Every year at the Toronto Int. Film Festival there’s always a good little indie that comes out of nowhere — and sadly some of them never seem to see the light of day, much like “$5 A Day” with Alessandro Nivola and Christopher Walken from ’08.
Hopefully, one of these indies that doesn’t go the way of the dodo, is a picture called, “Good Heart.” Now we have no way of knowing whether it’s good or not, but it does star the great Brian Cox and Paul Dano.
The plot basically centers on “a crusty, misanthropic owner of a grungy dive located on an even grimier back street in New York (Cox). An epic chain smoker, he knows he has only a short time left. In the hospital after his fifth coronary, he meets the ultra-meek Lucas (Dano), a homeless kid who has pretty much given up on life. Determined to keep his bar going, Jacques takes Lucas under his wing and schools him in the decidedly arcane rules he lives by. Unfortunately for Lucas, Jacques’s preferred pedagogical method consists of yelling, ranting and throwing stuff.”
The picture was directed by French/Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kári and “Good Heart” is his first English language film. He is also a member of the electro-acoustic duo Slowblow, and his musical partner, Orri Jónsson also helped him compose the music to this film.
Here’s a new and pretty cool shot from Johnny To’s “Vengeance” which we saw earlier this year at Cannes. It was necessarily brilliant, but also a lot of fun and an interesting gangster film about friendship, fealty and unlikely brotherhood. Love the look and wide angle less here. You can certainly do worse in the slo-mo balletic-violence-gangster genre, that’s for sure. French Icon Johnny Hallyday stars, plus Hong-Kong To regulars Anthony Wong, Lam Suet and Lam Ka-Tungm, who are all quite excellent in the picture.
Here’s another great shot of Bong Joon Ho’s “Mother” which just got picked up for U.S. distribution finally. Rad. Great performances from both South Korean actors in this one. It’s a noir-ish, thriller, murder mystery and quite great.
Lastly, two relatively new shots of “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” which also screened at Cannes, but we missed it.
Directed by Jan Kounen the picture stars the always engaging to watch Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen (the upcoming “Valhalla Rising“) and Anna Mouglalis as the two leads (Mouglalis will also appear in “Serge Gainsbourg: The Life Heroic” next year as French chanteuse Juliette Greco). She looks particularly lovely in this second shot.
The synopsis is this: “In 1920, the lives of two of the last century’s greatest artists intersected. Coco Chanel, the famous designer, befriended the great, revolutionary composer Igor Stravinsky and his family, offering the penniless and homeless musician refuge in her country mansion. There have been rumors that Coco and Igor had an affair at this time. Director Jan Kounen takes this premise and spins it into an intimate and deeply moving portrait of a marriage challenged by a beautiful and famous female benefactor.”
A lot of great pics at TIFF, no? It runs September 10-19 in case you hadn’t heard.