Cold out, huh? Maybe you’d like to huddle up inside a nice warm movie theatre and forget about the dead leaves piling up on the sidewalk. Well, TIFF Cinematheque has a few options for you down at the Lightbox, launching a number of fall series this week.
Beyond Badass: Female Action Heroes technically started last night when Pam Grier introduced Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, but let’s be real here: Jackie Brown isn’t a Pam Grier action movie. You want to see a Pam Grier action movie, you want to see Coffy and Foxy Brown – which Grier is introducing at the Lightbox tonight at 6:30 pm and 9:30 pm, respectively.
Beyond Badass is programmed by Kiva Reardon, founding editor of cléo and a generally great person, and she’s put together a lineup that doesn’t limit itself to just one genre or era. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien on Sunday (October 4) at 6:45 pm is as potent a warrior as Uma Thurman’s Bride in the Kill Bill movies, which screen back-to-back Wednesday (October 7) at 6:30 pm and 9 pm. Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (October 23, 9:45 pm), Zhang Ziyi in House Of Flying Daggers (November 6, 9 pm), Gina Carano in Haywire (November 13, 9:15 pm), Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil (November 20, 9:15 pm) and of course Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road (December 3, 9 pm) – they’re all here, as well as a few others. Check ’em out.
And then there’s the TIFF 40 series, marking the festival’s 40th anniversary with free screenings of 10 audience favourites from the history of the organization. It kicks off Tuesday (October 6) at 6:30 pm with François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, one of the greatest first features ever made – and a personal favourite.
Other titles include David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (October 20, 6:30 pm), the new restoration of Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (November 3, 6:30 pm), Wong Kar-wai’s In The Mood For Love (November 17, 6:30 pm) and Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Blue (November 24, 6:30 pm). But I’m really looking forward to the Halloween screening of Peter Jackson’s Dead-Alive (October 31, 5:45 pm). That’s gonna be a party.
Tickets will be available at the Lightbox starting two hours before each screening, one per person.
Oh, and speaking of free stuff, check out what TIFF has planned for Nuit Blanche tomorrow night! (The Kino-Blender sounds particularly delightful.) And once you’ve rested up, come back Sunday afternoon for the 3:45 pm Canadian Open Vault screening of John Paizs’s perpetually underrated Crime Wave, which is also free and will be introduced by the filmmaker in a new digital restoration.
