JDIFF 2014

vidor

The website seems to be regressing with each festival. Don't get why they can't get that 'right'. Tried searching for Vistors just now but it's not showing up for me, even though it's screening tomorrow. So, not much else appeals to me this weekend. And next week I'm only looking at We are the best!, Gun Crazy and At Berkeley. Bit

Memo from Turner

vidor wrote: »

The website seems to be regressing with each festival. Don't get why they can't get that 'right'. Tried searching for Vistors just now but it's not showing up for me, even though it's screening tomorrow. So, not much else appeals to me this weekend. And next week I'm only looking at We are the best!, Gun Crazy and At Berkeley. Bit

This might get it for you:

http://www.jdiff.com/index.php/festival-2014/movie/visitors

AnonoBoy

vidor wrote: »

The website seems to be regressing with each festival. Don't get why they can't get that 'right'.

The sh*te website is a running joke at this stage.

AnonoBoy

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Found Calvary to be something of a mess.

Not surprised by this.

McDonagh is nothing but a wannabe McDonagh.

vidor

Memo from Turner wrote: »

This might get it for you:

http://www.jdiff.com/index.php/festival-2014/movie/visitors

Oh I found it after a while, just not through the search function.

Memo from Turner

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Not surprised by this.

McDonagh is nothing but a wannabe McDonagh.

I think it will do quite badly. Even the festival audience, which had a lot of good-will, struggled to stay interested.

boardbaby101

Hello,
I am just wondering if anyone knows have the tickets to the Cult Club screening of Jaws been allocated yet? (Its on next tuesday, 18th)
Thanks!

AnonoBoy

Memo from Turner wrote: »

I think it will do quite badly. Even the festival audience, which had a lot of good-will, struggled to stay interested.

I don't think I'll bother seeing it in the cinema. The Guard was sufficiently unimpressive for me to not bother with this one until it turns up on TV and I'm bored.

On a side note - a friend of mine got sucked into a war of words with McDonagh's wife once for daring to suggest that despite its box office success a fair few people in Ireland thought The Guard was a bit pants.

:rolleyes:

e_e

Memo from Turner wrote: »

I think it will do quite badly. Even the festival audience, which had a lot of good-will, struggled to stay interested.

Really? Heard nothing but positive things on the way out from people.

I wasn't a fan of The Guard either.

Memo from Turner

e_e wrote: »

Really? Heard nothing but positive things on the way out from people.

I wasn't a fan of The Guard either.

That's interesting. I thought people's attention wandered quite severely in the second half. I may have been projecting. Reading back over my reaction, I sound like McDonagh had just held me down while Brendan Gleeson spilled pints on my head.

Memo from Turner

boardbaby101 wrote: »

Hello,
I am just wondering if anyone knows have the tickets to the Cult Club screening of Jaws been allocated yet? (Its on next tuesday, 18th)
Thanks!

I haven't heard anything yet.

Sad Professor

Re: Jaws I got an email during the week asking me to reply to be added to the guest list. Never relieved a response though.

boardbaby101

Sad Professor wrote: »

Re: Jaws I got an email during the week asking me to reply to be added to the guest list. Never relieved a response though.

Thanks a mil... Had my fingers and toes crossed for this one, they really put on a great show!

johnny_ultimate

Think the ones during the week were only the season ticket holder invites. I got one too (and promptly ignored it). Not sure if the general ones have gone around yet!

AnonoBoy

e_e wrote: »

Really? Heard nothing but positive things on the way out from people.

This mightn't be the case here but I find audiences can be kinder to 'local' films at festivals than they would be if they just went to see them at a normal screening. They can get swept up in the whole premier thing and the cast and director can be there leading people to say nice things even if on reflection they didn't enjoy it as much.

I'm guilty of this myself.

adrian522

I went to Big Sur last night.

I went because I'm a fan of the book and have recently visited the area.

