Toronto Film Festival
Here are some excellent titles chosen by our film critic, recently available for home viewing:
Miss Julie
The heat is rising on Midsummer’s Eve, 1890, on an Irish country estate as the lovely mistress of the manor (Jessica Chastain) thrusts herself at the handsome footman (Colin Farrell). Chastain manages to be wan and fragile as porcelain, yet simmering with desire; Farrell pushes his range as the articulate, impertinent servant. The script is acute and the scenario could have been staged as theater in Miss Julie’s dramatic study of class lines transgressed.
Judgment at Nuremberg
Director Stanley Kramer’s 1961 Oscar-winner, Judgment at Nuremberg, is one of the ultimate courtroom dramas. The verdict doesn’t merely concern one or two people. On trial are entire nations, the rule of law and the meaning of complicity in a society like Nazi Germany where every moral code was shattered. Flinty yet sympathetic Spencer Tracy heads one of the all-time A-List casts, with Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland giving brilliant performances.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
H.G. Wells’ early warning on the dangers of bioengineering and cellular manipulation, The Island of Dr. Moreau, became fodder for several films. The 1977 version (out on Blu-ray) isn’t half bad, building tension in the well-edited early scenes. Burt Lancaster is excellent as a megalomaniacal visionary frustrated in his efforts to manipulate the destiny of DNA. Michael York co-stars as the unwanted visitor who stumbles into his twisted experiment in transforming lower mammals into men.
