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The Raid was awesome, I loved it. It’s an incredibly well-choreographed, executed and shot film that hardly stops to breathe once the action starts. The story is simple and doesn’t waste too much time setting up the meat of the film, and doesn’t fall prey to a lot of the melodrama that a lot of Asian films suffer from. Also, it’s pretty exciting to see such a bold and well-made film essentially burst out of Indonesia, a country that is not especially well-known for its films, not to mention action films.

I did quite enjoy 2009′s Merantau and it’s pretty cool to see such a good working and personal relationship between director Gareth Edwards and his star, Iko Uwais. They clearly understand and trust each other and I’m really excited to see what the come up with next.

Check out the Q&A videos I took (below) to get some insight from Edwards, Uwais and co-star Joe Taslim, including a Silat demo from Iku Uwais!

I didn’t love Skoonheid (Beauty) but I’m still glad I saw it.

What I didn’t like: I feel like I’ve seen this type of character many times before. There were aspects of it that I thought were different but overall I didn’t think I was seeing anything really new. Maybe if I were in South Africa, I’d feel differently – I’m not sure what the culture is like there. Also, the director mentioned some things that he put in there to show more about the character’s OCD, and I was like, he has OCD? I’m supposed to figure out that he’s OCD because he keeps his office door open?… I didn’t interpret his obsession with Christian as him being OCD – I thought it was just a sexual obsession, or conquest, or something taboo that he had to have. Now that I think of it, though, if it was related to him being OCD then that kind of takes away from the darkness of it, since it’s so easily explained.

What I liked: It was really well shot and acted and it was certainly thoughtful. The pivotal scene was difficult but still very watchable in that “really well done” kind of way. I absolutely loved the opening shot, which a nice long take and totally sets the obsessive tone that we follow along with for the duration of the film. The tension was thick and even though it was quite slow at times, I never knew what Francois was going to do next and if/when he was going to snap.

Urbanized, Gary Hustwit’s latest in his trilogy of design films, had its world premiere yesterday afternoon at Ryerson Theatre. I haven’t seen Objectified yet but I thoroughly enjoyed Helvetica, which I found to be ridiculously interesting and shot much to well for a documentary about a font. Fans of Hustwit’s earlier work, as well as anybody interested in urban planning and city design, should definitely make it out to see this film. Acutally, anybody who’s ever had any kind of thought about anything related to one’s relationship to one’s city should see this. I thought it was pretty incredible, and others in the theatre did, too, as they cried, laughed, cheered and clapped.

Here is the film’s Q&A, in two parts:

Gus Van Sant’s latest, Restless, was written by newcomer Jason Lew and stars Mia Wasikowska and Henry Hopper. It’s a sweet and sad little film and this duo of fresh new screenwriter/seasoned master director, combined with the youthful chemistry between up-and-coming Mia and first-time actor Henry really makes it magical.

Cinematographer Harris Savides (who has worked previously with Van Sant on Milk, Elephant, Last Days, Gerry and Finding Forrester and who did Fincher’s Zodiac, Madonna’s “Rain” video, Greenberg, Birth and Margot at the Wedding, among much more – in other words, he’s brilliant and has worked with some amazing directors) keeps things nice and tight in this film, mainly using close or medium shots of the actors. This, combined with an incredibly warm colour palette, make watching this film a pretty intimate experience. The takes are very relaxed – never too short, and often a bit longer than you realize until it cuts – and the pacing is just spot-on.

I liked Restless a lot. It doesn’t have a lot of surprises but that allows you to really invest yourself and experience the discovery of how things end up the way they do. There’s a lot of dialogue, but a lot of silence, too. (In the Q&A video 3of 4 that I took of the Q&A, we learn that Gus has been experimenting with a technique that Terrence Malick uses, where he shoots versions of scenes with the actors doing everything with no dialogue, and that how not only did he incorporate a bunch of shots from those takes into the film, there is also a full cut of the film done without any speaking. That would be really interesting to see!) It’s quite funny in some parts, too, which isn’t something I’m really used to in a Gus Van Sant film. And I don’t think I’m even going to say about the Japanese kamikaze imaginary friend/ghost.

