can be exhausting, and sometimes through reflection films can seem better or worse in retrospect. In other words, if there are inconsistencies between my list and the reviews/ratings I gave, deal with it.

My Top 20 Films from the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival:

#20 – The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears

It’s amazing how much Cattet/Forzani’s style worked in Amer, and how much it didn’t work here. At the start I was thinking it might be the best film I saw at TIFF up to that point. At the end it felt like nails on a chalkboard.
The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears review

#19 – Moebius

This only gets ranked above Strange Colour purely by the fact that I could watch it without a problem.
Moebius review

#18 – The Green Inferno

Half of the movie is poorly acted and written drivel. The other half’s nastiness and excellent make-up by KnB make it more tolerable, but this belongs right alongside the other horror films only available on VOD.
The Green Inferno review

#17 – Like Father, Like Son

A complicated moral tale destroyed by its director making his characters spend 2 hours catching up to agree with his point of view (which is established immediately). A snooze.
Like Father, Like Son review

#16 – A Field in England

A cheap, nonsensical and mind-maddening period piece involving alchemists and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Some fun moments when things go berserk editing-wise, but that’s about the only entertainment value I got out of it.
A Field in England review

#15 – Night Moves

Kelly Reichardt is still terrific behind the camera, but she put all her eggs in the wrong basket this time. Nothing really works here on a fundamental level, leaving the visuals and cast to do their best.
Night Moves review

#14 – October November

Gotz Spielmann’s disappointing follow-up to Revanche tries to tell a dramatic story with no real drama in it. An admirable effort, but nothing more than that.
October November review

#13 – Canopy

An amazing debut on a technical level, but ultimately lacking. Still, Aaron Wilson will be a name to look out for if he makes another film.
Canopy review

#12 – R100

At times hilarious, but completely baffling overall. Hitoshi Matsumoto’s usual brand of off-kiler humour and self-aware jokes just don’t mix as well as his other films this time.
R100 review

#11 – The Sacrament

Ti West’s attempt to document a modern-day Jonestown hasn’t been aging well with me. It’s still well-done, and has some excellent warming up in the first two acts, but it isn’t making much of an impact in the way his previous films have with me. The subject matter seems a little bit in poor taste too if you know what it’s based on, but it’s still an effective horror film.
The Sacrament review

#10 – Under the Skin

I have my issues with it, but I can’t deny Under the Skin‘s power. It’s one of the more Kubrickian films I’ve seen in years, and I still can’t shake some images from it out of my head. I wish the shift in the second half was handled better, but in time I feel like I’ll grow to appreciate Under the Skin much more than I already do.
Under the Skin review

#9 – Gravity

It’s disappointing from Cuaron, but I can’t deny how much of a technical marvel this is. Expect this to win all the technical awards at the Oscars. There won’t even be a competition.
Gravity review

#8 – Manakamana

One of the most fascinating films I saw at the festival, and it further establishes Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab as one of the best documentary producers today. It was a pleasant surprise when Cinema Guild picked this up for distribution, and I hope that people are willing to give it a chance.
Manakamana review

#7 – Blind Detective

Johnnie To loses his mind, and the results are just as entertaining as many of his other films. Even when he’s switching genres between films (or within the films themselves), To proves he’s one of the more consistent filmmakers working today.
Blind Detective review

#6 – Why Don’t You Play In Hell?

Sono is back on form with his absolutely insane love letter to 35mm filmmaking and projection. It’s gloriously bonkers, simultaneously all over the place and tightly controlled, and a fun time for the most part.
Why Don’t You Play In Hell? review

#5 – The Past

Asghar Farhadi makes yet another well-done drama, with a terrific cast playing people who can’t escape the tragedies from (say it with me) their pasts. Farhadi seems to be the only filmmaker doing stories like this today, and we’re all the better for it.
The Past review

#4 – Oculus

Mike Flanagan lives up to the potential he showed in Absentia. It’s a horror film that understands the power of story, with a terrifying villain and a terrific script that uses its single location brilliantly. Hopefully audiences will discover Oculus, as the horror genre needs more people like Flanagan.
Oculus review

#3 – Stranger By The Lake

Gorgeous, seductive and a total nail-biter by the end. Stranger is an amazingly well-constructed film that will resonate with anyone who watches it.
Stranger By The Lake review

#2 – Only Lovers Left Alive

A film where one can live vicariously through its characters, and Jarmusch nails the carefree tone he’s clearly going for. It’s a big, long kiss to great artists throughout history, and it’s a total blast to watch.
Only Lovers Left Alive review

