Between work, keeping up with the Indignant Family, and the film festival trip, I’ve not been posting as much as I used to (I’ll be getting better soon). I started to write a story on the Denver Bronco wide receiver that killed himself, but I decided what else needed to be said. And I almost wrote about the owner of Segway running his machine off a cliff, but I figured there were plenty of bad jokes about that around.
But, I thought back on before I left for Canada, and at that time, I felt that it could be a long cold winter for Chicago sports fans. The Cubs were already playing for 2011; the Sox were still hanging in there, but then sank like the Titanic. The Blackhawks were dismantled after the Cup win; the Bulls had lost in the LeBron sweepstakes; my alma mater, Northwestern was about to start an undersized quarterback best known for running the ball. And worst of all were the Chicago Bears. It wasn’t that they went 0-4 in the preseason, lots of championship teams do that while finding themselves; but it was the way they were losing. They were disorganized; they were sloppy. They looked like the worst team in the history of the NFL. The triumvirate of Coach Lovie Smith, GM Jerry Angelo, and President Ted Phillips had more vultures circling than an elephant carcass on the African savannah.
But now, it’s nearly October and hope springs eternal. The Hawks may not suck. The Bulls may not need James. Northwestern is 4-0 and Dan Persa has shown himself to be a quality QB (much like his predecessor Mike Kafka, who set records for rushing before becoming a fine passer in his own right). Most surprisingly of course are the Bears. Sure, they should have lost to the Lions in week one but for the receiver losing the ball on the ground in the end zone. But then they came out and smoked the Dallas Cowboys. Yes, the Cowboys are still finding themselves, but on paper, it looked like a Dallas blowout, especially against the preseason moribund Bears.
Then came last night against the hated Packers; the Bears fell behind early then came back to win 20-17. Was it a through pasting? Of course not; the Bears are the only unbeaten NFC team, but they also may be the worst 3-0 team in league history. But it doesn’t matter how you win; just that you win.
So, are we buying airplane tickets to Dallas for the Super Bowl? Hell no. But at least it will be interesting to see what happens to the Bears week to week, which is more than I expected at the end of August.

Before we leave the topic, I just want to take a moment to talk about last night’s Bears-Packers game, or more specifically, the 18 penalty Packers. Not since the days of Forest Gregg’s cheap shot inducing team have we seen a Packer team with less class.
Late hits; obvious penalties were the name of the game for the Packers. And while they are asking how the Bears could be 3-0, the bigger question is if a team so undisciplined really be a Super Bowl favorite like the pundits suggest?
But the biggest ass last night proved to be Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers. I used to feel the way about Rodgers as I did his predecessor Brett Favre: admire his talent, give him credit for biding his time in wait for his chance to prove himself, but because he plays for the Packers, I have to hope that he loses. I grew up a Bear fan, that’s how it goes: respect the player, hate the team.
Last night however, Rodgers showed that he is just a little punk. After scoring the go ahead touchdown in the third quarter, he pumped his pelvis at the crowd, which I guess had been giving it to the Packers pretty good. Later in the game, Rodgers ran for a first down and he got up with a weenie type of first down motion – again, just to get to the crowd.
This morning I heard on the radio that he complained about the crowd disrupting the offence, which may have had an impact on several penalties last night (but I can’t find any quotes online about this). But his antics showed him to be a punk of the highest caliber. Yes, I’m sure that some Bear fans were giving him the business; that’s their right when they buy their tickets; but as someone who’s been there personally, Rodgers probably never hears the taunts of the cheese-head faithful in Lambeau Field (they’re not cheering, I can tell you that). I wanted to say “Aaron, you’re a talented quarterback; let the scoreboard speak for you – don’t bring yourself to the boorish fans’ level.”
But now, I don’t just want the Packers to lose; I want to see Aaron Rodgers punished by every defensive line he plays against. I don’t want him hurt or injured, I want him to take a hellish beating every game for the rest of his career. And, of course, I hope the Packers lose every game he plays in. Nah, let’s be honest, I already would like to see the Packers lose every game for eternity. And then go on a losing streak.

