Hey folks, Harry here with our green feathered friend, Plucky, reporting in from a long bill in Toronto about the 'other' Kevin Spacey film up there... plus another look at Tim Roth's apparently brilliant but since there is not a single American distributor with the balls to distribute it... it will be relegated to the festival circuit for all eternity. Possibly a future nominee for Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival... We'll see...

THE BIG KAHUNA - TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL

I had the opportunity to see The Big Kahuna, the other Kevin Spacey flick, which he also produced, incidentally. It is about travelling salesman, three of them specifically, in the course of about 24 hours. It is actually a screenplay from a stage play, but you'll have to forgive me, because I don't remember the writer or director. The salesmen are played by Kevin Spacey of course, Danny Devito and Peter Facinelli (Can't Hardly Wait). The premise is, basically, the three of them work for the same company, and they are in Wichita, Kansas to throw a business party in one of the hotel convention rooms. There is one particular client that Kevin Spacey desperately wants to attend, who he calls 'the big kahuna'. I was expecting a sort-of Glengarry Glen Ross type of story, about the competitive nature of being a salesman, but strangely enough, it is actually quite philosophical, with the three characters representing three different possible outlooks (spiritually) of, I guess, the modern man. There is the young idealist, the weathered fighter, and the defeated, questioning man. There is also this religious subtext through the whole thing, and I guess you can read into it whatever you want as to what or who 'the big kahuna' represents. Kevin Spacey is a bit over the top through the first half, but as the story progresses, you really get to see other aspects of his character that were not revealed in the first half. Both Danny Devito and Peter Facinelli gave solid performances. I was particularly impressed with the way Peter Facinelli held up with the other two, considering his last performance was Jennifer Love Hewitt's mean boyfriend in Can't Hardly Wait. Not much of an opportunity to show your stuff there. And if they ever need to cast someone as Tom Cruise's little brother in something, I think he's the man. Incidentally, all three cast members were there, and Kevin Spacey is exactly as cool as you think he is. He looked like a million bucks. But you already knew that. They were all very gracious and participated in the question and answer period after the screening.

THE WAR ZONE

I know there were already reviews of The War Zone previously on AIC, but I thought I would jump in and say a couple more words about it. If you think you don't want to see a movie about incest, and it just seems too dark and gloomy a film to go see, I would suggest you give this movie a try anyway. It is a really wonderful film. Yes, it is disturbing and sometimes hard to watch, but the performances are just so good and Tim Roth's direction is so wonderfully restrained, it really stands out as a unique film. It is even more impressive to learn the two young actors in the film that play brother and sister had no acting experience before this. By the way, Tim Roth himself was so delightul and funny. He was full of energy and eager to answer questions and asked for audience input regarding some of the ambiguities in the story, while clearly stating that you leave the film filling in some of the blanks for yourself. He purposely left the story with certain questions because he felt he would have not done his job had everyone agreed on the outcome, but rather leave it open for debate.

That's it...

Plucky in Toronto