Let’s not overstate the importance of finale episodes to television series that last several years. There is so much to consider when measuring the value of a show, such a wide scope of storylines and characters and themes, that placing too much stock in a single episode loses sight of the grander scheme at play. There are many things endings can do for stories: they can wrap things up, they can deliver a big surprise and shock us, they can tie everything together, they can leave us hanging, and much more. Applying any set of rules to finales makes it virtually impossible to appreciate both the beautiful cut to black ending of The Sopranos while also the sublime conclusiveness of Six Feet Under.
The paradox of the various departments of film production, whether it’s design, music, photography or others, is that when they’re executed with the highest level of skill they stand out, but they’re not really meant to. Most agree that a movie’s score, for instance, is operating at its best when it is affecting the audience’s response to and understanding of a particular scene or moment in a film but on a completely unconscious level. It’s only afterward, perhaps on repeat viewings, that we notice how beautifully composed the music was throughout, and in particular segments of the movie. If it stands out too much, it can be overbearing, and overly noticeable, and actually distract from the story that we’re supposed to be engaging in.
It may seem as though it would be hard to go wrong with a heist movie. The genre gives off the impression that it pretty much takes care of itself, with the production of the movie being as straightforward and easy to pull off as the heist it’s depicting on the screen. With heightened expectations for a near-guarantee fun time at the movies comes heightened pressure for a movie to deliver on the scale as many of the most beloved films of all time. So although The Art of the Steal may not live up to the likes of caper classics such as Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, Inception, or Guy Ritchie-type movies if that’s your thing, it makes up for some of its more tired clichés with some new twists and capable storytelling that warrants praise.
A film like Night Moves inevitably attracts various attempts by critics to impose some sort of genre classification on it. The problem is that like director Kelly Reichardt’s previous work, Meek’s Cutoff, the movie is so much more interested in its characters than its generic subversions that discussions of genre reduce the material to a level well beneath where it deserves to be discussed. Night Moves can and is being labeled a thriller, a heist movie, a political commentary, and to an extent it is these things, but above all it’s an examination of individuals who seek to carry out enormous levels of destruction and the psychological effects these sorts of actions may render within their perpetrators.
The most unexpected thing about The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him and Her that may surprise audiences once it actually gets completed and released is how strangely conventional it seems while watching it. To some, this will no doubt prove disappointing: those expecting some monumental shakeup of cinematic expression that announces itself as a game changer should go watch Gravity or something. Those dreading the prospect of a three-hour cerebral slog of a movie are going to be pleased by how personal, emotional, entertaining and generally engaging the film is, despite its ambitious premise.
The ugly truth about a long film festival like TIFF is that it can be tiring, and after over a week of seeing several movies per day, you’re not nearly as excited to see the next one as you were during that electric first weekend of the festival. You see this with a lot of critics’ reviews of movies from the fest; there’s a lot of “I’ll have to see it again to truly appreciate it” when they’re feeling vaguely positive, and when they’re less so, many will be openly resentful to a film for the fact that they kept them from two more hours of sleep they could have had. This is a necessary contextual acknowledgement to make about reviews that come out of the back nine of the festival, but also to add emphasis to how good Felony is.
An emerging trend we may be seeing in American independent film right now—a possible trend of which Joe would be the latest example—is the increasingly popular exploration of America’s rural south as a setting for interesting stories and unique, complex characters. Audiences surely must be getting at least a little bit bored with the number of movie narratives being set in Los Angeles or New York; there seems to be an interest in movies and television shows that are unabashedly set in locations unfamiliar to most viewers. What’s more, tales of the south that many outsiders would treat with condescending concern or outright contempt are instead being told by those who hail from the types of towns they depict on screen, resulting in films that don’t shy away from the complicated socio-economic conditions of these places while avoiding any sort of “poor them” mentality.
There may not be another film playing at TIFF this year that has a more delicious meta-narrative angle than Under the Skin. Director Jonathan Glazer’s first feature film in almost ten years has attracted a reasonably large amount of attention for that very fact: that it marks the end of a substantial absence by an admired and unique filmmaker. But it also has attracted attention for the fact that it stars Scarlett Johansson, one of the most admired figures in the industry for let’s just say her physical assets, as well as the fact that she is prominently featured in the nude in this movie.
Watching and listening to former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld speak at length—close to two hours, in fact—about his life and career in politics is a bit of a dizzying ordeal. Even with Errol Morris directing, The Unknown Known is frustrating at times, stupefying at others. But rather than being a weakness or a reason to dismiss the film as a slog through circular reasoning and overanalyzing minute details of history, the movie indeed seems to capture qualities inherent to Mr. Rumsfeld, working in a way that is emblematic of the great documentarian’s preference to create portraits rather than incisive and conclusion probes of public figures. That is to say, the audience is ultimately left to judge the exploits and demeanor of the former Secretary, rather than being blatantly instructed on what to think of him.