Well, before I get to this year’s wrap up of the Toronto International Film Festival (my tenth, unbelievable), it was a bit of a different experience for me this year. First, I had a feeling it would be different since my lottery luck seems to have run out.
I should have known that this wasn’t going to be my usual film festival experience when I got the books to choose my films. The first movie I read about and considered a “must see” was a film called “Legend of the Fist,” a good old fashioned kung fu movie starring Donnie Yen playing a character popularized by Bruce Lee in “The Chinese Connection” (of course, he was supposed to have died at the end of that film, but hey?). Strangely, this film showed three times during the Festival: the night before I arrived; the day of my arrival at noon (or about 2 hours before I landed), and then didn’t show again until the Saturday after I left (yes, tomorrow). It was tough to pick this year, especially with the “Premium Screenings” (explained below).
All of the people buying tickets have their picks put into different “baskets” if you will, (i.e., A, B, C,…), and then there is a lottery as to which basket they will start with (F, then G, etc.). I thought that people from out of town got a break and were in the early pulls; my reasoning was that for the last several years, I received an e-mail the first day of the picks, notifying me that I had gotten every movie I asked for. This year, however, my Toronto friends were already getting their notifications but nothing for me. Finally, on the third day I got my message; I had gotten 8 of my 10 picks but 2 of them were second choices (good thing I had a few), but I still had to exchange them for 2 more movies, and it took several tries to get to find screenings that had tickets left but still fit into the schedule.
However, there was a disturbing new way for the festival to charge more money and further make people buying packages feel like second class citizens. In the past, those of us who purchased packages (10 packs or tickets; 30 packs, etc.) could try to attend any film that wasn’t a Gala, which is always at Roy Thompson Hall and is always attended by the director and stars of the film. If you wanted to see one of those movies, you paid more. And that’s fine – the festival even has a Gala pass, for which you pay 2½ times the normal rate and you get to attend every Gala. If you’re just there to see stars, this is for you.
Every other screening was open to the festival ticket holders except a couple of years ago, we were prohibited from going to many films at the Elgin or attached Winter Garden Theaters. Many of these films feature director and star appearances, but weren’t Galas. It was cool to go to a film and see the stars, like Viggo Mortensen, or Colin Farrell, who I’ve seen at the Elgin/Winter Garden in previous years.
But the Festival figured another way to charge more and keep the average person out – the “Premium Screening.” These screenings could be anywhere, but you could not request them with the normal passes. And I’m still not sure exactly how you get those films. I didn’t see a “Premium” pass, but films that could have fit into my schedule, like “Stone,” starring Edward Norton and Robert DeNiro and “Biutiful,” the eagerly awaited follow-up from “Babel” director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu starring Javier Bardem didn’t show up on my festival pick booklet. And I don’t remember being asked last July whether I wanted to buy a different package (although I wouldn’t want all Premium Screenings either). It would have been nice to at least have a chance to get tickets for the Edward Norton interview with Bruce Springsteen, who is the subject of a documentary that will show on HBO next month and be included in the upcoming “Darkness on the Edge of Town” remastered box set.
The second thing that was different was the long awaited opening of the Bell Lightbox – the new headquarters for TIFF. It is a postmodern, artsy building with lots of open (useless space), but I did see a film there, and it is a very nice place to watch a film. I should also mention that after several years of having the same commercial to thank the volunteers (sponsored by Universal Pictures); there was a new sponsor (a local movie chain) and a more innocuous commercial. For many years now, every time I saw a Universal film, saw the turning globe and heard the company’s theme music, I wanted to applaud.
Finally, I should make a mention about the business side of this year’s festival. While most of the movies I tried to see or did attend were sold out, there were a lot more empty seats at some screenings than I’ve ever seen. In fact, the festival was going something unprecedented – selling 5 tickets for the cost of 4 to remaining shows. So, big films like Ben Affleck’s “The Town” were selling out, there seem to be a lot of films (like the last one I saw this year) that were playing to half full or less audiences. I don’t know if that’s on account of the economy for American tourists or what, but it was interesting, and if I’m a festival leader, troubling.
Now, if they would stop trying to milk the festival goers with this Premium Screening nonsense, the Festival would return to being totally fun again.

Now, the annual recap of the films I saw. Warning: there are numerous spoilers in this article.

