Anne Hathaway Catwoman

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It's been a slow news day so far today. But hark! Here is the list of films showing at the Toronto International Film Festival this year! I seriously doubt I'll be going since I've never gone before and I can't see that changing now - although Toronto is a lovely city so if they want to invite me they can do that! - but since it's a slow news day let's name five movies playing at the festival that make me wanna slap some marching boots on and storm the north come September.

We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey) - Everybody's read the book by Lionel Shriver by now, right? I hope so. Go read the book if you haven't! Because this book is amazing. AMAZING. And this movie has Tilda Swinton starring in it. AMAZING TIMES TWELVE.

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I've obviously got to write something about the final Harry Potter movie here, but it's a hard time to focus these days. Every spare second I have I'm plowing through George R. R. Martin's A Dance of Dragons (I'm on page 738! Only thirteen thousand more pages to go!) and that's where my head is when I'm not completely unable to think due to A/C problems like I spent the second half of yesterday dealing with. NI haven't even written a review of Miranda July's The Future yet, for god's sake! So behind, so behind. Summer just kills my ability to function. Point being, I have no idea what I'm about to write but let's just wing it. This will be very exciting for all parties! Here are five thoughts as they come to me on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Spoilers ahoy.

1. Okay I did do a smidge of preparation for this - EW's got a full-length recap of the movie up and I read though that. And it reminded me of one thing I'd forgotten - Harry Potter's supposed to be completely starkers in that post-Avada Kedavra "afterworld" meeting with Dumbledore at the white-light train station. Cheated! I'd totally forgotten that. I mean sure it was always a little weird, naked Harry hanging out with his elderly homosexual friend. But it was IMPORTANT. That's an even bigger slight then the lack of centaurs and house elves at the Battle of Hogwarts, or the absence of Luna and Neville in the post-script, I says.

2. Even though I started crying about a quarter of the way into the movie and was a blubbering mess by the final reel, I think they missed the mark a little bit with this movie as a whole. There were huge pieces I loved and little pieces I loved but somehow it never really clicked together as a full movie, I guess? It was more a series of periods and exclamation points, with a couple of questions marks tossed in for good/bad measure. Everybody was good, the film looked and sounded gorgeous, but the script could've maybe used some work. It felt a little bit rushed like they turned their eyes to the side of the soundstage and could see the guy swinging the keys ready to close up and they were ready for supper anyway so let's get this thing done already! One of the biggest problems for me is probably how insulated everything felt at this point - I don't think they got across the danger that the entire world was facing here. Everybody was holed up at Hogwarts and we hardly saw a single Muggle - they did give us a sense of this in Half-Blood Prince with the Millenium Bridge collapse, but a reminder was needed, I think. (Maybe I just wish there'd been more Fiona Shaw.)

3. That said, the Snape flashback sequence got me right in the gut. Rickman's youth-ening CG botox job was a little bit distracting - Trent Reznor got stung by a bunch of bees! - but they really managed to slam a lot of emotional bang-for-their-buck into that succinctly-edited sequence; Rickman has always been a stand-out of course but I found myself surprised by just how much I appreciated every second we got with him this time. The way he could draw out a syllable will never be equaled.

4. Also welcome was finally getting to hang out with Ralph Fiennes for awhile. Voldemort makes some abysmally dumb decisions (granted they're written off as a by-product of his soul being murdered piece by piece, and until you've had your soul murdered piece by piece you shouldn't judge, but still - you're really not gonna check Harry's pulse yourself there, V-man?) but Ralph squeezes every ounce of sibilant villainy there is to be had from the slit-nosed cretin. Bonus points go to Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix, who kept bouncing around behind him reminding me of those straight-jacketed monsters that hung out with the Gentleman in the "Hush" episode of Buffy. Her impersonation of Emma Watson's Hermione in the Gringotts bank-robbery scene was kinda mind-blowing.

5. Alright, I made it to five! I guess all that's left is to slather on some of the hearty gratitude we fans feels towards JK Rowling for imagining this world up and to David Yates and the other directors and all the immensely talented craftspeople who created the world over the course of eight films. At a certain point in the film that Twilight-belittling quote of Stephen King's popped into my head:

Snipe if you will, the studios and the publishers and the toy companies have made more money than they'll ever know what to do with, sure, but I do think that the fictional tale of Harry Potter has in its own little way made the world a better place. Personally, when I reflect on it as I did watching it unfold its final grace notes, it made me want to be a better person, to be a better friend. I know I'm not the only one.