#1 – Stray Dogs

Tsai Ming-Liang’s swan song pushes the limits of his style (and his actors!) further than ever before. It’s a film where the weight of time on its characters are fully understood, and a showcase of just how masterful Tsai is when it comes to form. If it truly is his last film, he’ll be going out with one of his best films to date.
Stray Dogs review

Blind Detective

On my second-last day of the festival, I was not expecting to have one of the craziest days I’ve ever had at TIFF in my six years of going. Starting off, I was getting ready for one of my more anticipated films at the festival. Blind Detective is the latest film by Johnnie To, whose film Drug War is one of my favourites this year. Having been a fan of To’s work for years, I had an idea of what I was getting into. His style usually has scenes play out without any establishment or set-up, with the details usually being filled in after the fact. It can be confusing, and To’s no-nonsense pacing means that you have to keep up in order to follow along with everything going on.

Nothing could prepare me for what did come though. To’s tricks are still here, but he’s never thrown so much at the camera before. Johnston (Andy Lau) is the title detective, a former cop who lost his sight and now spends his days solving old cases to collect reward money. After unknowingly helping police bust a criminal, detective Ho (Sammi Cheng) asks him for help. She’ll pay him to help find out what happened to a childhood friend of hers who vanished years earlier, and he’ll show her how to become a better detective.

Johnston turns out to be rather unlikable, usually using Ho’s physical prowess to help him solve other crimes he’s investigating while tricking her into thinking they’re related to her case, but Ho expectedly falls for him. Watching them go around re-enacting various crime scenes (Johnston’s strategy is to re-live the crime scene, which mostly translates to physically harming Ho repeatedly) is funny, and soon the entire thing feels like one of the most deranged romantic comedies ever made. To uses plenty of physical humour and slapstick which, combined with the very Parisian score, brings Jacques Tati’s films to mind.

While To isn’t that good, he’s still a master at entertainment and it shines through here. The assortment of subplots, eccentric characters and plot twists that come barreling through (including a deranged lovesick grandmother, a murderous gambler and a love quadrangle to name a few) almost sink the film by the end, but To manages to handle most of them with ease. Cheng and Lau’s chemistry is great, and it’s nice to see To doing something more light-hearted in tone even if the material is incredibly dark. The overstuffed plot and 2+ hour runtime make this one of To’s minor works instead of a classic, but even second-tier To is a hell of an entertaining time.

RATING: 7.2

Why Don’t You Play In Hell?

Following that was Why Don’t You Play In Hell?, the latest feature from Japanese madman Sion Sono. With Blind Detective I was taken back by the eccentric qualities of it since it was so unlike To, but Sono is a different story entirely. He’s directed gems like Suicide Club, the 4-hour Love Exposure, S&M drama Strange Circus and the nutty serial killer tale Cold Fish. It’s been over 2 years since Sono’s made a genre film, he made 2 dramas about the massive earthquake and tsunami since Guilty of Romance, but he’s more than made up for lost time here.

Somehow Sono manages to top himself here, going all-out with what looks like everything he can think of. The film starts with two different storylines: One involving wannabe teen filmmakers called The Fuck Bombers, and the other focusing on a long-standing feud between rival Yakuza gangs. Giving away specific details would ruin most of the film’s fun, as the story is so convoluted and filled with connections that it’s fun to see the surprises in store (I usually hate when a film flashes back to an earlier scene to force an audience to see how things are connected, but their use here is absolutely vital given the information overload).

Once the two plots merge, it leads to a massive sequence that’s hilarious in its gleeful bloodlust and self-awareness. It’s the kind of sequence that would make Tarantino proud, and I’m certain that if he gets a chance to see Why Don’t You Play In Hell? he’d be a huge fan. The meta elements and Sono’s general goofiness sometimes drown out everything else going on in the film, usually in a bad way, but when everything comes together it provides some huge laughs and some of the most ridiculous moments in cinema this year. With Stateside distribution acquired by Drafthouse Films, Why Don’t You Play In Hell? might finally be Sono’s breakthrough for Western audiences. If so, it’s a great place to start. Despite everything going on, it’s by far his most accessible film in ages.

RATING: 7.3

R100

Finally, I sat down to catch R100, yet another title playing in Midnight Madness this year. I was a big fan of Symbol, director Hitoshi Matsumoto’s previous film that played at TIFF. Like Symbol, R100 takes its sweet time to get going. A wimpy-looking businessman (Nao Omori) discovers a club called Bondage, which offers him the ultimate pleasure in S&M: For one year, different dominatrices will randomly appear in his day-to-day life and publicly beat and/or humiliate him. He signs the contract, and things go well for a while until the group starts getting involved with his family and career. The businessman tries to end the contract, but in doing so he discovers just how dangerous and life-threatening this club really is.

