ARTS & CULTURE
10 Obiter Dicta
TIFF Highlights
The ‘People’s’ Festival Strikes Again
kendall grant › contributor
T
he 2014 Toronto International Film Festival
(tiff) was another hectic ten days in a long
line of new beginnings over the last thirtynine years. It was the first time that King
Street was closed to traffic for the opening weekend, and the first time that tiff took a firm stance
regarding Telluride premieres, resulting in the loss
of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, among
others. It was also unusual that a film didn’t come out
screaming as the People’s Choice Award and Oscar
frontrunner, although The Imitation Game ended
up being a rather predictable choice anyway. (Last
year, that could have been predicted for 12 Years a
Slave on the third day of the Festival, and in 2012 and
2010, Silver Linings Playbook and The King’s Speech
steamrolled their competition handily.)
However, t if f followed a different trajectory
towards showcasing a dozen or more films in smaller
ways. I was fortunate enough to see twenty-one films
over the course of the Festival, of which I especially
enjoyed six. This issue of Obiter Dicta contains capsule reviews for most of them. The full reviews will
be published on Absurdity & Serenity in the upcoming months.
Grade Breakdown
The Top 6
1 Leviathan (3.5/4)
2 Winter Sleep (3.5/4)
3 Whiplash (3.5/4)
4 Phoenix (3.5/4)
5 The Look of Silence (3.5/4)
6 A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting
on Existence (3/4)
The Insane Chillers
Nightcrawler (3/4)
Goodnight Mommy (3/4)
Tusk (2/4)
The Oscar Contenders
Mr. Turner (3/4)
Foxcatcher (3/4)
A Theory of Everything (2.5/4)
The Imitation Game (2.5/4)
The Newcomers
Girlhood (3/4)
Pride (3/4)
Love & Mercy (3/4)
Before We Go (1.5/4)
The Disappointments
While We’re Young (3/4)
The Riot Club (2.5/4)
The Burnouts
An Eye for Beauty (1.5/4)
The Cobbler (1/4)
ê Steve Carrell. Photo credit: Peter Kudlacz
Awards
Best Director
Christian Petzold, Phoenix
(runner-up: Roy Andersson, A Pigeon Sat on a
Branch Reflecting on Existence)
Best Performance
Nina Hoss, Phoenix
(runner-up: Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner)
Best Supporting Performance
JK Simmons, Whiplash
(runner-up: Felicity Jones, The Theory of
Every-thing)
Best Screenpl ay
Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Ebru Ceylan, Winter Sleep
(runner-up: Andrey Zvyaginstev and Oleg Negin,
Leviathan)
Best Cinematography
Gökhan Tiryaki, Winter Sleep
(runner-up: Mikhail Krichman, Leviathan)
Most Anticipated TIFF Films Still Unscreened
Mommy, Force Majeure, Two Days, One Night,
The Tribe
Capsule Reviews
Before We Go (2014) 1.5/4
The Bottom Line: Once + Before Sunset
In Grand Central Sta F