My festival picks

Now here are some of the films I plan to see at this year’s Windsor International Film Festival:

 

Blue is the Warmest Colour – It won the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ top prize, so there must be something to it; Bright Days Ahead – a French film that has Fanny Ardant, is strong on characters, and has romance, is always worth it; Call Girl – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad Swedish film and one like this which depicts the underbelly of Sweden’s supposed utopian state seems rather delicious; Camille Claudel 1915: I love art, I love the sculptress Camille Claudel, and I love the actress Juliette Binoche – what isn’t there to like/love?; Cas & Dylan – haven’t seen Richard Dreyfuss in God knows how long and a road movie can have its moments; Cutie and The Boxer – this doc about a couple of Japanese artists got great reviews. It’s about artists (see Camille Claudel 1915 above) and the professional and personal dynamics of their relationship; Devil’s Knot – Atom Egoyan may be pretentious but he does have a few things to say and it’s got Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon; The Double – anything with Jesse Eisenberg (one of the smartest actors around) is worth seeing. It also has personal fave Wallace Shawn and is a reinterpretation of a Dostoyevsky story. Can’t wait!; Drinking Buddies – You can keep repeating this theme and it never gets old – can platonic friends be lovers? Good Ol’ Freda – I missed this recently at the Detroit Film Theatre and a doc about the Beatles, and in this case about the Lads from Liverpool and their secretary should be fun and a further inside look at the world’s greatest band; The Great Beauty – Italian films are hardly lame and it’s difficult to resist a story about a world-weary journalist searching for an idealistic past; A Hijacking – Captain Phillips may be generating raves but I’ll take the Danish version anytime. In fact it’s not the same story but the same subject and as per Swedish films, I’ve never seen a bad Danish flick….Next post: the films I “might” attend…..