So, that Hunger Games movie opens today, and according to the media coverage (of which, yes, I’ve reluctantly been part) it’s going to swallow up the world whole, or at least the megaplexes. Fortunately, that means you should have a clear path to anything else you might want to see I humbly suggest Jiro Dreams Of Sushi, which is entering its second week at TIFF Bell Lightbox. But if you’re looking for something else, there’s plenty going on around town.
For example: now that the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema is up and running, it’s flexing its muscles with a series of limited engagement screenings. That’s a pretty decent strategy, since documentaries by their very nature can be pretty modest in appeal not every title will have the broad cultural pull of a Being Elmo or a Corman’s World.
Thus, once the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour screenings wrap up Sunday afternoon, Gerald Peary’s For The Love Of Movies: The Story Of American Film Criticism and Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler’s Everyday Sunshine: The Story Of Fishbone are playing Sunday and Monday, while Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey’s Eames: The Architect And The Painter and Errol Morris’s Tabloid run Tuesday through Thursday.
It’s particularly rewarding to see the Bloor book Tabloid, which screened at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival and went directly to DVD in Canada last year the tale of a Joyce McKinney, a fashion model who may or may not have abducted her Mormon ex in an elaborate plot to sex him into loving her again (among other things) may be less of a grabber than Morris’s more activist productions, but it’s a fun little movie, and surely worth seeing with an audience.
I’m also obliged to provide an extra shout-out to For The Love Of Movies, because I’ll be appearing on a panel after the Sunday evening show to discuss the state of film criticism in Canada with director Peary (himself a film critic of some esteem) and my local colleagues Liam Lacey, Adam Nayman and Kiva Reardon, to be moderated by Jason Anderson. The movie starts at 6:30 pm the arguing, about 83 minutes later.
Elsewhere in the city, if Cinefranco and Canadian Music Week aren’t addressing your needs, a third film festival starts up on Wednesday: Returning after a four-year absence, the Canadian Film Festival kicks off four days of screenings, panels and parties in Little Italy with the Toronto premiere of Thom Fitzgerald’s Cloudburst.
I’ll have more to say about the festival in next week’s paper, but I didn’t want Cloudburst to slip by. Fitzgerald’s first feature since 2005’s 3 Needles, it’s a considerably more cinematic effort than the East Coast director usually produces – despite being an adaptation of his 2010 stage play.
Cloudburst – the movie – showcases fine performances from Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker as Stella and Dotty, an aging Maine couple who decide to drive to Nova Scotia and get married in order to gain legal standing in each other’s lives. (Dotty’s granddaughter, played on the shrill side by Kristin Booth, wants to put her in a nursing home, and Stella has no say in the matter.)
The couple picks up a hitchhiker (Ryan Doucette, reprising his stage role) along the way, which has led some wags to compare Cloudburst to Thelma & Louise … but that’s an awfully facile comparison. This movie is going in its own direction.
Cloudburst screens Wednesday at 8 pm at the Royal. According to the CFF’s website, you can get on the guest list for the opening night party at Li’ly by e-mailing liam@canfilmfest.ca. So you might want to get on that.
