24th Toronto International Film Festival Coverage: Day Six
Day Six was a strange one. The day started off with a screening of Woody Allen’s terrific Sweet and Lowdown which stars Sean Penn and Uma Thurman. However, the great taste of that film was erased by the second screening, Evi Quaid’s High Expectations. The film, which stars Randy Quaid and Michael Caine, was excruciatingly painful.
Just before the screening someone connected with the film explained that this was an older print as the one that was edited by the editor of Four Weddings and a Funeral had been damaged a day before. Well unless they edited out all the flick between the opening and closing credits I can’t imagine how it could have been better. The audience started to thin scene after scene and when almost 50% of the audience was gone, my tolerance level was reached and I walked out of the screening too.
That screening was followed by the press conference for The Big Brass Ring with Miranda Richardson and William Hurt. Hurt’s not big on doing publicity, hates photos and came across as an arrogant boor.
Our fun level way down we headed over to the Gala Premiere of Sweet and Lowdown. We were greeted by a publicist who told us that Sean Penn had decided not to come and nobody else was expected. Okay. No fun there either.
A brief respite from the day’s dullness happened at the Uptown Cinemas when Harry Connick Jr. attended the premiere of his film Wayward Son.
As you would imagine, the premiere for The Big Brass Ring yielded more smiley face photos from the wacky William Hurt.
Topping off the wonderful day, Tim Roth arrived for the screening of The Legend of 1900. Though we managed to get a couple of shots, when he got closer to us he put his hand in our lens and said “No digital! No digital!” as if our cameras would steal his soul.
Sigh…