Film Festivals

Toronto International Film Festival Wrap Up: Part 2 – The Warm

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 09/21/2013
Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl in RUSH | ©2013 Imagine Entertainment

It’s time to re-evaluate what happened at the Toronto International Film Festival by dividing up the films into three categories. So here are the winners, losers and something in-between so just for fun I’ve broken them down into buzz terms, HOT, WARM and COLD. Part 2: THE WARM (BUZZ+CRITICAL REACTION+AUDIENCE COMMENTS) THE FIFTH ESTATE Warts and all Julian Assange / WikiLeaks story starring Benedict Cumberbatch. CONSENSUS: While it’s nice to see Bill Condon (GODS AND MONSTERS) not directing another TWILIGHT movie this was a mixed bag. Most applauded that he asked more question than he answered and praised Cumberbatch’s layered […]Read On »


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Toronto International Film Festival Wrap Up: Part 1 – The Hot

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 09/20/2013
12 Years Slave | ©2013 Fox Searchlight

Going into the Toronto International Film Festival armed with the buzz they received at the Telluride Film Festival the two big films were GRAVITY and 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Four days later is was still just GRAVITY and 12 YEARS A SLAVE. By festival’s end? You guessed it. This was in part because they’re both excellent films and because Toronto has very much become a ‘front loaded’ festival with the first weekend being all important. How front loaded was the festival? So much so that it was nearly a ghost town by mid week. So much so that Entertainment Weekly […]Read On »


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Film Festival: By the Numbers at THE 38th ANNUAL TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 09/13/2013
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in GRAVITY | ©2013 Warner Bros.

We’re just past the half way point for the 38th annual Toronto International Film Festival and its time to take stock. Here’s the countdown… (or is that count up?) 0: Number of personal letters Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) kept from his affair with an underage girl in THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. 2: Number of big buzz films so far. GRAVITY, the 3-D space epic with Sandra Bollock and George Clooney and 12 YEARS A SLAVE starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt. 2: Number of endings there are for AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, the big screen adaptation of the gritty play […]Read On »


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Festival Report: The Scoop on SXSW 2013 – Part 2

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 03/21/2013

With three festivals occurring simultaneously (film, music and interactive), it would be sheer madness to try and drive around downtown Austin Texas during SXSW. That leaves taxi cabs, pedicabs and the bus. Cabs can be tricky, pedicabs are known to overcharge, but for two bucks you can ride any Austin bus as many times as you want for 24 hours. And on the buses you meet the most interesting denizens.


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Interview: TOP OF THE LAKE actors Elisabeth Moss & Holly Hunter and producer Iain Canning on the new Sundance Channel mini-series

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN 03/19/2013
Elisabeth Moss in TOP OF THE LAKE | ©2013 Sundance Channel

TOP OF THE LAKE is a seven-hour miniseries about New Zealand police detective Robin Griffin, played by MAD MEN’s Elisabeth Moss, who finds herself dealing with her past as she investigates the disappearance of a pregnant twelve-year-old girl. Adding to the mystery is a women’s retreat, run by Holly Hunter’s character, the enigmatic G.J. Directed by Jane Campion, who previously helmed Hunter’s Oscar-winning performance in THE PIANO, and Garth Davis, and created and written by Campion and Gerard Lee, TOP OF THE LAKE debuts in a two-hour block on the Sundance Channel Monday at 9 PM, with the five subsequent […]Read On »


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Festival Report: The scoop on SXSW 2013 – Part 1

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 03/17/2013
SXSW 2013 logo

Listen up film festival cowboy and cowgirls, if this is your first time at the film festival rodeo they call SXSW (South By South West) you need to know a few things… 1) It’s not really one festival, it’s three. Film. Music. Interactive. And they overlap, overplay and overload. Film runs March 8th-12th, Interactive from the 8th-12th and Music from the 12th-17th. 2) The main events are held on the fabled sixth street where theaters and music halls collide with bars and restaurants. 3) There isn’t one convention center there’s two and they’re separated by a river. 4) Austin, the […]Read On »


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Desert Flower

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 01/16/2013

  Most film festivals like to wrap things up with a kind of ‘best of the fest’ summation. But what if a festival was the best of not just one fest but of many fests? Then they would be the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Now in its 24th year, Palm Springs’ festival is held January 3rd-14th and one could argue it’s the first big film festival of the year. But it’s not. Contrary to its date it’s really the last film festival of the year. Especially since Sundance starts a few weeks later and is the real official beginning […]Read On »


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Profile: The rundown on Hollywood’s AFI FILM FESTIVAL 2012

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 11/15/2012
AFI Fest Logo I ©2012 AFI

A proper, successful film festival these days needs a savvy combination of 1) Fresh Discoveries, 2) Unique Foreign Films, 3) a smattering of the Boldly Bizarre AND to get the crowds big enough to support all those mentioned, 4) Highbrow Hollywood Pictures. The 2012 AFI Film Festival held November 1st-08th worked all those elements into play with amazing ease. Now in its fourth year of just giving tickets away to screenings, the AFI Fest seems to have hit its groove. Screenings were right on Hollywood Blvd at the iconic Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the satellite cinemas Chinese 1-6 and the historic […]Read On »


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2012 Los Angeles Film Festival Wrap Up

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 07/11/2012
The L.A. Film Festival 2012 logo

Los Angeles is well known for a being a city of clashing cultures and this years LA Film Festival found its opening night film competing with the aftermath of the LA King hockey championship celebration. It all happened around the LA Live center that includes the mammoth Staples Center, Club Noikia and the LA Live Regal Cinemas. So if you’d come down on Thursday, June 14th you could have watched the Stanley Cup winning Kings parade down Figueroa St and then assemble in the Staples Center for a ticket only rally. If you like your entertainment a bit more cinematic […]Read On »


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2010 Toronto International Film Festival – The New Complex

By PAUL ZIMMERMAN 10/05/2010

Dateline Toronto September 9-18, 2010 I was wrong. I’ve been gleefully attending the Toronto International Film Festival for more than 20 years but when I heard they were assembling a festival entertainment complex I bitched. And I moaned. Much of the fun  and success of Toronto’s film festival is that it is sprawled all over town. By jumping from theater to theater and event to event you’re forced to learn all the wonders the city holds. I feared the new complex would consolidate the festival too much. I was wrong. Located at the corners of Kings and John St, the […]Read On »


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