Seattlest at TIFF: Take Two

Monday started even earlier than Sunday with the Coen Brothers' heavily-touted No Country for Old Men. The elegantly slow-moving picture (care of cinematographer Roger Deakins) lives up to the hype, so much so that we can take it as their formal cinematic apology for their abysmal duo Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. Ethan, Joel, we forgive you. Especially if it means that you won't sic scary-as-hell psycho-killer Javier Bardem on us.

Next up was Juno, the latest comedy from Jason Reitman. We loved his first feature, Thank You for Smoking, and had heard nothing but good buzz about this flick, which is kinda Knocked Up meets Superbad, if Judd Apatow stopped focusing so much on male friendships and paid more attention to the pregnant girl. As the titular acid-tongued, preggo high schooler, Ellen Page keeps on getting better and better, and the rest of the cast (JK Simmons, Allison Ranney, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman, reunited here with his TV son, sweet baby Michael Cera) ain't no slouch neither. A couple minor quibbles: if anything the film is too cute by half. We don't need pop culture references for the sake of pop culture references: "No, It's Morgan Freeman. I'm here to collect some bones." And we certainly don't need a quirky folk song introducing every goddamn scene (Wes Anderson much?). Still, the film was ultimately very moving -- we always appreciate it when a foul-mouthed movie turns out to have some heart.

After all that levity, it was time to get Redacted, the latest from hit-or-miss auteur Brian DePalma. This rumination on the role of media and technology in the Iraq War is more of a miss, though it makes a few points. The story, loosely based on the rape and murder of a young Iraqi girl, is told through the eyes (and footage) of several different sources involved: a soldier's video diary, a French documentary film crew, Iraqi newscasters, a soldier's wife's vlog, insurgents' covertly shot videos, and various clips on YouTube. Yes the different viewpoints meld to create the big picture, but really, whatever larger point DePalma's trying to make is lost amidst all the casualties of war.

Thankfully, we had one more comedy in store for the day: Lars and the Real Girl. Ryan Gosling (who we are totally in love with, if only for his discerning choice in films) plays Lars, the self-imposed hermit who starts "dating" a love doll. Despite the lascivious subject matter, the script plays it straight, and the result is downright touching. Seriously, it takes a very special sex-doll movie to get a standing ovation from a full house and overwhelming praise, especially from middle-aged women. This one's a charmer, for real.