The TIFF Tattler: September 16

A SINGLE MAN HOOKS UP
The Festival market seems to be turning around on the strength of the first high profile pick-up on Tuesday. Tom Ford’s A Single Man — not to be confused with the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man — was bought by the Weinstein Company early Tuesday. Variety reports that the Weinsteins, along with reps from Miramax, Roadside Attractions and Summit Entertainment, hunkered down for an all-night negotiation session with producers after the film’s premiere Monday in the Jamie Kennedy restaurant at the Gardiner Museum. (The film wasn’t sold until late Tuesday morning.) The story of a same-sex love affair — the title refers to the archaic euphemisms, like "eligible bachelor," that used to refer to gay men — is the directorial debut of former Gucci lead designer Ford and stars Colin Firth. Alliance will pick up the film’s Canadian release.

The other semi-high profile film picked up yesterday was Greek drama Dogtooth. Kino International picked up the US rights to Yorgos Lanthimos’ film, which won Un Prize de Certain Regard at Cannes. It has one more public screening in the fest, Sept. 19, 9:45am at the Varsity.

With this all in mind, watch out for deals still to be made for Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, festival opener Creation — which has a Canadian, but not an American or international deal yet — and I Am Love, a movie written by and starring Tilda Swinton. Of course, many of the remaining movies won’t get picked up — last year, neither Steven Soderbergh's Che nor Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York had solid North American deals at the end of the fest.


SICK OF SICKO
It seems the health care debate isn’t just sapping the media’s collective energy in the States — Michael Moore may be too exhausted by it to ever make another documentary again. The Fury from Flint told the Huffington Post that he has become much too frustrated with the lack of progress Americans are making: “Two years ago, I tried to get the health-care debate going, and it did eventually, and now where are we? We may not even have it. What am I supposed to do at a certain point?" Moore went on to note that he was considering returning to narrative film, a form he abandoned after the lack of commercial success for his debut, Canadian Bacon with John Candy (a film, it should be noted, that my late grandmother loved for some reason)  It’s hard not to empathize with the man’s point: it sucks when your low-budget documentary isn’t able to take down an entire, firmly entrenched economic and social system single-handedly.

A few hours after that interview, Moore suggested that he might have one last target left in him: Barack Obama. Moore told the audience at a weekend screening of his TIFF entry, Capitalism: A Love Story, that he is considering making a film about the perceived failures of the Obama administration from a liberal perspective. A nuanced account of the difficult compromises made when a smart, progressive man faces the constraints of political power? That sounds distinctly anti-Mooreian, doesn’t it?  


UP IN THE OSCARS
With the festival past the halfway mark, that rarest of frivolous breeds — Oscar prognosticators — are beginning their annual public gabfest. Most sources are beginning to corroborate the idea that Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is going to be one of the films to beat, as it seems even the cynical indie types are admitting they liked it. As an aside, one of the film’s stars, Jason Bateman, confirmed this week at the festival that the Arrested Development movie is half-written, and that everyone, even Michael Cera and Will Arnett, are totally on board. So there.

Otherwise, consensus seems to have emerged that Precious, and An Education are the real deal, Bright Star and Fish Tank are pretty good too, and that Chloe is DOA. And now a couple of dark horses have started to emerge from the pack: Lebanon, which took home a surprise Gold Lion in Venice, had a sold out screening Monday and received an enthusiastic response, despite the controversy around everything Tel Aviv this year; and the Robert Duvall conman film Get Low is a slow-burning treat, having received a surprise standing ovation on the weekend. 

The National Post, meanwhile, decided to contradict all of this semi-professional ruminating by asking a psychic for TIFF picks. Could a good track record by a clairvoyant perhaps counteract all of this foolishness by self-described experts? Well, the psychic think Chloe has “good energy,” so probably not.

Anything else really caught your ear at the festival? Post your thoughts here! Until tomorrow…