Going to Toronto International Film Festival next week! The ticket redemption/selection process remains stressful AF. I ended up not being able to get tickets to either Parasite and Knives Out, and actually coughed up $$ to get a resale ticket for Parasite from Stubhub (/o). I'm gonna keep trying out for Knives Out until the screening day, but if it doesn't happen, c'est la vie.

Schedule of screenings I've got tickets for so far: [link]

Psyched about a lot of these, but especially for Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Parasite, Just Mercy, Marriage Story, Weathering With You, Waves, Jo Jo Rabbit and How to Build a Girl. Also cracking up at how I have tickets to TWO separate movies about art theft, The Burnt Orange Heresy and Lyrebird, which also happen to have the same leading man (Claes Bang from The Square, which was also about art, so I guess this is his weird niche now). It's like an arthouse equivalent of having two asteroids movies or two volcano movies happening at the same time.

There is one day when the first screening is at 9 AM and the last screening ends at 11:18 PM. I am gonna be a mess by the time I get home. Wheeeee! I CAN'T WAIT.

At TIFF. Saw 3 films yesterday, which was my first day of the festival. They were:

The Cave: a Nat Geo documentary about a female doctor leading a medical team in a literal underground hospital in a Syrian city that is besieged with bombing. A deeply humanistic film, even during moments of despair. This reduced my entire audience into fits of sobbing several times. Nat Geo is reportedly distributing it in 100+ countries. Hopefully you will get a chance to see it. Couldn't be too mad at it even though it made me start the festival with a headache from all the crying and makeup running down my face.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: a ravishing period lesbian romance from France. Gorgeous and thinky, it marries swoony romanticism with sharp modern feminist sensibilities. A great film.

Parasite:!!! OMFG. I would be shocked if I saw another movie during the festival I loved as much as this one. Go into this as blind as possible. I'd watched the trailer yet I WAS NOT PREPARED. It juggles like 5 different genres seamlessly, working like a gangbuster in all of them. Totally worth the ridiculous resale price I paid for the ticket.

Best first festival day EVER. Having a much lower key day today, which I am a bit relieved by, to be honest. Will report back further.

The Cave sounds great!

Ethan's also at TIFF this week, he's been Tweeting all the films and press events - [link]

Day 7 of TIFF. Sitting in the theater waiting fory next flick to start - The Kingmaker, an Imelda Marcos documentary.

Parasite remains my fave film of the festival, but I have seen some fantastic movies since. I know ScarJo is canceled and all, but she is excellent in Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story, which is a movie about divorce that manages to be both funny and absolutely heartbreaking. Adam Driver is her counterpart and he is even better. Musical theater folks would get a kick out of the scene where Driver's character sings Sondheim and aquits himself very well indeed. I can see the movie netting multiple acting Oscar noms, original screenplay and possibly even best director and picture. I am putting my kittens on it nabbing the People's Choice Award, which is a good barometer for the Oscar season.

Other picks from the festival:

Dolemite Is My Name: Eddie Murphy plays the title character, who is sort of the father of blaxploitation. A really fun underdog triumph story. Murphy is splendid in it.

La Belle Epoque: a witty, fast-paced and original French farce with Daniel Auteuil and Fanny Ardant.

Uncut Gems: has Adam Sandler as a NYC jeweler with a dangerous gambling addiction, whose myriad troubles all catch up with him at the same time and start snowballing. It starts at level 11 intensity and never lets up. For the first 20 mins, I found it almost too much, but once you settle into the frantic rhythm of the film, it becomes an exhilarating ride. Sandler is shockingly good in it. It's directed by Safdie Brothers, whose last film, Good Time, is streaming on Amazon Prime. I saw that just a few weeks ago, and this movie is like Good Time after 12 lines of coke. It stressed me the fuck out but I ended up loving it all the same.

Okay, the movie is starting so more later!

I have been out of the loop what is the latest thing ScarJo did?

Vigorously defended Woody Allen.

Wasn't she barely an adult and working for him on Scoop when she talked about much older men having the requisite experience and taste to be right for her?

Parasite remains my fave film of the festival

Yay, I just got tickets for this at the Mill Valley Film Festival!

(One of the programmers follows me on Twitter and asked me if I was interested in being a volunteer screener for them. None of the many shorts I watched and rated got picked--they had over 2000 entries--but it turns out you get a bunch of vouchers for tickets to the festival for your trouble.)

I know ScarJo is canceled and all, but she is excellent in Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story, which is a movie about divorce that manages to be both funny and absolutely heartbreaking. Adam Driver is her counterpart and he is even better. Musical theater folks would get a kick out of the scene where Driver's character sings Sondheim and aquits himself very well indeed. I can see the movie netting multiple acting Oscar noms, original screenplay and possibly even best director and picture. I am putting my kittens on it nabbing the People's Choice Award, which is a good barometer for the Oscar season.

This is showing at MVFF but it is a "spotlight" film and my vouchers didn't work for it. :-(

Dolemite Is My Name: Eddie Murphy plays the title character, who is sort of the father of blaxploitation. A really fun underdog triumph story. Murphy is splendid in it.

So I was actually thinking of seeing this, or La Verité, the new film by the Japanese director who did Shoplifters. It stars Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke.

In other movie news, I saw both Hustlers and Ad Astra this week. Hustlers was very fun and well directed. Ad Astra was very pretty to look at but very much a slog, with far too much voiceover.

I can see the movie netting multiple acting Oscar noms...

Only if Netflix decide to release it in cinemas, which I'm not sure they have any plans to do at this point.