Friday, September 10, 2010

I arrived last Friday afternoon and then had to traverse to pick up my tickets. I inadvertently went to the new building, which had one locked door and still a lot of construction equipment. There were a lot of movie people milling about in front of the Lightbox (no one famous, just people who either have small roles in the industry; or are sycophants getting the chance to show off the fact that they’re “in” and you {me} peon are not in); finally I found a security guard who told me the box office was two blocks away.
As I mentioned above, I got 8 out of 10 of my picks, but I did get the main picks I really wanted to see, but of the seven options that were marginally interesting, I finally had to get to the final 2 movies on my list before there were any with tickets remaining.
Anyway, my first film was at 10PM, called “Late Autumn.” Tang Wei, star of “Lust, Caution,” Ang Lee’s film that I saw at the Festival in 2007, again plays a troubled young Chinese woman. This time, we first see her staggering down a street aimlessly. As we see get closer, we see that she has marks on her face and neck like she’s been beaten. She returns to her home where a man lies motionless on the floor. She begins eating some papers and then we see her seven years later, in prison. She receives a phone message that her mother has died and her family has posted bail for her to get a 72 hour release from prison to take a bus to Seattle for the funeral.
As the bus is leaving, a young Asian man stops the bus and gets on. He doesn’t have enough money for bus fare, but he asks our heroine for money. She gives it to him and tells him to keep it. But he won’t leave her alone, giving her his watch as collateral. Well, it turns out that the young man is a Korean gigolo and one of his clients has left her husband who is a gangster and has promised to kill him.
The gigolo uses all of his skills and does hang around with the girl. She goes to her brother’s house, where she is asked to sign over her mother’s house for sale, since her brother needs the money; but worse, she sees her brother’s friend, who, we find out, was her first love, dumped her, married someone else; then came back to her. The letter asking her to run away with him was found by the girl’s jealous husband who threatened to kill her and then himself, which is how she went to jail.
Eventually, on the way back to prison, the man is captured by the husband; the wife was murdered; and the gigolo is being reported to the police. The gigolo promises to see the girl when she gets out of prison before he disappears. Two years later she returns to where he was captured and waits.
The young man was very good (Hyun Bin); very attractive, very vain, and good at conning people and finding a way to get next to women. I found the movie just OK; but it moves fairly slowly, and I admit that I’m not must of a romantic film guy.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

