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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: