34th Toronto International Film Festival Coverage: Day Six
Though the festival is starting to wind down, we still had a fun day of covering it.
Nicolas Cage and his wife joined director Werner Herzog at Ryerson for the première of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The film comes to Toronto with a little bit of controversy surrounding it. It’s essentially a remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, which starred Harvey Keitel. Herzog insists that apart from the crooked cop character, it’s not a remake. Ferrara told reporters at Cannes that he was upset about it and added that “I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.” Herzog then told reporters in Venice that “I don’t feel like doing an homage to Abel Ferrara because I don’t know what he did — I’ve never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is.” Maybe some day the two auteurs will make nice.
At the première of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, director Rebecca Miller joined her film’s stars Keanu Reeves and Robin Wright Penn on the carpet. The newly-single Ms. Wright wore a dress that definitely captured the attention of fans and press alike. Miller wrote and directed the film, which is based on her novel.
New stars like Michael Cera and Portia Doubleday walked the Youth in Revolt carpet, while the carpet for Vengeance featured French legend Johnny Hallyday. The “French Elvis” drew crowds of fans and photographers, who just wanted to make sure they had the veteran performer for their archives.