I thought the film was a good representation of the book, capturing a dark period in the authors life.

I thought it was a good decision to use the real names of the characters unlike the book which used pseudonyms.

It was quite short but worked well, decent if unspectacular.

I didn't stay back for the Q&A with the director and lead actor that was going on afterwards.

e_e

Loved Grand Budapest Hotel, which surprised me because I've been mixed on Anderson's work since Royal Tenenbaums.

e_e

Saw 3 very worthwhile films today (Only Lovers Left Alive, Grand Budapest and Gabrielle) but it's a shame that that first screening was delayed to such an extent that I (and many others) couldn't stay for the John Hurt Q&A.

Could they not just skip the ads for the screenings that begin late? We had already endured a good 40 minutes of company logos before the film anyway so why delay it further? One person's exasperated applause when the film finally started really spoke a thousand words.

Squelchy

adrian522 wrote: »

I went to Big Sur last night.

I went because I'm a fan of the book and have recently visited the area.

I thought the film was a good representation of the book, capturing a dark period in the authors life.

I thought it was a good decision to use the real names of the characters unlike the book which used pseudonyms.

It was quite short but worked well, decent if unspectacular.

I didn't stay back for the Q&A with the director and lead actor that was going on afterwards.

:eek: I love the Polish Brothers - I had no idea Michael Polish was going to be at that or I would definitely have gone.
Did they promote that at all?

johnny_ultimate

Today's films:

Really enjoyed Only Lovers Left Alive, but it felt a tad on the lightweight side. Still, engaging and surprisingly funny for its duration, with the highlight Mia Wasikowska's visit and the pair of visits to the hospital. The vampire as addict angle has been done before, but visually Jarmusch makes it his own. Nice to see a film about the potential mundanity and casual hazards of immortality. Just lacking that extra punch.

Wrote more about Grand Budapest in the relevant thread, but I loved it pretty much unreservedly.

Half of a Yellow Sun - A pitifully dull, pointless melodrama that wastes a dramatically potent and historically fascinating setting with a dull domestic / family drama. A capable cast futilely struggle against an inane script that offers no intelligence, themes or anything else of interest. With the look of a failed BBC drama pilot, the film shuffles along until it mercifully yet haphazardly ends. I've had underwhelming bags of crisps that packed more of an emotional impact.

Miss Violence - the kind of delightful festival film where you can really feel the audience squirm :pac: A pitch black Greek tale that kicks off with an 11 year old girl committing suicide and just gets grimmer from there. A slow and creeping burner, but it keeps pushing this deconstruction of a seemingly normal family in darker, provocative directions: blackly comic to the point where it goes right to tragedy. Offers the same artful, clinical cynism as many other Greek wave efforts. You could sense the discomfort and displeasure in the audience, but it's likely to end up as one of the more off kilter and memorable films of the festival - for better or worse, depending on your perspective. I'll go with the former.

Major festival irritant so far: that Irish Film Board ad, which is several minutes longer than any ad running hundreds of times over the course of a fortnight should be. Especially when most of the other sponsor ads are brief and to the point, this one sticks out like a very sore thumb, especially when there's a delay starting and you're already stressing about making the next film :pac:

e_e

Why are we even shown an ad for the festival we're knowingly attending anyway? Boggles the mind.

Decuc500

Very disappointing to have to leave the John Hurt Q&A early after the wonderful Only Lovers Left Alive. A half hour delay to the start of the film isn't really acceptable when you have to make it to Cineworld to see the next movie.

I really enjoyed Mystery Road yesterday. A slow burning police procedural set in a remote Australian community, it built up to a fantastically exciting shoot out.

Stranger By The Lake tonight was interesting though slightly odd. I was expecting more Hitchcock/Claude Chabrol by the reviews. Shame three quarters of the cinema emptied out before the q&a. It amazes me that more people are not interested to hear the director of the movie they've just watched discuss it.

