Fan Fare

Mai tais? This isn’t an Eastwood film shoot

Some films are made on a $6 million budget, others with $60 million. It’s the difference between long hours on set and sipping mai tais on the patio. Just ask “The Bang Bang Club” director, Steven Silver.

“The Bang Bang Club,” was 10 years in the making, shot last year over the course of 30 days and produced on a budget of 5 million euros. It’s still waiting to be picked up by a U.S. distributor.

When casting, Director Steven Silver told Reuters during the Toronto film festival that he had turned down other more high profile actors for the roles. He was looking for people who were able to immerse themselves into the culture, adding: “I needed actors who were prepared to deal with the difficulties and hardships of a low budget independent film.”

The film was shot in South Africa around the same time as Clint Eastwood’s ” Invictus”, which reportedly had a  budget of about $60 million.

Toronto festival stays grounded with pancakes and bacon

Forget about best actor awards or controversies about favoritism, the Toronto Film Festival closing ceremony has a refreshingly ego-free feel to it. Unlike the glitzy, red carpet theater affairs of the Cannes or Venice film festivals, TIFF is non-competitive, so the stars usually just go home after their film as screened, as opposed to waiting around for awards to be handed out. Rather than declare a festival “winner”, Toronto organizers hand awards voted on by audience members critic, as well as a clutch of smaller prices to Much of the last day is all about supporting the Canadian up-and-comers over a brunch of scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes at the conclusion of the 11-day film extravaganza. There are no egos here, where the winners are ecstatic by the honor and joke about how the cash awards can finally help pay off some overdue back taxes (Denis Villeneuve’s “Incendies” for best Canadian feature film) and keep them from having to work at Starbucks (Deborah Chow for directorial debut “The High Cost of Living”). Here is where the public gets to shine and Toronto audiences have been apparently have good taste, having often picked films that have gone on to much success during the awards season. The public voted “The King’s Speech”, directed by Tom Hooper, to the People’s Choice Award, a story of the man who would rather not be king. It stole Oscar buzz at the festival, with Colin Firth as the monarch who overcame a debilitating stammer to do the job and Geoffrey Rush as the the speech therapist who helps him do it. Has Toronto extended its win streak ofOscar winners?

Forget about best actor awards or controversies about favoritism.

The Toronto International Film Festival closing ceremony has a refreshingly ego-free feel to it.

Pride or insecurity at the Toronto festival? “I don’t know, you tell me”

If there’s one thing the (mostly local) media seems to do well at the Toronto International Film Festival,  it’s pestering filmmakers and stars with questions about Canada, Toronto, and the festival.

Call it the Sally Field complex.

There have been some lovely and flattering comments, of course — this is a film festival, after all. But what happens when the media doesn’t get the answer they want? They’re nothing if not persistent. Undaunted. Like a dog with a bone.

For Michael Moore and Ken Loach revolution begins at film festival

By Jeffrey Hodgson

No one can accuse left-wing filmmakers Michael Moore and Ken Loach of abandoning their ideals as they joined the glitz and glamour of the Toronto International Film Festival, where Loach was promoting his Iraq war drama “Route Irish”.

Moore was briefly in town to interview Loach before an audience of fans. But even before the interview started,  the “Fahrenheit 9/11″ director  lamented the amount of corporate sponsorship at the festival. His event, sponsored by BlackBerry, took place in the festival’s snazzy new headquarters, which is sponsored by Canadian phone company Bell.

It’s Midnight Madness at Toronto film festival when the fat lady raps

Forget the weighty films about serious subjects in gorgeous settings by award-winning directors that incorporate a healthy dash of subtitles. The Toronto International Film Festival is near-bursting with those.

What some festival goers live for every year are over-the-top films that celebrate the ridiculous, the shocking and the thrilling. Films like “The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman”.

Zombie porn movie finds limited life at Toronto film festival

Let’s get this out of the way: If you find yourself aroused by this particular porn film, you should probably check your pulse. “L.A. Zombie”, which last month made headlines when an Australian film board banned the Canadian movie featuring “gay zombie porn” from screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival, provides a look into the world of zombie-on-zombie action, perhaps a world’s first. After hitting the festival circuit in Germany and Switzerland earlier in the year, the film has landed on home soil of the Canadian director Bruce La Bruce at the Toronto International Film Festival. Toronto film organizers described it like so in the program book: “L.A. Zombie is a hardcore gay porn film. There are numerous scenes of men having graphic sex shot in the manner of pornography, not art film erotica… But L.A. Zombie is very much an art film, too.” It’s definitely no “Dawn of the Dead”, “Shaun of the Dead”, or “Zombieland.” At first, the zombie, played by French porn star Francois Sagat who will appear in “Saw 6″, is met with laughter and several gasps of “Oh My God”. What else do you do when a zombie that has just emerged from the Pacific ocean is having graphic sex with an open chest cavity of a dead man and the heart suddenly starts beating again? Yes, the zombie gives back life in a sexual ressurection. Progressively, there is less chuckling as five sex scenes unfold. But the film, with very little dialogue, speaks about homelessness, schizophrenia, and rotting. At a press and industry screening, at least 10 people left within the first 20 minutes of the 63-minute film. By the end, some 30 people had left before the credits started rolling. NNotablye that the exits seemed to coincide as the intensity of some of the scenes ramped up — with lots of blood spraying, and let’s just say “money shots”.)

Let’s get this out of the way: if a film that combines full-on horror with necrophilia and gay porn  is not your thing, then avoid “L.A. Zombie.”

Aaron Eckhart, Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole” grief

How much is too much when actors research their roles?

Actor Aaron Eckhart, who plays Howie Corbett in John Cameron Mitchell’s “Rabbit Hole,” said he may have gone too far to research his character.

“I did attend one bereavement class and that was probably unethical, I would have to say, because you really feel like you’re taking advantage of people who are laying it all out … you just feel like you’re a liar so I didn’t do that again,” he told reporters at a press conference during the Toronto International Film Festival.

What’s next for James Franco and Danny Boyle?

With Danny Boyle’s new film “127 Hours” already garnering early buzz at the Toronto International Film Festival, what’s next for the Oscar-winning director and his prolific and busy star, James Franco?

Franco, who strolled into an interview on Sunday with photocopied pages of course reading material on early film history (he started a Ph.D program at Yale University this fall in English and film studies), told Reuters he will be directing a new project: “I’m developing something with Fox Searchlight, which will probably be shot next summer.”

from Photographers Blog:

Lady Gaga’s meat dress in hindsight

The biggest cheer at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards came when DJ Deadmau5 played Led Zeppelin during a commercial break.

Oh yeah, the Meat Dress…

The only thing going through my head when Cher announced Lady Gaga had won Video of the year was… where is the boom camera?

Woody Allen’s latest take on life’s “nightmare”

Writer-director Woody Allen doesn’t mince words when expressing the anxiety he feels about aging and death.

In a typically blunt, near-two minute tirade, seventy-four-year-old Allen, said he sees no advantage to the golden years at all.