Keeping the press and industry folks waiting in a sweltering theatre for more than an hour is not one’s idea of a good time here at TIFF, but that’s exactly what happened this morning when a 9 AM screening of The Descendants was delayed for technical reasons. Not a great start to the morning and not the ideal way to start a film. Luckily, it was all worth it, as The Descendants (****) is one of the year’s very best films and destined to be a major player come Oscar time.
Alexander Payne once again tackles very real human issues with grace and realism, creating a film that seems to reach and stroke the soul with its insight. Matt King (George Clooney) is a lawyer struggling with a land decision that will make his family unspeakably wealthy, while something terrible has happened in his family. His wife is in a coma, not expected to live, and his daughters are struggling with this reality. When his eldest daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) speaks to him of why she is so angry at her mother, it will rock his life; his world seems to slip from beneath from his feet as everything he believed in has been torn apart. Read more on John’s TIFF Diary: Day Three…
Although far more flawed than one might have hoped for, ‘One Day’ ultimately does do a number of things right, creating a not unenjoyable experience. I suppose it’s proper to label it a mixed bag of sorts, though I guess it’ll depend on who you ask. For me, I found solid direction from Lone Scherfig and great chemistry between leads Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess enough to mostly overcome the screenplay that doesn’t do enough with an iffy premise to begin with (though it worked far better in the novel of the same name, but more on that in a bit). There’s charm in this romantic drama, and a bit of humor too, but it never fully meshes into a completely successful film. It’s not the Oscar contender some had hoped for, but it’s far from a bad movie. It’s just a few too many issues.
It’s one thing to watch a bad movie. It’s quite another to watch a bad movie that knows it’s a bad movie. Those can sometimes be enjoyable. But when you have a complete cinematic failure like ‘Shark Night’, a film that knows its bad but commits the unforgivable crime of not being any fun, you end up with one of the very worst films of the year. This is literally a shark attack thriller with no teeth (not to mention no thrills or anything to actually smile about). It’s poorly acted, cheesy, boring, and full of more plot holes than you can possibly imagine. It’s PG-13 rated exploitation, which pretty much takes away the entire point of the genre. Director David R. Ellis sucks all the fun out of things, which is something he normally doesn’t do. It doesn’t help that he’s been given perhaps the worst script of the year, but still…jeez. This flick is so many kinds of terrible it’s actually hard to believe. It’s easily going to be seen again on my Bottom 10 of 2011 list later on in the year. Yes, it’s that bad.
I hope you are ready for this seasons TV lineup. There are over 100 TV shows airing this year; some new and some returning. To help you keep track of this season TV shows, I have compiled a list of shows that will be airing.
These are the shows airing Sunday Nights:
The last time Michael Haneke brought a film to Cannes he walked away with the Palme d’Or for his startling film The White Ribbon. He returns to the Croisette this year with his new film Amour and the trailer for that film has just been released is is located after the jump. Synopsis: Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music […]