The first film of the day was like “Less Than Zero,” and “Elephant” (Gus Van Sant’s film based on the Columbine massacre) put together with an Australia slant. The film “Wasted on the Young” directed by Ben C. Lucas’ first feature shows a top flight high school in Australia. Zach is on the swim team and rules the school. He has a couple of “droogs” (friends, like “A Clockwork Orange”), a couple of girl friends, and a half brother Darren. Zach regularly throws parties in his father’s mansion that make it look like a nightclub. Darren is a computer geek who stays in his room during the parties.
Young Xandrie likes Darren and comes to one to see him. They can’t find each other, but Zach is upset when Xandrie turns him down. Eventually she ends up dumped on the beach and it is several days before she returns to school. Darren tries to learn the truth; which is strongly discouraged by Zach and his friends. Eventually, Xandrie returns to school and the repurcussions of the that night play out on Darren, Xandrie, the droogs, Zach’s women friends, and the rest of the school.
It was beautifully photographed and an interesting view of high school. No parents or authority figures are ever shown (only one is heard and is quickly ignored), and the troubling, insular world of high school is once again shown. It’s no “Breakfast Club,” but it was unforgettable.
I had tried to get into Affleck’s “The Town” but it was sold out; that’s OK it has wide distribution. Instead, I saw “The Way” a gentle road movie from director Emilio Estevez (yes, the former Brat Pack star). I saw Mr. Estevez’s debut film “Bobby,” an ensemble picture about numerous people at the hotel the day Robert Kennedy was shot in 1968. This film once again stars Mr. Estevez’s father Martin Sheen, but this time, he is the center of the film. Mr. Sheen is a California ophthalmologist who gets word that his only son dies in a freak storm on the first day of the pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago a/k/a The Way of Saint James.
The father goes to France to retrieve his son’s body (played in flashbacks and as a ghost by Mr. Estevez), and eventually decides to do the walk (over 800km) himself. He has his son’s gear, and his creamated ashes and they go on the pilgrimage. Along the way, he meets many eccentric people, including three that become his companions: a stout Dutchman who is doing the Camino to lose weight; a Canadian woman who is going to quit her addiction to cigarettes, and an Irish author who is trying to break his writer’s block.
Of course, we all get revelations about why they are actually taking the pilgrimage, and there are numerous side stories that make the film a bit long, but Mr. Sheen has always been able to show a genuine likeability that a film of this type needs. He carries the film (along with a 40 lb. backpack that he actually carried for authenticity).
Mr. Estevez introduced the film and he said that he was going to find his father who was protesting somewhere in Toronto, and he would try and get him back in time for the end. Well, since the film was 140 minutes long, the younger Estevez was successful (and it turns out, he wasn’t kidding – Mr. Sheen did march in a labor rally, I saw it in the papers and on television). But after the movie, I did get to meet Mr. Sheen – a very genuine and nice man. I ended up talking with him for a few minutes. Remarkable!
My last film of the day was a South African film called “State of Violence,” and I thought it would be a bloodbath kind of movie. I girded myself for lots of violence, and while I got some, it was very interesting in the restraint the film showed.
It opened with gunshots on the soundtrack, then you see armed police shooting people witnessed by a young man. Later, you see the same young man approaching the black policeman who murdered the people on his knees, bleeding from a beating, and held by an old tire.
That boy grew up to be a wealthy industrialist with a new wife. His wife is trying to get her husband to reconcile with his mother, but he refuses to ask forgiveness. Coming home from a party, they are surprised by a young man in a mask wielding a gun. He kills the wife in front of the man who he had tied to a bathroom pipe and calls his “Terror” the name given him as a kid. So, the man goes back to the shanty town looking for the killer who has to be someone from his past. Spoiler Warning: it turns out the attack is on account of the fact that the young man from earlier in the film, set fire to the policeman from the earlier murder, and reluctantly gained notoriety and the nickname.
Anyway, unlike Hollywood movies, there were a couple of places where violence would have been commonplace, but this film did not deliver it. Unfortunately, a secondary character ended up getting shot and dying – predictable for an American film and delivered here. I could see it coming, which was disappointing considering the few times in the film did surprise me.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Over my ten times attending the film festival (in 12 years), one trend that has emerged is that there have been more mainstream Hollywood films in the festival. As with anything, that has been both a positive and a negative: positive in that smaller films can be financed by Hollywood can get exposure; negative in that it often feels like other deserving films are “squeezed” out by the bigger budgets and clout. In addition, it sometimes feels like the studios are trying to manipulate the festival-goers into “manufacturing buzz” for their movies. The type of buzz that led films like “Whale Rider,” “Last King of Scotland,” “Hotel Rwanda,” and “Slumdog Millionaire” into Oscar territory and profitability.
So, I reluctantly picked Robert Redford’s “The Conspirator.” I’ve never been much of a fan of Mr. Redford’s movies, feeling that they are generally slow, sometimes preachy, and often devoid of minority characters.
The new film was only guilty of the latter criticism, but I can understand – this is a film that occurs at the end of the Civil War. James McAvoy (“Last King of Scotland,” “Wanted) plays a young lawyer who served in the Union Army during the war. He is a protégé of a Senator from Maryland played by Tom Wilkenson and the Senator has an unusual request of the lawyer – defend Mary Surratt, a Confederate sympathizer and owner of a boarding house. Her son John was more than a sympathizer; he hung out with John Wilkes Booth and the others who killed President Abraham Lincoln, attacked Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward.
Mr. McAvoy was very effective in playing a lawyer who begins very ambivalent on the fate of his client, but ends up putting up a vigorous defense if, for no other reason than laws must be followed, even by the government. Mrs. Surratt played by Robin Wright was sufficiently saintly in the role of the only woman tried and convicted in the assassination of President Lincoln. Very good was Kevin Kline as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton who was the “Dick Cheney”/the ends justify the means in this story. Obviously, this movie was made in response to the military trials at Guantanamo Bay; attempts to subvert the rule of law during war; issues that returned to the forefront as a result of President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror,” that are still be adjudicated in American courts today. While the message was a bit heavy-handed, it was done well. It looked very nice and had the feel of the time.
Every year, there is one movie that is so strange that it could only be shown at TIFF. Ordinarily, these movie play in the portion of the festival called “Midnight Madness,” where the horror movies; ultra violent films, the popcorn movies play. But this film was not a Midnight Madness selection, but was no less bloody or disturbing. This film was Sion Sono’s “Cold Fish.” Reportedly based on a true story, the milquetoast owner of a small fish shop named Shamoto played by Mitsuru Fukikoshi has a teenaged daughter and a young second wife. The wife and daughter don’t get along; in fact, the daughter terrorizes the woman and walks all over her father.
This scenario changes when the daughter is caught shoplifting. The manager wants to have her arrested, but to the rescue comes Murata (played by Japanese comedian Denden). Murata also owns a fish store, but he has young women working for him – rather than having the young girl arrested, he offers to have her stay with his girls.
This is creepy enough, but Murata has many secrets, including the fact that one of the reasons his business does so well is that he makes people disappear – literally. He kills them, then, with his young sexpot wife, takes them to his cabin in the mountains, cuts them up, burns the bones and feeds the remains to the fish in a nearby river.
Very shortly, Murata has seduced Shamoto’s wife and has made Shamoto an accomplice in a murder. The police have long thought that something was amiss about Murata, but Shamoto is threatened that Murata will kill the wife and his daughter if he doesn’t go along.
Murder follows murder; buckets of blood flow in the little shack; and pressure mounts on Shamoto to get away from Murata. Shamoto does in one of the bloodiest, sex filled, wild endings you could imagine. Director Sono admits that he made up most of the last 20 minutes of the film in which Shamoto goes WAAAY off the deep end. Like I said, this was one of the wildest films you will ever see. Definitely not for the squeamish and a film I probably don’t want to se again, but I will probably always remember it.

