PARTITION

India 1940s. The British are leaving and violence erupts between Muslims and Sikhs, rather than Hindus. Another setting for Romeo and Juliet. You know there will be no happy ending. There never has been in a film touching these issues.

The story moves along fairly smoothly, although some scenes feel a bit jumpy in that they're short. It sounds almost like a Hollywood soundtrack. The plot is a bit simple too, that outside of the initial dispute, everything gets resolved almost a little too easily, and the end is almost physically unbelievable, without giving away what happens, you'll have to see for yourself.

Overall, it's an enjoyable film, if you'll pardon the lack of political correctness in choice of words. One forgets from time to time that Kristin Kreuk is not actually Indian, but the two leads are well played. The best scene in the film? At the train station where they're separated by the train tracks, a meaningful setting complimenting the title and one of the main themes.

THE PAINTED VEIL

This offering by Ed Norton and Naomi Books is based on a book, a book I have on the shelf, but I haven't read it. The trailer looked promising and the film didn't disappoint. The love story that happens after marriage is a different take from other current romantic drama releases and the mix of period and foreign land makes this a beautiful film to watch and you come to care about the characters. They don't start off that great, and unfortunately that's the only low point of the film, no matter how bad Walter and Kitty are, you don't hate them. You don't go feeling from one extreme to the other.
The chemistry does seem to be there as the two characters slowly begin to get reacquainted, asking us too to reponder about our own relationships with people, what new things we can learn about them, what didn't we know about them before and how our new knowledge and understanding can change us. And ultimately, it is understanding that we can forgive everything and that some things really don't matter so long as we believe in it.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

Yet another review that's taken me awhile to get to. "The Good Shepherd" is yet another film where the trailer makes the film seem better than it really is. Giving off tempos of a spy thriller like Matt Damon's previous films, "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy", "The Good Shepherd" is more a look at the life of one man who got recruited for intelligence and then chose to remain in the field of intelligence, where anything can be sacrificed including his family.
The film flips between the past and the present much like an informant is on both sides of the law, living in crime while reporting to the law. The past becomes lost in this tango, losing any audience attention with the characters. Nobody ends up really caring about the family, Angelina Jolie seems to have been overcasted, she's got a fairly small role, more of a pretty face this time around.
Perhaps it would have been a better film had it been two, one focusing on the past, one on the present, or perhaps just one timeline. The mystery Damon's character has to solve in the present storyline is who betrayed his operation, but you figure it out fairly easily once a few clues are revealed.
Bottom line: if you go in expecting an thriller flick, you'll be disappointed, otherwise, one might be interested in this film.

THE HOLIDAY

Take the holiday, and go off where you've never been before, realistically anyway. While some of the events aren't unquestionable, if you ignore it and don't ask questions, you'll be fairly entertained by this little comedy piece.
Kate Winslet and Jack Black have a great chemistry together, admit it, JB can play serious, you're always rooting for the two. Similarly to Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, you can't go really go too wrong, and her bonding with his family where the little girls steal the show.
Occasionally, we just need a movie to escape real life and just go into the with it, go with the flow, whatever life throws our way, and if it means swapping lives with a complete stranger halfway across the world, count me in, besides we all need to take a holiday now and again, and in a new place adds a little adventure we could all use.

FAST FOOD NATION

Martin Spurlock is still the king of fast food impact info in the movies. Not a documentary, but rather a poli-social tramedgy, yes, tramedy, Fast Food Nation takes you on a broad journey into the production of burger patties and the Mexican immigrant journey to the US. Tramedy is a tragedy, drama and comedy all in one. It is neither overly dominant by any of the three. There is comedy, we laugh because of the outrageousness of some of what people will do. It is drama because it is about the lives of people whose lives are connected to the industry. and ultimately, it is a tragedy because of what happens to them and the animals that end up in our food.
Based on the non-fiction book, Fast Food Nation, the film version has roles for a number of well known celebrities and actors, such as Avril Lavigne, Bruce Willis, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke and more. What is fresh about this cast is that none of them take over the film at all, in fact, you forget who most if not all of them are in real life, and that is a real treat. There are actors you will see on screen, and no matter what, you will never think of them as their character, but as the actor, which would be distracting.
If you are looking for a film to change your eating habits, go rent Supersize Me and watch it. Watch it again if you've already seen it, because that has a bigger impact on our lives, because it deals more directly with our own lives. We know cows get slaughtered, we know how dangerous the workplace can get, but like Greg Kinnar's character, we are quite likely to turn the turn way. It gets personal when we see someone puke from McDonald's. Nobody wants to puke.
2/4

THE PRESTIGE

Starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlet Johanssen.