It takes a while before Matsumoto drops a meta element into the film that explains its title (some necessary background: the Japanese rating system goes by R15, R18, etc. to bar certain age groups from seeing a movie). The film is directed by a 100 year old man who insists that only people his age will truly understand what’s going on in it. The scenes where a group of people (ratings board? producers? distributors? The film never really explains who these people are exactly) deconstruct the film provide some of the biggest laughs, and the same goes for Matsumoto’s cameo as a cop who calls out the absurdity of the S&M lifestyle, but that’s kind of it in terms of major laughs.

Matsumoto’s sense of humour can just be far too strange to really enjoy sometimes, leaving me staring blankly at what he’s doing. The way he messes with expectations and form is admirable, and his repetitive editing make for a few funny moments (my favourite being the arrival of Bondage’s CEO, a massively tall American woman who introduces herself by repeatedly belly flopping into a pool), but I really could not get into a lot of what he was doing in R100. It makes for a hit and miss experience, with some scenes so singularly strange that I wish it could have worked out much better than it actually did.

RATING: 6

Next up:

My final TIFF 2013 report, with three films left to go: Cannes favourite Stranger by the Lake, Kim Ki-Duk’s latest attempt at total depravity, and Un Certain Regard winner Omar.

The 2013 Cannes Film Festival is just around the corner so we thought we would bring you our most anticipated films that will be playing this year. Because a lot of the films at the festival will be making their world-wide premiere, most of the films do not have a trailer to go by just yet. Therefore, making our picks of the most anticipated films strikes an interesting challenge. There will be hidden gems at Cannes that will come out of nowhere, but here are the films we look forward to the most. Stick around Way Too Indie as we will be attending the festival this year and providing you coverage.

Most Anticipated Films At 2013 Cannes

The Bling Ring

Sofia Coopla’s latest offering, The Bling Ring, has gathered a lot of attention and rightfully so. Most of that attention has likely come from having the beloved Emma Watson “going wild” so to speak, playing a character who is not completely likeable. The Bling Ring is based upon actual events of a group of Hollywood obsessed teenagers who break into the homes of celebrities and steal their possessions. If it ends up being as wacky and ridiculous as it seems, The Bling Ring could be a wildly fun ride. [Dustin]

La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty)

Is it really a surprise that the director of WTI’s favourite film of 2012 is on this list? For those of us who loved This Must Be The Place, we can’t wait for what Paolo Sorrentino has in store next. Teaming up again with Toni Servillo, who was fantastic in Sorrentino’s previous film Il Divo, The Great Beauty is relatively light on plot details right now. What’s known is that Servillo plays Jep Gambardella, a 65 year old writer whose personal dramas make up the film. It seems like anything more specific than that will be saved for later, but there’s a trailer that might be helpful for those who speak Italian and/or French. Whether or not Sorrentino can deliver another great film remains to be seen, but either way we’ll surely be checking out The Great Beauty ASAP if we get the chance. [CJ]

Only God Forgives

I initially wanted to just type: “Refn. Gosling. Drive. Enough said.” for my reasoning to see this, but I am asked to give more. 2 years ago Nicolas Winding-Refn took Cannes (and many other film festivals worldwide) by storm with this violent, bright, pop filled, bubble gum popping, Los Angeles based crime thriller that featured Ryan Gosling as a nameless hero tasked with taking on a bunch of ruthless gangsters who happen to mess with the wrong stunt driver. Refn snagged the Best Director prize and Gosling went on to movie stardom. Now in Only God Forgives they’re back, together, with….you guessed it. A violent, but beautifully shot, crime film set in Bangkok. Gosling is asked by his mother (Kristin Scott Thomas, primed for an Oscar nomination) to kill the man who murdered his brother. This film looks to be BRUTAL. But Gosling and Refn are more than up to the challenge. This is shaping up to be one of the most popular films at the fest. Keep an eye out for this one. [Blake]

Fruitvale Station

Every year the Cannes Film Festival brings in one or two of the most talked about titles that played at the Sundance Film Festival back in January to make their international premiere debut. Fruitvale Station (formerly titled Fruitvale) impressed more than just the audience and the critics as the Weinstein Company snatched up the rights during the festival. Fruitvale Station takes place on the last day of Oscar Grant’s life, observing all the encounters he came across on his final day. First time filmmaker Ryan Coogler could be a name to remember if the initial responses of the film hold true. [Dustin]

Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw)