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By now you've probably heard that Jake Gyllenhaal will be guest-starring on the season premiere of Bear Gryll's "fun time in the outdoors" show Man Vs. Wild on July 11th on the Discovery Channel. (Set your Tivos!) They'll be taking on the wilds of Iceland, apparently. Now I've only seen a minute or two of Bear's show before - usually the more ridiculous clips that The Soup highlights - but I've seen enough to have several possible scenarios instantly cloud up my brain wherein Bear could show Jake all about roughing it. Not that Jake's a stranger to huddling up in a pup-tent, of course, but let's take a look at the scenarios all the same, eh?

Constantly Getting Naked - Bear Grylls has never been confronted with an obstacle in nature that can't be met head-on by taking off all of his clothes. If you think the fact that they're gallivanting around in an icy wintry setting is enough to keep Bear dressed, think again.

Getting Peed On - I don't know if there are jellyfish in the freezing cold waters of Iceland, something tells me there aren't, but maybe they'll find one in a hot spring beside a volcano! Or maybe Bear will just pull one out of his rucksack and throw it on Jake's face at some point. I don't care how it happens. (Now I couldn't find an example of this actually happening on MVW, but taking into consideration what's to come, let's just set aside those doubts.)

Drinking his own pee - Speaks for itself, I suppose.

Never know when you might get thirsty.

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Wearing his own pee - Okay, so apparently this is water-sports heavy. I cannot help these things! It's just the way the cookie's crumbled. Take it up with Bear. Urine, like nudity, solves everything!

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Salt Water Enema - Oh dear this has turned out 

all sorts of wrong. Nature's such a pervert!

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Point being, I hope you brought some protection

from the elements, Jake. Lots and lots of protection.

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July 1st marks the halfway point of the year, and so I figured I'd do what I usually do and take a quick look back at the five movies I've enjoyed the most so far this year. Looking at the movies that open between now and then that I'm most curious about all there seems to be is Super 8 and Green Lantern - it that really it for June? - and I don't foresee either of those topping any of these at this point. (Prove me wrong, JJ Abrams!) There are a few duking it out, I could want something else in five minutes, but let's just roll with this.

Certified Copy (dir. Abbas Kiarostami) - Since seeing it back in March there kind of hasn't been a day that's passed where I haven't wanted to watch Certified Copy again. What baffles me looking back is I never wrote a proper review! I wrote a post telling y'all to remind me to write a review, and obviously you all failed me. Your fault! Anyway now I have a reason to watch it ASAP so I can write up some properish thoughts. There are visuals from this movie that accost me all the time. A slipping bra-strap or a boy following his mother or a sad bride.

Hanna (dir. Joe Wright) - my review - Okay okay so I've said enough about Eric Bana's wet longjohns at this point in the year, probably. There are other things! Wonderful things. Joe Wright making an action movie sort of feels like what would happen if one of those giant-headed bug-eyed aliens beamed down into your living-room and you told it to go and make you a peanut butter sandwich. This is that alien's peanut-butter sandwich. Strange and stranger.

13 Assassins (dir. Takashi Miike) - my review - I'm so glad to have another movie from Takashi to love - he makes more than it's possible to keep up with from this side of the world and the few that have trickled over have seemed more like emblems of his lack of concentration than, you know, coherent films. Not so with 13 Assassins, which is an astonishingly old-fashioned slow-burn to madness for the maestro of mayhem.
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Jane Eyre (dir. Cary Fukunaga) - my review - It's all there in that scene in front of the fireplace with Rochester and Jane sizing each other up - Mia and Fassy scouring each other's faces and dragging us along for the ride.

Insidious (dir. James Wan) - my review - Lawd knows I have plenty of issues with plenty of Insidious, but at the same time I had such a hoot jumping out of my seat that I'm willing to overlook a lot of silliness. It packs enough bang for your buck. Good old fashioned spook-sanctioned fun.

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