Are you watching closely? How closely? If you watched closely, you'll have half the ending figured out by the 30 minute mark. And if you decided to leave then, you would've missed the other half. If you watched really closely, you probably figured out the whole thing and perhaps this wasn't the right movie for you. Magician films have been surfacing lately, with "The Illusionist", and who knows what's on the horizon. One thing's for sure, the best illusions/tricks are those that you figure out which still amaze you.
The prestige, for those for you who aren't familiar with magic tricks, is the third part to the trip, there's also the pledge and the turn, but as you learn in the film, it's the prestige that makes you applause because "nobody cares about the man who went into the box, only the one who came out".
This is a good film example of how obsessed and competitive two men can be, and obsession can be a dangerous game, so dangerous that there is no limit to the sacrifices they'll have to make. As to what sacrifices, you'll have to find out for yourself - if I tell you, it might ruin it.
Overall it was decently written, moreso when you begin to uncover all the layers to the story, some more blatently obvious than other parts, but nevertheless, good casting and acting, good directing. It's worth a watch if you have 2.5 hours to spare. I say 2.5 hours because of the 20 minutes of commercials and trailers before hand. On the bright side, I did see trailers for films I've decided might be worth seeing. If you're looking for a much simpler magician story, check out "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton instead.
2.5/4 or 3/5

BABEL

The first film seen and first film reviewed since VIFF, I happened to catch Babel on an advanced screening. Having heard good reviews from a friend who had seen it at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was definitely something on the to see list. First off, the debate goes over the pronunciation of the film, is it bah-bo or bay-bo? You decide. I'm not sure if the meaning I've interpreted is right, but for me, this was a film more about personal situations and how one's world can fall apart, and yet while other events are happening to other people in other countries, it almost seems non-existent. Time comes to a stand still as each character seeks to find something for themselves in a world where they are looking to connect with someone else. Babel is interwoven between three stories on three different continents, however they are all linked in too each other. Amelia, a Mexican nanny is caring for children whose parents are in Morocco, the victims of a gunshot in which the gun originally belonged to a Japanese girl's father. While an interesting idea to tie them all together, one is better off watching "Three Needles" if you're looking for a real reason why all the stories are linked. As you're watching one story, you almost forget about the existence of what else is going on, but perhaps this is what the filmmaker was going for, after all, we hear about events happening on around the world on the news, but when it's not on the news, its status dwindles almost to nonexistence until it is brought to our attention again.
The story of Amelia is the one most interesting, her decision to take the children across the American-Mexican border with her so that she can attend her son's wedding is one that will affect the rest of her life forever. Her joy and later plight is a story not too often told. Chieko, a deaf-mute girl in Japan is out to find someone or rather something - attention that decipated after the suicide of her mother. The most intuitive and internal storyline, the use of sign language and sound design that involved brought a deeper level of understanding into the life of a type of character otherwise unknown. And then of course, there's Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in Morrocco. Not much happens with them except for coming to an acceptance that one of their child's death was not their fault, and then the happy ending where she's released from the hospital. A different role for Brad, and a different look too, think Tom Cruise in Collateral.
At a running time of about 2.5 hours, it's definitely a tad long, and could have served as 2 or 3 individual films, but sit and ponder about your own life, what you're thinking about, what you want, and what could possibly happen, it is when you least expect it that your own world will come crashing down.
2/4

VIFF closing

While VIFF ended almost two weeks ago, time has just been taken up by other things, work, other films etc. I'm not sure if I'll be able to ever really go back and catch up on the rest of my film reviews, seeing as how my last posting was on the 7th and there was still a week left. Instead, listed below are the films and saw and the order in which I liked or didn't like them, starting with favorite and ending with least...if one of them does come back out I'll be sure to repost a review for that then, but for now...here's my wrap up for VIFF 2006.

Milarepa, A New Day in Old Sana'a, Expiration Date, No Mercy For the Rude, Volver, Little Children, Away From Her, Longing, Un Dimanche a Kigali, Run Robot Run, Don't Tell, The Fountain, White Planet, Change of Address, The Valet, The Page Turner, The King and The Clown, The Host, My Scary Girl, The Post Modern Life of My Aunt, Color Me Kubrick, Antonio Vivaldi, Red Road, Candy, EXIT the Right To Die, Renaissance, The Root of All Evil?, Rain In a Dry Land, Pervert's Guide to Cinema, Comeback Season, Mount Pleasant, Love For Share, The Riddle, Wide Awake, The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros, Big Bang Love Juvenile A, Blessed by Fire, Cheech, Offside, Elementary Particles, Sound of the Soul, When the Road Bends, A Soap, So Much So Fast, Jonestown: The Rise and Fall of the People's Temple, Close To Home, Letter of Fire, Men at Work, Hana, Buddha's Lost Children, Beauty in Trouble, 1st Bite, Requiem, The Trials of Darryl Hunt, Shadows Choose Their Horrors, Obaba, Smell of Paradise, Acts of Imagination, Dans Paris, Son of Man, The Lost Hum, Loop, Opera Jawa, Unrequited Love, Fantasma, Lights in the Dusk, Climates, Withered in a Blooming Season, I Don't Want To Sleep Alone.

Of course there are films I would've liked to see if I could have slotted them in, and then again, there are also those above, that I wish I hadn't seen, been disappointed, or should have left and didn't.