Antichrist
From the TIFF website:
Ever since his first feature, The Element of Crime, played at Cannes in 1984, Lars von Trier has remained one of the most controversial figures in international cinema. That said, nothing he has done could possibly prepare people for the profoundly disturbing Antichrist.

The film follows an unnamed couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both of whom deliver extraordinary performances) as they deal with the loss of their infant son. She collapses at the funeral and is hospitalized, but her psychologist husband decides to care for her himself – and insists that she “deal” with her fears. When he learns that she’s terrified of their cottage, which they’ve forebodingly named Eden, he forces her to confront her terror of the place. It’s hardly paradise on earth. Few films have ever presented such a dark vision of the wilderness (even acorns are threatening).

My take:
Written and directed by Lars von Trier. He has several phobias, including fear of flying, he never flies. For this movie, he had no rehearsals. The actors showed up having memorized the script, and he would tell them to act. They wouldn’t even know where the camera was going to be. It was raw, and he managed to get the best out of his cast of stellar actors. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

The cinematography was amazing. The opening sequence alone would make an amazing stand-alone short film.

A large part of the movie consists just of two people talking to each other. But it grips you throughout.

Ultimately, when the shit hits the fan… it brings the fan down and clubs it to death. The fan doesn’t stand a chance against the shit that goes down in this movie.

This is the kind of movie that scares you, but you don’t know why. Theres nothing there that should be scary. Never before has a shot of the wind rustling through the trees produced this much trepidation in me.

Von Trier dedicated this movie to Andrei Tarkovsky. You can tell Tarkovsky has been a heavy influence on the writer / director.

Like many others, this is the kind of movie you should watch in one sitting. Don’t go answer the phone, get popcorn, feed the kids etc during this movie. It casts a spell, and you should sit through it, to appreciate it.

Willem Dafoe from the Q&A: “All that Lars asked me to do to prepare for this movie was to watch Tarkovsky’s The Mirror.”

I saw Willem Dafoe leaving the cinema after the movie. He was really nice to his fans, everyone who wanted an autograph got one, and he posed for a picture with whoever asked him. A lot of actors don’t do that, they kind of just ignore the fans.

Random Guy in crowd: “Hey thats the Spiderman guy!”

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Jennifer’s Body

From the TIFF website:
According to Jennifer’s Body, high school isn’t the best time of one’s life. It’s actually hell on earth, awash with teenaged angst, hormones and fountains of blood. Penned by Juno scribe Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama (responsible for the acclaimed Girlfight), Jennifer’s Body is the shocking flipside to Cody’s slacker teen romance.

BFFs since the sandbox but complete opposites, Jennifer (Megan Fox) is a scorching-hot, boy-crazy cheerleader, while Needy (Amanda Seyfried) is a shy nerd content with her first love, the cute and sensitive geek Chip (Johnny Simmons). Needy tags along to the local roadhouse bar, where Jennifer plans to score with a touring indie group’s lead singer (Adam Brody). The plan literally goes up in flames as a deadly fire rips through the watering hole. Among the survivors are a dazed Jennifer, who is “rescued” by the band and pulled into the tour van, and Needy. As the small town copes with the tragedy, Jennifer reappears with an insatiable hunger for the succulent flesh of her male admirers. Discovering her friend’s diabolical transformation, Needy sets out to rescue the town and save the prom from becoming a demon’s bloody buffet.

My take:
This was more than your average high-school horror. The dialogue, written by catholic schoolgirl turned stripper turned journalist turned oscar winning (for Juno) screenwriter Diablo Cody was edgy. It made the movie watchable.

Megan Fox was cool, she did well as the bitchy hot girl, you really hated her. Amanda Seyfried was the real star though.

Paraphrasing Diablo Cody, from the Q&A after the movie: “This movie has the only sex scene I’ve seen in which the words ‘put it in’ are used. In all the other movies, in all the other sex scenes, nobody puts it in. It somehow magically glides in. If nothing else, thats my contribution to cinema.”