Hopper did a great job in his film debut but I can’t help thinking that if Gus had directed this twenty years ago, we’d be seeing River Phoenix up there, and he’d blow us away. That being said, I really enjoyed Hopper’s performance (as well as his hair) and Mia is always so striking and a wonder to watch.

Van Sant seems to have taken a liking to the music of Sufjan Stevens, just as he clearly did with Elliott Smith (I had to buy “Wolverine” as soon as I got home). I would be very, very happy to see Sufjan, one of my favourite musical artists, do some original work for one of my favourite film directors, too! (Remember the awkward awesomeness of this?)

Below are my videos of the Q&A, in four parts:

I started The Man from Nowhere (2010, written and directed by Jeong-beom Lee) like I start almost every other Asian action-drama-thriller: I was prepared to be a bit bored at first and then be entertained by some amazingly choreographed action and moments of slapstick/dark humour. This movie did indeed follow this pattern, but ultimately didn’t deliver. Why not? One word: tone.

Where the main flaw in tone reveals itself, and rather quickly, is in one of the main cop characters, who was meant to be the comic relief. He was stupid, clumsy, and irritating. I found him to be much more offensive than the over-the-top cuteness of the little girl, So-Mi (Sae-ron Kim) and will go so far as to say that his character single-handedly ruined the film’s tone and made it seem rather amateurish and unfocused. I wanted to be sucked into a dark story with mysterious characters but that was impossible with this buffoon bumping into stuff all the time and constantly saying stupid things.

The crime bosses were pretty ridiculous, too. They yelled unconvincingly and were laughably un-frightening (but with weapons, which are pretty frightening). They were presented like caricatures and made me roll my eyes.

Nowhere’s look is pretty great, though (in addition to Won Bin, pictured above): there is some creative photography and great use of darkness. There is some nice, stylized violence and great shots, notably the one where the man from nowhere himself, Tae-Sik Cha (Won Bin) is being chased and jumps through the window with the camera following him, kind of like the building-jump in The Bourne Ultimatum, but not as good as that amazing one-shot chase scene with the guy jumping off the ledge in The Secret in Their Eyes (there’s a pretty cool making-of video of that scene here). Anyway, I digress. Some of the other action sequences are pretty memorable, too, but I wish Lee had more confidence in his story and characters to not feel the need to inject all of the unnecessary comedic- and cutesy-relief.

This film had something going for it! The premise, although not inherently original, had promise. The lead had experienced some tragedy and is a legitimately a mysterious anti-hero. The drug and organ-trafficking stuff was pretty harrowing, All-in-all, though, this is ultimately a forgettable film with a few memorable moments.

Julia’s Eyes (2010; directed by Guillem Morales; written by Guillem Morales & Oriol Paulo) is a pretty good suspense movie. I was expecting something more psychological thriller/horror, but it didn’t really present me with anything that was really scary or psychologically disturbing like the trailers suggested.

I enjoyed it, though. There were a few incredibly intense scenes that were filmed in a way to make you feel like you were looking through, er, Julia’s eyes. Some of the techniques I’ve seen before but that didn’t take away from how well they worked.

This film is one of the many that Guillermo del Toro has his producer-hands in and it was a nice treat to have him there to introduce it, along with director Morales and star Belén Rueda.

I watched Eat Pray Love (directed by Ryan Murphy; written by Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt; based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert) with Lora because I knew she would be the only one that would watch it with me. It was terrible, and I’m glad Lora thought so too. It’s full of sentimental drivel, non-compelling characters and the filmmaker is ridiculously oblivious to how empty this high-brow pretentious tale is.

The only reason I wanted to watch this is because James Franco is in it. (I’m going to assume that this was a simply a paycheck for him.) When he first appeared onscreen, I got goosebumps.

