Category: media

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival seems to have hit on all cylinders, a welcome change from the last couple of years, when TIFF was necessarily overshadowed by world events. Several Toronto critics were duly impressed by the mood of this year’s fest, in addition to praising the high quality of this year’s entries. Joanna Schneller may have summed up TIFF’s year: “It was a good, solid year for the festival. There hasn’t been that one great breakout film, but there are also fewer stinkers.”

The Toronto Film Festival holds a movie pitch competition, in which filmmakers present pitches for movies they’d like to make. Some of the presentations are incredibly elaborate. But this year’s winner had a more modest pitch. Demian Resnick “didn’t wear a costume, as did two filmmakers who wore gaudy prom dresses while pitching a project about growing up in the 1980s. And Resnick didn’t have any pre-filmed scenes, like a filmmaker from Vancouver used in pitching her idea for a comedy vehicle for former SCTV star Dave Thomas and his brother Ian. Instead, Resnick just stood under a spotlight and earnestly read his cards.”

Disney is test-selling disposal DVDs. “”They will go on sale in four cities to test whether US film watchers will choose them over rented DVDs. The red DVDs turn an unreadable black 48 hours after their packages are opened, exposing them to oxygen. The oxygen reacts with the disc in a process similar to how Polaroid film develops.”

Who said pop culture was forever changed after 911? “If you see a movie now, there’s no longer any question that it originated after the Twin Towers came down. And this past summer, it seemed like there were whole movies that stood as direct arguments against all those things we believed back in the fall of 2001. Movies will become less frivolous? ‘Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle.’ Movies will become less violent? ‘Bad Boys 2.’ It’s not important that those movies weren’t smash hits. They did well enough, and what’s more important is that Hollywood believed, post-9/11, that such movies were what American audiences wanted.”

“Intense Russian father-and-son drama ‘The Return’ won the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion for best picture yesterday, bringing little relief to first-time director Andrey Zvyagintsev who was still shaken by the death of the 15-year-old star of the movie.”

English TV comedies have a brilliant record. “On the big screen, though, we’re an embarrassment. When did you last see a British comedy film that was actually funny, let alone innovative or daring? Even the brightest of our television stars seem to fail when they make movies.”

Some Australian movies have been struggling at the box office. “The poor box-office performance of several recent Australian releases is causing yet another round of soul-searching within the Australian film industry. This, in itself, is a wearyingly predictable, if necessary, response to what is essentially a cyclical predicament. So too is the retort that characterising the local screen business as an “industry in crisis” is unhelpful and even dangerous.”

It’s been a rough couple of years for the Toronto International Film Festival, with events from the 9/11 attacks to the SARS outbreak having a devastating impact on what has traditionally been one of North America’s most important film fests. But as critics prepare to descend on the Ontario capitol for this year’s TIFF, it seems likely that the festival will bounce back strong from its trials. The fact is that critics have a great time in Toronto, and the festival is famously well-run, in contrast to the haphazard feel of some other major festivals. Add in the panning that Cannes received this year, and Toronto may be poised to regain its position in the upper echelon of festivals.

A US Federal Court has stayed implementation of the Federal Communication Commission’s new rules on media ownership. The FCC proposes to relax limits on media consolidation. “Given the magnitude of this matter, and the public’s interest in reaching the proper resolution, a stay is warranted pending thorough and efficient judicial review,” the three-page judicial order stated.

Increasingly, media seem to be portraying men in unflattering ways says Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau. “Negative images of men are prevalent in advertisements, news, television drama and films. Their effect? Blokes are starting to mobilise with rumblings of complaint.”