My Week In Film

It's been a little bit since I've had a chance to share My Week In Film. The majority of film time & energy for the past two weeks has been living, loving and covering the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

Even with festivalling like made, I did make it to the theatre to catch a couple of times for repeat viewings with Mamma Mia! and Amal. Mamma Mia! I've seen three times in the theatre this year. I rarely get a chance to do this but each time was with delightful woman company and I enjoyed it each and every time. Three times in the theatre is a personal record for me, the only other films I've seen that many times was Pitch Black, Some Kind of Wonderful and possibly The Abyss.

It was great to see Amal again, really quite engaging to watch a second time which I didn't even think of. The process of deciding the film was funny as Suzie and I had two possible options, and were on the subway judging how long it would take to get to each theatre, the approximate end time to fit out scheudules and then of course what film to see. The options were City of Ember or Amal. It was a hard call becuase I had seen Amal but not City of Ember so I didn't know what to suggest only having seen the one. It's odd - I see movies all the time and sometimes it's easy to make recommendations, but then if I do I feel like it's a personal responsibility to make sure that the other person will like the film, which isn't always clear. But this time it worked out, as we both enjoyed the film. The theatre was so hot though, it was quite the experiential moment because it felt like we were in India.



With celebrating Halloween I of course had to check out scary movies. The Halloween selection for a new film this year ended up being The Last Winter which is not a horror film. The cover and IMDb make it look out to be but it so isn't. It's really a message movie or you could stretch it to be speculative fiction. Because of the mixed messages, I wasn't happy about that one at all. Some interesting ideas but mostly I felt tricked - especially after hearing good things about it!

Last up for films was Videodrome which was totally weird, as expected. It's been on my list to see for a while, specifically my 101 Film I Can't Believe I Haven't Seen list. I have to say, what is it with David Cronenberg and visceral, animal like things with mechanical properties? One thing I will say is he is consistantly forward thinking in terms of where we will go with technology, how it becomes used and abused. I felt like this with eXistance as well.

Last up film endeavors was the 48 Hour Film Project: Toronto on the weekend which was a lot of fun. I was thrilled to be one of the judges for the competition. It was a great experience and there were some fantastic films in there. It's amazing what people did in just 48 hours. Congratulations to all the filmmakers!

Up this week: I'm hoping to catch some of the Canadian releases out there (Passchedaele, Heaven on Earth) and continue to plow through the remaining films on my 101 Film I Can't Believe I Haven't Seen (less than a month until the time is up!)

How was your week?