Monday, September 13, 2010

My first film of the day was a Midnight Madness selection, yet another superhero satire, but with some famous actors. “Super” directed by James Gunn, who also helmed “Slither” and who wrote the screenplays for “Scooby-Doo” and the remake of “Dawn of the Dead,” stars Rainn Wilson as Frank D’Arbo, a sad sack guy who is married to Liv Tyler who plays a drug addict who leaves Frank for drug dealer Jock played by Kevin Bacon.
“God” picks Frank to do good as superhero the Crimson Bolt, who goes around hitting people with a pipe wrench (the scene where he attacks 2 people who butted into a movie line is truly funny). Helping Frank as his “teenage sidekick” (but actually 22 in the movie) is Ellen Page as his sexually charged sidekick Boltie. (I should mention that I was reading a scholarly book about the graphic novel Watchmen, and I couldn’t help but notice that the sexual perversity angle as a reason for superheroes to exist, first explicitly commented upon in Watchmen, was alive and well in this movie.
Well, eventually, the Crimson Bolt and Boltie end up in a showdown with Jock and his gang, headed by movie bad gut Michael Rooker (“Henry, Diary of a Serial Killer”). The violence in the movie was fairly graphic and I don’t think the humor sustained the film over the entire 96 minutes.
I have a confession before I discuss the next film – I am an Anglophile and especially love British comedy. Therefore, it is no surprise that I loved Michael Winterbottom’s “The Trip.” This time, director Winterbottom reconnected with “24 Hour Party People” and “Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story’s” Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and put them into a road film.
Coogan plays a character with his same name but not autobiographical, who is hired to go on a tour of the north of England reviewing restaurants. Coogan’s girlfriend was supposed to go but didn’t and after calling several friends who can’t go, settles on Brydon (also playing a character named after himself). The two go driving around England having gentle competition over who does the best Michael Caine impersonation (absolutely hilarious); who does the best Sean Connery and Christopher Lee imitations.
This is a film in which a few side things happen in terms of character, but this is not a very deep, funny little British film. I loved it.
My last film of the day was a replacement of one of my 2 unfulfilled ticket picks: “22nd of May,” a Belgian film directed by Koen Mortier. It begins following a security guard at a shopping mall. He is outside when there is an explosion in the mall. He goes running into the mall, trying to pull out survivors until a piece of the ceiling falls. I may have been tired, but I didn’t get that the huge piece of concrete fell on the guard; all I remember is him suddenly running outside down city streets and being approached by several victims of the blast. A young woman asks why he didn’t see the bomber and save her infant son. Another man tells of his unrequited love for a shopkeeper; another man shows his sadness at being rejected by a woman. The guard, named Sam and played by Sam Louwyck, even learns about the bomber and why he did what he did.
Obviously, all of the characters are dead, but there are way to many scenes of characters walking down corridors, and at the center, I thought that Sam was a bit lazy and should have seen the kid coming into the mall with the bomb. Overall, this was a tedious film exercise. Or, I may have just been sleepy.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

