Ah, the Friday release rundown. It’s good to be home. So what have we got? One of the year’s best movies, and a lot of other stuff.
“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”: I’ve imposed a moratorium on Holocaust movies after the horror that was “Good“, and the trailer for this one didn’t give me much hope, but Susan found it worthwhile.
“I’ve Loved You So Long“: Kristin Scott Thomas is astonishingly good as a woman returning to her family after a decade and a half in prison; the movie around her, maybe not so much. But the performance is so strong that I recommend seeing the film anyway, just so you can be ahead of the curve on the whole dark-horse Oscar nomination.
“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”: Because the first film left so many questions unanswered, obviously. The only question on my mind? “How much did Sacha Baron Cohen get to come back as the wacky lemur, and to which charity did he donate it?”
“Real Time”: Small-time loser Jay Baruchel and cranky mentor Randy Quaid drive around Hamilton for an hour and ten minutes, at the end of which Quaid will shoot Baruchel in the head. I was rooting for him to do it at the fifteen-minute mark, just so I could get out of Randall Cole’s miserable dramatic thriller. Rad suffered right along with me.
“Role Models”: Paul Rudd and Stifler as immature jerks who end up playing Big Brother to a pair of troubled kids? Sign me up — especially when virtually everyone says it’s better than it has any right to be.
“Synecdoche, New York“: Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut is the logical next step from the screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, which is to say it’s a conceptual labyrinth of the highest order. And strangely moving. Just generally fantastic, really.
“Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma“: One of the stronger films I saw at Hot Docs, Patrick Reed’s simple, verite documentary revisits the twin nightmares of Somalia and Rwanda through the eyes of a man who was there, and tried to stop the bleeding. Literally.
“The World Unseen”: Unseen by me, anyway; it screened while I was out of town. But Lisa Ray is in it, and everyone loves her, even if they’re obliged to admit — as Kieran is — that she’s deserving of better projects.
… oh, and there’s this documentary thing called “Dirty Country” opening at the Bloor on Sunday. Best recommended to die-hard Larry Pierce fans.
Who’s Larry Pierce, you ask? Exactly.
I am not the biggest booster of Philippe Claudel’s “I’ve Loved You So Long”, which opens tomorrow, but I do think that Kristin Scott Thomas is absolutely amazing in the film — like, Oscar-buzzy amazing.
… the “Get Smart” movie doesn’t suck?
Look, everyone knows where I stand by now. I’m just saying: Vote.
Yes, my friends, we can breathe easily and unclench our collective sphincters — my luggage was delivered to our door at about 5:30 pm yesterday, a mere 66 hours after I landed at Pearson. Nothing broken, nothing lost; the bags were a little dusty from sitting in some holding area somewhere, but that was the worst of it.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had luggage go missing during an international flight, but it’s certainly the longest it’s taken for the airline to find and deliver said luggage. Like, fifty-nine hours and counting. And what I’m counting is the dwindling number of my remaining clothes.
Sad news: 
It took about 23 hours to get from the Vienna Hilton to my front door yesterday, but it was worth it — I’ve been away too long, and it’s good to be back home.
That’s that, then: The 2008 edition of the Viennale wrapped up last night with an awards presentation, a gala screening of Ari Folman’s animated documentary “Waltz with Bashir” — which, you may recall, I