Authors — Allan Tong
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Ginger & Rosa Director Sally Potter on Taking Chances
Sally Potter spoke to a sold-out, mostly female audience on a springlike afternoon in Toronto. She was the latest world-renowned director to sit in the interview at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, and she discussed with journalist Johanna Schneller her experiences and views on filmmaking while clips of her films burst on the screen including her latest, Ginger & Rosa. The session started with a moment from her little-seen 1979 short, Thriller. It’s an experimental short consisting of grainy black-and-white photos married to the opera La Boheme and Bernard Hermann’s theme from Psycho. “The decisions I made were about trying to bring […]
by Allan Tong on Mar 12, 2013 -
“Don’t Go Through The System”: John Singleton Talks in Toronto
John Singleton was raised on silent movies. The 45-year-old director of Boyz in the Hood and the Shaft remake grew up next to the Century Drive-In in Inglewood, California. As a boy, he’d literally peek out his window and watch his heroes Bruce Lee and Billy Jack‘s Tom Laughlin battle on-screen without sound. “The first breast I saw was Pam Grier’s,” Singleton confessed to a rapt audience at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox Tuesday night, hosted by director Clement Virgo as part of the city’s Black History Month celebrations. “Every time I see Pam Grier I tell her, ‘You made me want […]
by Allan Tong on Feb 14, 2013 -
The Sopranos’ David Chase Makes Film Debut with Not Fade Away
David Chase loves the Stones. Anyone who watched his hit series, The Sopranos, and heard the soundtrack will know. Nor will they be be surprised that his feature film debut, Not Fade Away, is about a bunch of suburban kids from New Jersey who pick up guitars and grow their hair after they see The Rolling Stones on TV in 1964. “It’s not autobiographical,” Chase insisted at a recent preview in Toronto. “The events didn’t play out as they happened in this movie.” In fact, both Chase and his protagonist Douglas (John Magaro) came of age in suburban New Jersey […]
by Allan Tong on Dec 21, 2012 -
Django Unchained Review
We expect a lot from Quentin Tarantino. A generation ago, we lined up in the cold and fought for tickets to behold the next Kubrick opus or the latest Star Wars episode. Today we do it for QT. This time, he unleashes Django Unchained. It’s an historical shoot-em-up drama set in the antebellum era of the American South. Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave-turned-bounty hunter who sets out to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington) from a sadistic plantation owner (Leonard DiCaprio). At his side is his mentor, a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz who brilliantly played […]
by Allan Tong on Dec 21, 2012 -
Going 360 with Zombies on Hallowe’en
We file past a solemn priest down the stairs into the church basement. My friend and I excited.“There are the infected. There are the survivors. Then there is you.” That’s what the e-mail boasted when it arrived 30 hours earlier, promising a mix of live theatre and film called a 360 Screening. We were part of a sold-out audience of 200 that paid $60 apiece to see a film without knowing the title until the last minute. This was the third 360 Screening in Toronto and its first Hallowe’en edition. Tonight it was taking place in the old Berkeley Church […]
by Allan Tong on Oct 30, 2012 -
Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars Battles Record Companies at TIFF’s Artifact
Rock “documentaries” are self-serving films that fawn over their subjects so their record companies can move more product. The typical rock doc strings together concert highlights with studio clips and innocuous musician quotes that add up to a fun, but facile movie. The L.A. band 30 Seconds To Mars turns this formula upside-down in Artifact, which enjoyed its world premiere at TIFF on Friday. Actor/musician Jared Leto’s band wants to leave their record label, EMI, when multimillionaire British tycoon Guy Hands devours the ailing company and sues 30 Seconds To Mars for $30 million. Artifact tells their battle as they struggle to […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 17, 2012 -
Ruba Nadda and Alexander Siddig Return to Tiff with Inescapable
Ruba Nadda, whose Cairo Time captured Best Canadian Feature in 2009, returns to TIFF with Inescapable. Both star leading man Alexander Siddig and are set in the Middle East. However, Inescapable is anything but a charming romance, but rather a fast-paced political thriller set in the most dangerous country in the world, Syria. When he learns that his daughter has gone missing in Syria, Adib (Siddig) leaves his comfy business in Toronto to track her down in Syria. Turns out that the Syrian government has abducted Adib’s journalist daughter and that a shady Canadian diplomat (Joshua Jackson) knows more about it […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 14, 2012 -
Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon’s The Central Park Five at TIFF
It was horrific. One April night in 1989, a woman was jogging through New York’s Central Park when she was beaten and savagely raped. She lost 75% of her bodily fluids, lay in a coma for days and her face was pulverized so badly that friends identified her by a ring on her finger. Police picked up five black and Latino teenagers, secured confessions and launched one of the ugliest trials in New York’s history. Newspaper pundits and Donald Trump called for the death penalty. Even the African-American community turned their backs on the teens. After all, they were savages. […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 14, 2012 -
DEEPA MEHTA BRINGS SALMAN RUSHDIE’S “MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN” TO THE BIG SCREEN
Deepa Mehta made a deal with Salman Rushdie about adapting his novel Midnight’s Children: “Salman, let’s spend two weeks separately. You write down what you think is the narrative arc of the film in point-form from opening to the end, and I’ll do the same. I’ll go back to Toronto and you stay in New York. We’ll come back in two weeks and talk about it further.” Rushdie was a tough sell. Mehta, the Canadian director of acclaimed Indian-themed films Water, Earth and Fire, had to convince him that only he could translate his Booker Prize-winning novel to the screen. […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 12, 2012 -
“WEST OF MEMPHIS” WITH DEPP IN TORONTO
West of Memphis is a testament to the power of documentary–and celebrity–to effect social change. If that sounds grandiose then consider that Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s Paradise Lost documentaries inspired Johnny Depp (pictured at the Toronto International Film Festival press conference) to campaign for the release of three convicted child murderers. Rock stars Eddie Vedder and Henry Rollins performed benefit concerts and produced a CD to raise awareness and funds for them. Peter Jackson, known for directing fantasy blockbusters like Lord of The Rings and King Kong, financed a new investigation. In 1993, three teenage boys were sentenced to death for […]
by Allan Tong on Sep 8, 2012
