Film clips: downloading woes, TIFF, WIFF, ersatz music and a glorious French discovery

 

For some reason I can’t stream a lot of new films in Canada. For example, the Scott Crawford documentary about one-time Detroit-based magazine - CREEM: America’s Only Rick ‘n’ Roll Magazine - is supposed to be available in Canada. That’s according to a Toronto newspaper. Not so. It’s going to be out in Canuck-land later this month. The same goes for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Truth, with an all-star lineup of Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke. Virtually every week over the past two months I have been trying to steam it because it's supposed available in Canada. But no go.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) will be much scaled down next month due to the coronavirus outbreak. This paradoxically will be good for us non-TIFF goers. While some films will still be screened in person others will be available online for the wider world to see. This, says the Toronto Star, “will be a test of a theory that’s been debated within the movie industry since the rise of Netflix and other online streaming services: Do people really need and want the theatrical experience to fully appreciate film, or do they prefer the convenience of in-home viewing?” Yes, yes, we all want to know.

And congrats to another event you may have heard of, the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), for quickly, as they say in the Covid universe, “pivoting,” and making some lemonade out of lemons. Sure, the regular fest in late October-early November is cancelled. But WIFF will hold a drive-in festival at the Riverfront Festival Plaza. Called WIFF Under the Stars – along with a logo reminiscent of the famed Cinerama masthead – it runs Aug. 28 – Sept. 12. No, there won’t be the usual breakout independent and foreign films. But there will be lots of frolicking fun from popular and cult classics, everything from 007 to Tarantino and popular family animations. Book online but movie snacks available onsite.

Here’s my newest acting discovery: Judith Godrèche (left). I watched her this weekend in Netflix’s Under the Eiffel Tower (Archie Borders 2019). An effortless actor with charm, sophistication, intellect, a sparking honest smile, and that 'Je ne sais quoi' sexiness in the best French tradition.

Watching another Under the Stars series – this one on TCM’s August Under the Stars programing, and a few Goldie Hawn starred features yesterday (There’s a Girl in My Soup (Roy Boulting 1950) with Peter Sellers  was the best – I have to shake my head at the musical scores of these late 60s early 70s movies. They try to capture the psychedelic era yet the music is hardly real acid rock but what I’ll call “rock elevator music” with chintzy piano tinkling and anodyne brass.

Finally, I couldn’t resist reprinting this howler. Here’s famed New York Post columnist Cindy Adams word for word: “MICHAEL Moore wants a bailout for his canceled Traverse City Film Festival, which is in some resort town in some chunk of wherever northern Michigan is. Begun in 2005, the thing would’ve been last week. E-mailing supporters, he says he’s out a million bucks and needs donations. Moore lives part of the year in this whoknowswhere place and runs two nowclosed movie theaters. Maybe he’ll make a movie about it.”