My bags were thoroughly searched thrice at Pearson.
Apparently, I look like a drug trafficker.
Look, fuckhead, if I wanted to transport Canadian pot to California, I would transport it from British Columbia, not Toronto!
Moreover, if I was transporting pot, I wouldn't transport it through an airport, and I sure as hell wouldn't put it in my carry-on luggage!
And the 2009 TIFF People's Choice Award winner is…
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
dir: Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball)
It falls short of transcendent, but it is a good lay. Mo'Nique slays a monologue at the end. Paula Patton is radiant.
I thought Up in the Air would win the People's Choice Award, but it didn't even medal.
Micmacs à tire-larigot
dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie)
This film surprisingly won People's Choice bronze. Yay twee pacifist revenge fantasies?
Bunny and the Bull
dir: Paul King (The Mighty Boosh)
Is a film that is style over substance still worth seeing? Can we appreciate a film purely as visual art – worth seeing, but not worth seeing?
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
dir: Terry Gilliam (Brazil)
Tom Waits (as himself as The Devil) steals Heath Ledger's posthumous spotlight.
Parnassus' dwarf companion Percy is a superfluous character played discordantly by Verne Troyer.
Leaves of Grass
dir: Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
Edward Norton plays a Classics professor at Brown University.
Edward Norton plays a hydro-pot-nics savant in rural Oklahoma.
A desperate Jewish orthodontist. Walt Whitman.
It is Sweet Home Alabama meets Fargo!
[pause]
I dunno…
The White Ribbon
dir: Michael Haneke (Funny Games)
Dogtooth
The White Ribbon won the Palme d'Or (best in show) at the Cannes Film Festival, but Dogtooth, which similarly explores children and repression, deserved it way more.
Sick, twisted, fascinating, sublime.