Once again, I hauled my butt out of bed to see a Chinese movie called Chicken Poets at 8:45am (see review below). [Aside: shout-out to Aaron of Einsiders for reminding me to see a chinese movie at the TIFF. Thanks.] This was my last movie of the TIFF and I am a little melancholy.

The latest buzz is around P.T. Anderson's Punch Drunk Love starring an oddly-matched Adam Sandler and Emily Watson. A good film buff friend of mine, Kent Eliuk, went to see it and had the following words e-mailed to me about Punch Drunk Love:

"Don't let anyone's words ruin it for you if you plan to go..I liked it alot, except I thought the ending was a bit of a simplistic cop-out, since the rest wasn't...Emily Watson's breasts were very perky..Colour and sound were very powerful, thoughtful and purposeful, as well as some very well composed pans and clever frame composition...Like Magnolia, it was very fascinated with the BRUTAL, in terms of both beauty and horror..a lot to do with the bare nature of human interaction and psychological perceptions of one's self and those affecting..."

Chicken Poets is the first feature film by Meng Jinghui, who is already an established theatre director (his claim-to-fame being his innovative stage productions). The movie is about a frustrated and unsuccessful poet, Yun Fei (Chen Jianbin) who has left Shanghai and returns to a small town outside of Beijing. He is disgusted with the current state of people and things around him -the superficiality, the dishonesty, the capitalism. Internal battles between being a success and being true to the life of a poet cause him to make unusual decisions.

The film is a mélange of bold brilliant elements to cliché melodrama -it really does run the full range (unfortunately, like a lot of Chinese movies). Oh, and everyone's got an inner conflict: Yun Fei's integrity as an artist, his claustrophobia, his love-interest's failure at painting, or his best friend/ex poet's trendy lifestyle. Jinghui is obviously talented in creating crafty backgrounds and scenarios, while basic things, such as the script and characters, are a little lacking. Most of the time, I loved the quirky 'bits' (and there is a lot of them) that are thrown in for interest: the identical 'pairs' of people, the insecure groom trying to recite poetry, the repeated image of a tomato hitting Yun Fe's head in slow motion. At other times, they were unecessary, irrelevant, and seemed only to display all of Jinghui's obvious creative talents. The few scenes of more restraint had more credibility and depth -creditted also to actor Jianbin. In particular, the bridge scene where a suspicious peddler tries to sell Yun Fei a CD on 'How to be a Poet': "The devil usually asks for your soul, but I'm just asking for ten yen. Do you want to buy a CD?"

Chicken Poets is Jinghui's decent albeit overly-eager first film. However, he is an optimistic representation of contemporary film in China and we should look forward to more from him.

Melanie Griffith, still cooler than Banderas (sketch by Fung Lee)

So I thought that to end the TIFF with a bang: I would try to get a photo or a sketch of Antonio Banderas or Rebecca Something-Stamos arriving on the red carpet for the Brian de Palma's Femme Fatale. I went to the doors of Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto's theatre district where all the Gala Screenings have been held. I was maybe 45 minutes ahead of showtime -jeeps, there were tons of people and photographers galore (see photo here). I squeezed myself quite literally close to the doors where the stars would eventually enter. I managed to get a glimpse of Brian de Palma past the tall shoulders of the men in front of me (see photo at top of page). Then…screaming women: Antonio was here -with Melanie (contrary to popular belief). "He's too short" says one frustrated woman who couldn't even see the tip of the uppermost hair on Antonio's head. I always thought that Melanie Griffith was cooler than Mr. Banderas. I caught a split second glimpse of Melanie and she was stunning. Her hair was fashionably highlighted and tousled, wearing an elegant fitted red dress that matched her red lips. Unfortunately, I did not get a photo, so you will have to settle for my superimposed depiction. Evidently, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and hubby John Stamos arrived -so close (less than 12' away) and yet so far (a wall of people). Needless to say, I could not see them at all. How anticlimactic.

In summary, my first experience of the TIFF was incredible. The selection of movies was excellent and my only regret was that I didn't research more into the smaller Canadian movies: which are getting better albeit forever underrated (save for Cronenberg's Spider).

Toronto was completely engrossed in the celebrity fever (as we are now part of 'North Hollywood') and the front pages of most local papers featured the new celeb that came into the city: Julianne Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sean and Robin Wright Penn, Sophia Loren, Dustin Hoffman. We were also engrossed in the gossip. Evidently I had missed Roger Ebert's hissy-fit from last Saturday, as he was denied a seat in the hands-down film of the festival, Far from Heaven. (Note: even though we press have special press passes, it's still first-come first serve). Ebert was absolutely infuriated that HE of very important status, representing HIS paper would not get in -and told everyone so, including the other press people in line and the poor TIFF volunteers. Sorry, Roger -that kind of nonsense doesn't go over well in Toronto, or Canada for that matter. (The local press completely heckled him -as am I).

Toronto was a fantastic forum for international cinema. We don't only present views from around the world, we are the people from around the world.

PART 1: (intro, review of Good Thief, star spotting)
PART 2: (reviews of Friday, Auto Focus, Open Hearts)
PART 3: (reviews of 8 femmes/8 Women, Spider)
PART 4: (Leonard & I, reviews of Phone Booth, Max)

Fung Lee