Inside TIFF 2012 Day 7: Blond Ambition

10:15 am – Today, four features: Blondie, In the House, Reality, and Post Tenebras Lux. Yesterday’s batch (with the Bloor Hot Docs venue messing up my schedule), yielded some decent features, the best of which was Berberian Sound Studio. With this and his first film, Katalin Varga, Peter Strickland proves himself to be one of the most exciting new directors to keep an eye. Dark, compelling, and intriguing—loved his latest. As for The Iceman, rather run of the mill but features a great performance from Michael Shannon—it’s always nice to see Ms. Ryder, though she doesn’t get much to do here. And Brian De Palma’s remake of Alain Corneau’s last film, Passion, wasn’t a terrible film, but it wasn’t altogether great either. And it’s not better than the original, which was already kind of like a pulpy thriller reworking of Working Girl. For one thing, McAdams is way too young to be playing Rapace’s boss (this was Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier, originally). The last five minutes of the film recall vintage De Palma, however, but the film can’t help but feeling like one of the campy 90’s thrillers that starred Rebecca De Mornay. [Nicholas Bell]

10:00 am – Today it is Liz Garbus’ doc film Love, Marilyn that takes center stage — an inside the life of Marilyn Monroe (via never-before-seen letters, diaries and notebooks) via the words of Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Burstyn, Glenn Close, Viola Davis, Jennifer Ehle, Lindsay Lohan, Lili Taylor, Uma Thurman, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. [Eric Lavallee]