Memo from Turner

Lunchbox was excellent. It's a romance with quiet comedy overtones, believable characters and a great set-up. It takes place in Mumbai, where millions of office workers have their lunch delivered from home. The plot kicks in when one of the lunch boxes goes to the wrong person, and the sender and recipient begin to correspond.

It sounds like either a typical rom-com or a typical arthouse food film, but it's more original than either. Charming and funny.

Speaking of arthouse, Concrete City looked like the result of a sinister but brilliant CIA plot to make the perfect festival movie. It's a nihilistic black-and-white Finnish coming-of-age exploration of social breakdown in a desolate urban landscape of bent old women and gay-bashing, in other words, with scriptural overtones and a couple of dream sequences. Yet, for all that, I found it gripping and beautifully done. Anyone else see it?

johnny_ultimate

Tracks delayed by a whole hour Mightn't even work then. Luckily don't have anything else until four, but a pain nonetheless.

Another reason to mourn 35mm.

adrian522

Squelchy wrote: »

:eek: I love the Polish Brothers - I had no idea Michael Polish was going to be at that or I would definitely have gone.
Did they promote that at all?

No it was just announced before the movie started unless I misheard which is certainly possible.

Baze

Sad Professor wrote: »

Despite hating The Guard with a passion, I really wanted to like Calvary - and for a while it was working for me. But the cartoonish characters and all-over-the-shop tone eventually gets the best of it. I agree that Gillen is terrible but I thought Kelly Relly gave the film a much needed poignancy and tenderness. But like everyone in the film, she didn’t have a lot to work with script-wise. It’s extraordinary how good Gleeson is considering what a mess McDonagh makes of most of the other characters.

Aye, that about sums it up for me also.

Also, why in the name of God would anyone cast Dave McSavage as a bishop, when they know most of the audience would immediately associate him with his other satirical and extremely comedic portrayal of a bishop / priest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv0m1B-5p3E

johnny_ultimate

Today's trio (following the postponement of tracks - I could have used that time to sleep )

Beyond the Edge - is mountain climbing documentary a sub genre unto itself at this point? A 'gap in my schedule and everything else was sold out' sort of film, it's a watchable but pretty bog standard documentary projected in 3D for some reason. The tale of the first men to reach Everest's peak, it's a decent story but just not a particularly inspiring documentary. There's a beautiful shot when they finally reach that peak, though.

Hide Your Smiling Faces - somber, moody tale of troubled youth in rural America. Kind of standard American independent in some regards - heavy shades of Mean Creek and George Washington - but engaging and atmospheric enough on its own terms. Certainly directed with heart and empathy for its tong protagonists.

Ida - one of the festival's first gems, this is one of the most strikingly shot films I've seen in a long time, making magnificent use of black and white 4:3 through geometry and image height. The tale of a Polish nun and her estranged aunt is intriguing and intelligently crafted as well, a road trip portrayed with elegance and subtlety. A definite highlight so far.

e_e

Ida was terrific. Very stimulating interview afterwards too (language barriers aside).

Also saw Blue Ruin before it. A really accomplished revenge thriller with some good macabre black comedy thrown in too.

Baze

Seen A Long Way Down tonight and.. didn't really enjoy it all that much.

Story was very good, but it all felt a little contrived and forced to me and not for even a minute did I find myself lost in the film, as I would generally do with such films.

Tbh, I wouldn't have cared all that much if..

..the whole lot of them had jumped.

I would consider myself a soft touch for such movies also. Doesn't talk a lot to pull at my heart strings, but I found it really hard to give a crap about these people, for whatever reason.

Poorly directed for me, but as I say, the story seemed good so I might read the book now.

Decuc500

e_e wrote: »

Also saw Blue Ruin before it. A really accomplished revenge thriller with some good macabre black comedy thrown in too.

I also thought Blue Ruin was great. It reminded me of Shotgun Stories though more blackly comic and violent. A real highlight so far.