There’s a lot of festival activity happening in town this week – isn’t there always? – but just in case that isn’t keeping you busy enough, TIFF Cinematheque has a couple of series you can add to your calendar.
First, there’s All The World’s A Stage: Shakespeare On Film, a month-long celebration of the Bard on the big screen to mark the 400th anniversary of his death.
There’s a decent selection of classics: Olivier’s Hamlet (screening tomorrow, Saturday June 11), Richard III (Sunday June 12) and Henry V (July 2) Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (June 19), Polanski’s Macbeth (June 25).
And the programmers reach beyond the usual suspects for some interesting choices: Kurosawa’s brilliant recontextualization of Macbeth, Throne Of Blood, screens Sunday, with his majestic King Lear adaptation Ran set for July 2. Warner’s new digital 3D restoration of Kiss Me Kate, the 1953 musical adaptation of The Taming Of The Shrew starring Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson, plays June 18. And Kenneth Branagh’s four-hour full-text Hamlet will be presented in all its 70mm glory on June 26, the day after that other grand large-format Shakespeare adaptation, West Side Story.
Still, there are some glaring omissions – neither Branagh nor Joss Whedon’s adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing made the cut, and there’s no sign of Ian McKellen’s fascist interpretation of Richard III or Michael Almereyda’s bracing Y2K take on Hamlet. Branagh’s burly Henry V isn’t there, either – and where’s The Adventures Of Bob & Doug McKenzie In Strange Brew, one of the best interpretations of Hamlet? Jeez, guys.
The real grabber, though, is this weekend’s spotlight on Roberto Minervini. The Texas-based filmmaker was born in Italy, but now works out of Houston, which gives him a slightly different angle on the culture that surrounds him.
Yes, it’s a cliché, but good luck arguing against it: Minervini’s outsider perspective paradoxically gives him the opportunity to get closer to the people and environments that make up his movies. Minervini works with non-actors and shoots in real locations, crafting fictional narratives around people doing things that they actually do.
The questing, exploratory nature of his films makes them a tricky sell as far as I know, only 2014’s Stop The Pounding Heart managed to get a Canadian theatrical release, popping up unexpectedly at the Carlton last year. But I saw it, and loved it, and I wanted more.
This weekend, TIFF Cinematheque gives us all more with The Other Side: The Films Of Roberto Minervini, bringing the director to town to introduce all four of his features – the “Texas trilogy” of The Passage, Low Tide and Stop The Pounding Heart and his latest film The Other Side, a vivid drama about a few people who’ve carved out lives apart from the mainstream, either through drug addiction or political conviction, and the social structures they create for themselves.
TIFF is screening Minervini’s films in reverse order, with The Other Side playing tonight (Friday June 10) at 6:30 pm, Stop The Pounding Heart and Low Tide Saturday (June 11) at 4:30 pm and 7:30 pm, respectively, and The Passage Sunday (June 12) at 7:30 pm.
Minervini will also present a Carte Blanche screening of The Margin tonight (Friday) at 9:15 pm. A 1967 feature by Ozualdo R. Candeias, it’s a blueprint for Minervini’s own work, folding real people into a fictional narrative with sociological and political resonance.
Also worth checking out this week: Musicale! goes all retro on Sunday afternoon, screening High Society at 4:30 pm at The Royal. (Never seen it? It’s The Philadelphia Story with Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly singing Cole Porter tunes. There you go.)
And on Wednesday (June 15), the MUFF Society (in collaboration with Inside Out) will be tackling Jamie Babbit’s queer comedy But I’m A Cheerleader! at the Carlton Cinema. Show starts at 9 pm, with the now-customary lobby shenanigans kicking off an hour earlier at 8 pm. Bring your squad.
Get more movie showtimes here.
normw@nowtoronto.com | @normwilner