My last day of film – three on the schedule; I’m getting tired. I liked the freedom for a few days but I miss The Indignant Family. Oh well, I’m almost done.
The first, was the highly touted “Black Swan” by Darren Aronofsky,. Aronofsky has directed films I liked a lot: “Pi,” “Pieces of a Dream,” and “The Wrestler;” and he has made a movie I despised “The Fountain” (I saw it at the Festival in 2006 and just hated it). This film stars Natalie Portman as the “good girl” once again, this time a ballerina who is with a world-class company. She auditions for the role of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake, but the company’s artistic director Victor Cassel sees the White Swan in Portman’s Nina, but doesn’t see the Black Swan. She is too repressed; not at all helped by her overbearing mother played by Barbara Hershey. Also, in a decent performance in a needless role is Winona Ryder as an older ballerina who is “retiring” and is not happy about it.
Portman’s Nina begins a friendship with another ballerina in the company Lila (Mila Kunis) and Lila is yang to Nina’s yin. Lila is often late, sloppy in dancing, but passionate; everything Nina is not. But Nina gets the starring role and tries to find the dark side of her character. But how much is reality, and how much is fantasy?
I have read of Oscar touts for Ms. Portman and Ms. Ryder, and I kind of see one for Ms. Portman, but Ms. Ryder’s part is very small and, while good, not exactly award material. The fans boys will want to see the lesbian scene between Ms. Portman and Ms. Kunis, but it wasn’t really erotic, and the film is too pretentious and stylistic to move me. I didn’t hate this film like I did “The Fountain,” but it definitely wasn’t my cup of tea. (And I have now decided – no more ballerina movies. I saw “The Company,” the late, great Robert Altman’s film about Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet company starring Neve Campbell, and I thought that it too was a pointless film about characters I didn’t care about. So no more ballerinas!)
The next film was the second film (after “Legend of the Film” which I wasn’t able to see) to hit my Must See list. Takashi Miike’s “13 Assassins” is yet another story of samurai in feudal Japan. Near the end of the age of samurai, a elder samurai is enlisted to deal with the demented son of the former Shogun, who is in line to take the throne after the current Shogun. The young lord rapes and kills with impunity because of his political connections. (He is one of the more loathsome film characters in some time, but has some connection to the thrill seeking people running around today.
Something has to be done, and so the elder samurai puts together a group of 11 more samurai and a man they encounter in the forest to kill the official and some 200 men. This film of course, reminds one of “Seven Samurai,” among other films, but it isn’t as deep a character study as Kurosawa’s film. Many of the group are not given many if any lines, but, as I said earlier, the lead samurai and his old friend, protector of the young lord, have quite a cat-and-mouse game, leading up to the final battle, a 45 minute ending that is skillfully shot, and satisfying to the audience. Again, this film is not for everyone, but for me, a lover of Asian cinema and of well done samurai films, this was a worthy addition to the genre.
My final film was the final ticket I was able to pick and once I saw the sparse crowd, I saw why I was able to get this film. As I said earlier, it was in the new Bell Lightbox building and the building was too sterile and blatantly artsy for me, but the theater was very nice. My last film was called “The Fourth Portrait,” a Taiwanese film by director Chung Mong-Hong.
It opens with the death of a man leaving his young son alone. The son tries to go about life normally, including going to school. But he is caught stealing a teacher’s lunch by the school’s janitor, who, it turns out, lost his family as a young man also. But the boy is sent to live with his mother, who is a hostess at a brothel, who is remarried to another man.
The boy’s life is changed; he never liked his mother who left him; his stepfather is ambivalent at best toward the boy; and the boy dreams of his older brother who mysterious disappeared some time ago. He meets an older boy who is engaged in odd jobs and petty theft. We learn more about the older boy; we learn more about the strained family relationships; and we find out what happened to the older brother.
But the story moves so slowly, and the boy says so little, that we have to wait and wait to see how the story resolves itself. Much is revealed, but the story has no real ending – the boy remains with the family, the mystery of the older brother is revealed by not solved; we find out about the older boy’s family; but ultimately, nothing changes. The film just… ends. I didn’t see the point.

