Days three and four are a haze. The films are all blurring together into a giant katamari consisting of breakups and tears and suicides and subtitles and pointy nipples and Tony Leung’s testicles. After an early wakeup and multiple snooze alarms I cabbed my way to the Paramount Scotiabank Theatre at about a quarter to nine in the morning. A little after noon I wandered around on the quiet streets and went over to the Corned Beef House for lunch on the patio. It was nice and quiet. Several hours later I was at Naz’s eating a chicken shwarma. It was a lot busier on the streets. At midnight, I was out. It was even busier. The first few blocks of the walk home was a giant slalom of walking. All the revelers were out in the “entertainment district” and were all conspiring to annoy the fuck out of me.
I was home at a quarter to one in the morning. In between those sixteen hours there were movies. Control was a thumb up! The Man from London was a thumb sideways (just way too slow but there were some brilliant scenes). The Edge of Heaven was a very strong thumb up! It was a film that relied a lot on invisible connections and coincidence, a film staple, that had a masterfully pieced together script and a very strong ensemble cast. Ploy was a thumb sideways. Happiness was a thumb sideways. Actually, I liked it a little bit more than that. It was very, very close to being potential asian soap opera melodrama — not good — but it managed to avoid those cliches and was well acted enough to feel genuine.
After a brief sleep I was right back at the Scotiabank theatre for Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. The reviews of it are mixed, to say the least. I didn’t like it all that much when I saw it but now that it’s sinking in I’m liking it more and more. Not a great film but one that could warrant a second viewing (when I’m not so fucking tired). Thumb slightly up! Two more movies followed but right now I need to let those set in, get some sleep and get all excited for No Country For Old Men early tomorrow.
