Ooooh, that sounds like one to look for.

It's OTT and hella fun. And Park restrains from his trademark ultra-violence until the very end, which I was grateful for.

My new festival favourite is Damien Chazelle's La La Land, which I watched yesterday. It's a swooningly lovely old fashioned musical starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. Neither of them are great singers but boy, do they spark together so well. It's full of romance and candy-coloured fancy, but with an edge of melancholy. Parts of the movie were so beautiful that it actually made me tear up. It strikes me as a very Buffistas-type film.

The trailer: [link]

Oh, Vonnie, that really does look great.

I love the look and the style.

Reading this...

[link]

...and this...

[link]

...should give you an idea of how much I'm looking forward to La La Land. The short version: very, very much.

OK, hold your horses, I have a NEW favourite film from the festival -- Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea, about which I knew next to nothing going in. All I heard was that Casey Affleck was the lead and it was about a man who had to deal with his brother's death. I basically spent the entire second half of the film silently weeping. It might be the best film I've seen about grief since... maybe The Sweet Hereafter? Which is a high bar. And it's not dreary or depressing at all, but raw and heartbreaking and surprisingly funny throughout. Affleck is stupendous in it, playing someone almost entirely interior and withdrawn.

SO MANY GREAT MOVIES, Y'ALL. I can't wait for these to come out so that I could talk about them here.

So glad Lonergan got to make another movie!

I love Lonergan's other stuff, so am definitely looking forward to that.

Got back from Toronto International Film Festival yesterday. 25 movies in 9 days -- no shabby, huh? (Oy. I need another week of vacation to recuperate).

Queen of Katwe was a delight, even though it hit every single sports movie beat along the way. I had more mixed feelings about David Oyelowo's other movie in the festival, A United Kingdom by Amma Asante (who did Belle a few years back), a very handsome historical biopic about Seretse Khama, the royal successor then the first democratically elected president of Botswana, who was involved in a storm of controversy for marrying a white English girl. Oyelowo is very fine, as is Rosamund Pike as his wife. It's a well-intentioned, well-acted film about worthy subject matter, but I kept wishing throughout the film that Asante would do more interesting things with the narrative structure or filmmaking style. Ah well.

Saw The Dressmaker last night. Tonally it's a bit of a mess, but the dresses are very, very pretty. If you like quirky/twisted comedy, think a dark Cold Comfort Farm, this may be for you. Judy Davis is superb.

OOH I'm always looking for Cold Comfort Farm -esque movies!

OOH I'm always looking for Cold Comfort Farm -esque movies!

Well, with a sharp edge mind you.

ION, I'm sad to report that Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was rather disappointing. I didn't know anything about it going in but was hoping my Eva Green girl crush would at least carry me through. It didn't.