So, that is my synopsis of this year’s film festival. To those newcomers and to those used to my annual summation, it is a tradition to list the films I saw this year in order of best to worst. Here is this year’s list:

1. 13 Assassins
2. The Trip
3. Wasted on the Young
4. The Way
5. The Conspirator
6. Cold Fish
7. Super
8. State of Violence
9. Late Autumn
10. 22nd of May
11. Black Swan
12. The Fourth Portrait

Tonight the NFL season begins, and to most cities with franchises, it is a time of hope and dreams of playing in Dallas in the Super bowl next February. But not here in Chicago – the franchise is a shambles. The offensive line is truly offensive; the quarterback seems to have regressed under the new offensive coordinator. The defense is injury-ridden. The special teams are anything but.
Despite tomorrow’s “Pep Rally” at Daley Plaza, most pundits project the Bears to finish no better than third in the NFC North division, and based on the preseason, they may be looking up at the Lions as well (we will learn more about that since the Bears host the Lions this Saturday).
To most fans, the prospects are not good ones. And if that happens, the first thing the Bears should (and probably will) be doing at super Bowl time is clearing house. GM Jerry Angelo has made too many mistakes. Coach Lovie Smith is too low-key and has lost the players. And finally, the honeymoon President Ted Phillips earned for negotiating the refurbishment of Soldier Field is over, and his head will roll along with Angelo and Smith.
It’s just a matter of time.

While there was great shock that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced earlier this week that he would not seek reelection, the news for me was good. Daley and his friends have bled this city dry for 21 years and the level of corruption has only increased since his father was in office, not decreased.
The Olympics was a huge fiasco; leasing the parking meters has been a greater one. I had said that my only regret in moving out of Chicago would not being able to vote against Daley in the next election. But he saved me the trouble. Although, it would have been fun to watch him lose; because people are pissed off and if there had been a viable candidate, he would have lost.
Unfortunately, there was no such candidate, and there still isn’t. There are reports of 10 aldermen who would like the job, but they are one of the cesspools of corruption that most Chicagoans would like to see cleaned up. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel has said that he was interested in the job after Daley was out. But he has been a lightning rod of controversy for the Obama administration, and isn’t enough of a local player to pull together a coalition to win.
And, who wants this job anyway? Huge budget deficits are being currently funded by savings and surpluses that were supposed to be for the future, but they are being depleted now. The nationwide economy is stagnant after the recent recession, and unless real, sustained growth occurs, either services will be cut, or taxes raised. After all, Ed Burke, Dick Mell, and the other aldermen still have plenty of friends and relatives who need to continue to bilk the city.

Who are the bigger idiots: Rev. Terry Jones or some Muslims? Jones is the moronic pastor of the Dove Center, who, despite calls from numerous places including the White House, has said he will proceed with his plan to burn copies of the Quran Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Among the warnings were that that going ahead could endanger U.S. troops and Americans worldwide.
CNN.com reported that Interpol has issued a global alert to its 188 member countries, warning of a “strong likelihood” of violent attacks if plans for the Quran burning proceed. Here in the U.S., the FBI warned local law enforcement that the burning could lead to hate crimes and encourage extremist rhetoric, although a federal law enforcement official said there was no credible information that attacks were planned.
First, this “Rev.” Jones, whose “church” reportedly has a total of 50 members, has gotten his wish; he is known all over the world. Of course, he is known for being a nutcase and a bigot, but to much of this country, he is one of them and to be hailed as a hero. But we can’t change the Tea Party.
And, what of the militant Muslims? I tell the Indignant Children that one of the signs of maturity is letting things go. The youngest, currently showing the worst signs of “the Terrible Twos” insists that everything is hers (“MINE” yelled incessantly). The older one argues that the toy/pillow/blanket is actually hers, but I am trying to get her to just going along, and then in 5 minutes, when the little one’s attention is focused on something else, take back the item and move on.
Now, there are some people just looking for a reason to be upset, and there’s little we can do for those people, but in actuality, if 50 yahoos want to burn some Qurans, and the rest of the country is denouncing it, wouldn’t it make more sense to just ignore them? It is like the murder of the cartoonist for showing the Prophet Muhammad; if you ignore it, it will go away, and if you believe that God is the ultimate judge of such things, let Him (Her?) exact righteous justice.
But instead, this small minded man is going on with his act; getting undue television coverage. Some people will be appalled; some will be angered; most of us will be going about our lives. Unfortunately, American soldiers may pay the price of this fool’s grandstanding. I wish the truly aggrieved parties: radical Muslims, just go after Jones and his followers. In fact, wouldn’t it just be better for fundamentalist Christians (you know, the unthinking, bigoted, Old Testament following, “let me cut the parts of the Bible that I don’t agree with” folks) and the fundamentalist Muslims just go somewhere, like say the Mojave Desert or better yet, the Moon, and just kill each other in the name of their God(s), and leave the Earth to people who are more rational in their beliefs (religious and otherwise)?