Quickie day 2 take 2

Silly phone blogging.
Now I have to try and recreate my brilliant reviews that had been typed out on my phone. Then deleted. 
Here goes.

THE HUNTER.  Good movie. Man vs nature vs man.  While watching Mr Dafoe is great, there's only so much walking through the bush and putting little circles on maps a man can take.  The underlying corporate thriller is under used, but hinted at enough to make it seem ever present.  Both the hunting of an extinct animal and the corporate element seem to take a backseat to a story of a man who is paid to look the other way as a profession, but decides not to anymore.   Good but not great. 7/10

GOD BLESS AMERICA.   Hilarious. My opinion was most likely skewed by the laugh riot that was bobcats intro.and QnA period but the film rang true, in a scary way.    Basically a mismatched due of a divorcee 45 year old guy and a high Schiller start driving cross country taking out the people that are making America the giant tool box it is. People like American idol judges and guys that take up two.parking spaces because they can.   Its crass and rude and shocking and hilarious (they kill a baby! A baby!!!) But that all adds to its likability as an over the top grandstand to douchbags everywhere to smarten up and stop being dinks.  I also think its this crassness and ultra violence that will make it a cult hit by the very people its making fun of. 

Quickie for day 2 cause i know you vant wait

My day started at the tiff box office JUST before the lunch rush. Thank god. Man it was busy.  And while the big board wasn't up to date on what was still available and was very annoying I will say this. The girl that helped me, and those around me, had the patience of a saint as I went through second third forth and random selections.  Now my tiff is packed with close to 40 films. 

Here's what I saw yesterday.

URBANIZED.   Very good doc about "the city" as a whole and as an idea. Shots of Toronto made all who viewed it compare each bike lane story, each use of abandoned space story, each low income housing story and compare it to where we call home.  We didn't so great.     Impactful and full of a better way of living thinking urbanzied was fairly spread out and lacked the storyline of a feature.    That said. When you see the trees in stutgart getting ripped down its one of the most inpactful moments in a movie I've seen yet. "After ww2 when the city was bombed and winter hit, people still didn't cut down these 200 year old trees" says an activist.   Wow.

THE HUNTER.  part

Test

Just testing that this is working.

First day, quickie...

So, first night TIFF 2011, pretty good.

INTO THE ABYSS is both disturbing (those are real peoples bodies up on the screen, I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing that) Hilarious (nice name tattoo on your arm, what would you do if you and Betsy break up. - Well, I guess I'll get sucks tacked on right under it) and hopeful (why are there so many hummingbirds)   All in all very good and very Herzog.

Le HAVRE,  meh.   There are elements that make it friggin' awesome, like crisis of authority, moral compasses and masterfully crafted comedy (seriously though, the guy with the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist at the beginning never gets mentioned again?), but there were also elements that made it seem first flm out of school-ish.  Framing was odd, almost all down the lens, tons of headroom, and the pace was that of molases.   technical aside the performance were fun, when there were people on screen who performed and weren't just blank faced stand ins who seemed to have accidently walked on set.

THE RAID.   WHOLLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!   this movie blew me away.  There was maybe 10 minute during the whole thing where I didn't feel like I was being kicked in the head along with the insanely talented martial arts stars.  BONUS points for also being the best"yet to be a video game" idea, seriously, rockstar watch this film!     Couldn't sleep till nearly 5am due to adrenaline.  Thanks Mr Evans, you welsh bastard (meant in the nicest of ways)

Aside from that met up with people I only see once a year for a week, and it's looking like it's going to be a good tiff...

More / better reviews to come, photo's, and clips of Colin and Cameron's MM intro..
-T

Tiff 2011 on a thursday

It's almost 6pm and that start of TIFF 2011 is on in 30 minutes with the bat shit crazy herzog and a doc about murder and crime fame.  
Doubt it shall be as much a shock as 2009's opener for me "Antichrist" or last years silly ass "film socialism" where I think Goddard actually wanted to piss everyone off.

Reviews and comments of the week to come.  This year over scaled down from 50 to 30 but I will probably se more than that.
T

I haven't kept up with the blogging

I'm sorry.  I haven't been keeping up with the blogging AT ALL...  Actually, keeping up would imply that I was UP at some point with them, which is sadly not the case.  So, I'm admitting that I just abandoned spending 15 minutes a week writing on here.  Don't know why...

Here's a bit of a recap.
Over the past month and a bit of mondays I have re-written a TV pilot script, re-worked a series bible, written a short, outlined 2 features, shot and edited a feature length script read thru http://studios.amazon.com/movies/4593  have reviewed a number of other feature scripts, a play, a movie, installed a handrail, read a book and watched a bunch of movies.
I've been busy I swear, but my productivity is not what this is about, it's about the juices that keep me writing.

Every week, even when I'm super busy, on monday I still take a bit of time to focus on my work.  And more than that, almost everyday I take a bit of time to further one of my projects.  Whether it be a post it note or two about a character, a page one re-write of a script, tuning the world out while listening to some music and focusing on a theme and not writing anything down but letting it gestate or watching other movies to get inspired and reminded of cliches and pitfalls.  

The mind of a writer never really stops I find.  Even when I'm at a two day work related conference my mind can't help but turn to movie plots and the mental notepad starts scribbling madly.

I promise to keep up on this more, granted there are only 3 people reading it, but for all three of you, I shall return.
-T

Monday night is Work Night. - The idea!

Here's the breakdown.
I've been writing scripts for a long time.
I've been making short films for a long time.
I have lots of friends that make movies.
I have lots of material waiting to be made.
I have at least one night to work on it.

In an effort to turn this screenwriting / filmmaking / festival running thing I do into a full time job I have dedicated Monday Nights to working on whatever project comes to mind.   I'm not just going to be working on monday nights mind you, but I work a full time job, I have a sick father, an apartment that still hasn't been painted, a wonderful girlfriend that wants to spend time with me and finding the hours to work on projects gets harder and harder.  So at the bare minimum I am going to be spending Monday nights pushing forwards with making my career dreams a reality, and hopefully my friends will join me and we'll make some serious waves in 2011. Whether it be TV, Feature Films, Short Films, Web Series, Comic Books, Music video's or novels it's going to be fun.

I am deciding to  Blog about my monday endeavours, not necessarily with specifics of the projects I'm working on as a focus, but with the thrill of working at something I love to do, and the fun of brainstorming with friends and creating something out of nothing, of storytelling.  Maybe someone will read these blogs and will feel connected to the storytelling process and have a great idea they want to work on with me or with one of their own friends, and rather than complain about tv, or movies, choose to dedicate one night a week to making them better.

It's time to get this show on the road.
-Tomas