I just spent two wonderful evenings at Toronto’s beautiful Massey Hall, Tuesday, October 12 for Belle and Sebastian and the next night, October 13 for Sufjan Stevens.

Belle and Sebastian are touring in support of their new album, “Belle and Sebastian Write About Love”. I’d never seen them before and was becoming more and more excited in the weeks leading up to it. I made playlists on my iPhone of sets from setlist.fm and listened to them obsessively. Of course the set they played on Tuesday night was pretty different from what I’d been listening to, but that’s not such a big deal because they were incredible.

The crowd was quite a mix of ages, which isn’t a surprise, and it didn’t take long for people to rush to the stage and dance. (I, naturally, was not one of those people.) There was a collective “Awww” from the crowd when a little girl got up on stage and joined the handful that were brought up to dance to “The Boy With The Arab Strap”.

I love the earnest, sweet and clever tone of their songs. I usually feel like I’m hearing something fresh when I listen to them (yes, I know they’re considered “retro”). At one point I leaned over to my friend and said, “They’re so cool” and he just laughed because, well, Belle and Sebastian are pretty awesome.

Here’s a video I took of the band playing their final encore song, “Judy and the Dream of Horses”. Actually, he started into “This Is Just A Modern Rock Song” and then had to stop because he couldn’t remember the rest!

While Belle and Sebastian own the stage with confidence, experience and an essentially flawless performance, Sufjan Stevens‘ charm is the complete opposite: his presence is chaotic, nervous and unpredictable. Opening the set with a 10+ minute version of “All Delighted People” definitely set the tone of the evening: It starts off with a capella vocals and the next thing you know, almost out of nowhere, it’s a huge eruption of sound from the horn section, guitars, bass, keyboards, multiple vocalists, and stereo drums (one drummer on each side of the stage.) It was a pretty insane stage setup and I’m surprised that they weren’t tripping over cables all night.

Sufjan’s latest record, The Age Of Adz, features songs and song-cycles that, on first listen, may seem like a huge departure from the relative sweetness that we’ve gotten used to. In reality, however, “Adz” is a pretty logical musical and conceptual progression from his previous work. It appears that Sufjan kind of “found himself” in the years since “Illinois”, especially after reading of how he was questioning his feelings towards continuing to share his songs with the public (i.e., release albums and tour).

Indeed, Sufjan did a fair bit of explaining (justifying?) in between songs. He talked about things that influenced/inspired his creative direction (mainly the work of Royal Robertson) and alluded to a difficult period in his life to which writing and recording this album was therapeutic. My point is that it seemed like he felt a genuine need to explain himself and his “weird music”. While I do find his new material challenging, riveting and beautiful, it was still cool to hear him kind of justify it.

The entire show was pretty much a spectacle. It was a feast for not only the ears, but the eyes as well, as the instrument swapping, choreographed dancing and projections made for a lot of things to watch. Sufjan himself isn’t too bad to look at either now, is he?

The standout for me was the 25-minute “song cycle about love”, “Impossible Soul”. This song was performed in its entirety and I can’t really describe how amazingly satisfying it was to experience it.

The only thing that was likely disappointing to some is that there wasn’t more older material covered. Aside from the final three songs (“Chicago”, “Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois” and “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”), the entire set was new stuff. I wouldn’t have minded hearing some earlier stuff but not if it meant sacrificing any of what he did perform.

Here’s a couple of videos I took from my first-row seat. The first is “Heirloom” from the All Delighted People EP; the second is “Too Much” from The Age Of Adz.

This is a video I took about a year ago, on October 1, 2009. Sufjan was doing a mini-tour and John and I were able to get tickets to his stop in Toronto’s at Lee’s Palace (I should specify that I was fast asleep in my home while John got the tickets for us – thanks!). Sufjan played a few songs that ended up appearing on his recent release, “The Age Of Adz“, and the one in the video below, “Impossible Soul” was definitely a stand-out; a 25-minute studio version ends his new album.