Takashi Miike has had quite the journey. He first established himself in the J-horror craze with shockers like Audition and Ichi The Killer, but over the years he’s shown how versatile and talented he truly is. From kid’s movies (Zebraman) to getting banned from TV (Imprint), Miike has covered plenty of genres while maintaining an output of at least two films a year (he released 3 movies last year, including a musical and a video game adaptation). The downside to Miike’s berserk work schedule is that his films may be hit or miss, but Wara No Tate sounds like a hit if done right. A billionaire offers a massive reward for the murder of his granddaughter’s (supposed) killer. The billionaire’s target immediately hands himself over to the police, and as they transport him across the country back to Tokyo a number of assassins try to claim the billionaire’s reward. Miike hasn’t made anything as good as 13 Assassins, one of his best films and a soon to be classic of the samurai genre, but this material sounds like a perfect fit for him. [CJ]

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of the most original, surreal, fantastical directors to ever grace a movie screen. Dune by Frank Herbert is considered one of the best (if not the best) Science Fiction novel ever written and many fans deem it un-filmable. David Lynch tried in the 80’s and was a critical and box office failure. Now comes this documentary on the Chilean director’s ambitious attempt to film the impossible. This will surely be a wild ride as the filmmakers have a plethora of material to work with. From the massive preparation the director and his team did to interviews with online film critics and Hollywood directors who love the director, this could be a nice surprise in the wealth of films being presented at the festival this year. [Blake]

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen Brothers are no strangers to the Cannes Film Festival. Inside Llewyn Davis will mark an impressive ninth visit to the film festival along the French Riviera for the brother duo. Not only does the trailer make the story of following a folk songwriter set in New York in the 1960s look interesting, it should naturally have a great soundtrack as well. CBS Films bought up the U.S. rights to Inside Llewyn Davis which may cast a small shadow of doubt considering their past track record of releases, however, this is a Coen Brothers film we are talking about. They are highly respected filmmakers that hold themselves to a certain standard, right? [Dustin]

Blind Detective

It seems that most of the films I want to see are playing outside of competition. Johnnie To, for those who don’t know, is one of the best genre directors working today. Using his production company Milkyway Image along with his usual collaborators (including his co-writer and sometimes co-director Wai Ka-Fai), To has created terrific films that range from romantic comedies to supernatural detective stories. After a detour with some romantic comedies and Life Without Principle, a drama centered around the recent worldwide financial crisis, To is back in action mode. Blind Detective follows, naturally, a former detective who left the force after losing his sight while on duty. Now spending his time helping cops solve cold cases, a young up and coming detective asks him to help her find her missing childhood friend. The plot may sound contrived, but Johnnie To is one of the best when it comes to making these stories feel fresh and exciting. Hopefully Blind Detective will be able to sit alongside Mad Detective, the Election films and Exiled among To’s best work. [CJ]

Nebraska

Alexander Payne is probably one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers. Sideways was an instant classic (not to mention one of my favorite films period) and The Descendants two years ago was a great family drama in the same vein. Not to mention films like About Schmidt and Election in his repertoire as well. His newest film concerns an aging, near alcoholic man who teams up with his long estranged son to embark on a trip from Montana to Nebraska to claim a lottery ticket that is worth millions. Sounds minimal from the outset, but like all Payne efforts, this will probably have multiple layers to it. [Blake]

So far only a handful of films that will be playing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival actually have trailers available. But as we begin to get closer to the start of the festival, more and more trailers being to emerge. We will be updating this page when new trailers are released, so check back regularly.

The Great Gatsby

Director: Baz Luhrmann

A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbor.

The Bling Ring

Director: Sofia Coppola

Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities’ whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

Only God Forgives

Nicolas Winding Refn

Julian, a drug-smuggler thriving in Bangkok’s criminal underworld, sees his life get even more complicated when his mother compels him to find and kill whoever is responsible for his brother’s recent death.

Inside Llewyn Davis

Directors: Ethan and Joel Coen

A singer-songwriter navigates New York’s folk music scene during the 1960s.

As I Lay Dying

Director: James Franco

Based on the 1930 classic by Faulkner, it is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her family’s quest to honor her wish to be buried in the nearby town of Jefferson.

The Past

Director: Asghar Farhadi

Behind the Candelabra

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.

Jeune & Jolie

Director: François Ozon

The portrait of a 17 years-old girl, in 4 seasons and 4 songs.

Sarah Would Rather Run

Director: Chloe Robichaud

The Great Beauty

Director: Paolo Sorrentino

The story of an aging writer who bitterly recollects his passionate, lost youth. A portrait of today’s Rome.

Blind Detective

Director: Johnnie To

A cop is forced into early retirement due to retinal damage. But after witnessing a bank robbery along with a female inspector – who believes he has acute senses – they team up in hope to solve the case.