Stream & Savor: Check Out These TIFF 2024 Hits Streaming In Your Living Room! #CouchWorthy
Will Ferrell & Pharrell Williams are two different people...make sure your mind knows that.
Yo…
Last weekend of TIFF 2024. Hip Hop Hooray!
As the red carpets are rolled up and the city resumes it’s natural ebb and flow…here’s where you can see 5 (technically 4…) TIFF movies on streamers.
Buzz without access is worthless.
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Some noteworthy news…#SetTheVCR (kinda) for:
Deadline is reporting Ben Stiller’s Nutcrackers has been acquired by Hulu. Hulu will release it for Christmas. The nutcrackers are the four rowdy kids Ben Stiller gets saddled with. It’s…heartwarming.
The Piano Lesson will stream on Netflix on November 22. Produced by Denzel Washington and directed by Malcolm Washington, yes his son. “Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor.”
Faithless is a six-part TV limited series from director Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). It’s Swedish for common sense and lots of European nudity. Which is expected since it’s the saga of a spicy affair.
(I saw the first two episodes…excellent smoky jazz soundtrack. And the story is adapted from Ingmar Bergman’s unproduced screenplay. Subtitles, jazz and Ingmar Bergman, so classy.)
Will & Harper is set to stream on September 27 on Netflix. This is the Will Ferrell road trip documentary.
I did see Saturday Night, the SNL biopic and I saw the Ontario Place documentary: Your Tomorrow. (I actually interviewed Ali Weinstein the Your Tomorrow director, so stay tuned for that.)
Shortly after I send this I’m off to Edward Burns’ latest movie: Millers in Marriage. I’m not entirely sure what it’s about but let’s give it a shot, shall we?
Your turn to share; comments are below:
Did you TIFF it up? What do recommend from this year’s festival?
What are your X-Factors when you decide to put on pants and go see a movie?
Who would win a fight: Toronto International Film Festival or The Tribeca Film Festival?
Now then: here’s 5 TIFF movies you may have heard about that’ll soon be on streamers if you want to #SetTheVCR.
I’m focusing on the all music ones because it’s cool to groove and do your thing.
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🎥 SAMMY SUGGESTION: THE TRAGICALLY HIP: NO DRESS REHEARSAL
Director: Mike Downie
Streaming TV Date: Prime Video on September 20
Why #CouchWorthy?
The Tragically Hip kicked off TIFF 2024! Way back on Day 1: I emerged from a TIFF screening and I quickly ran into my photographer-friend Henry VanderSpek who is chilling with some of his photographer friends.
His f-stop pals got various fun festival assignments shooting famous folks: Demi Moore and all that.
After exchanging names and handshakes: we’re just cool dudes hanging out talking about the festival. We're not far from Roy Thomson Hall’s back entrance.
(We’re technically loitering, but we’re all too old to properly loiter.)
Then: out of the busy crowd we start to see a ripple effect. Ah: somebody famous is coming through. Step lively, plebs.
First thing we see is dudes in those Men’s Wearhouse Suits parting crowds as easily as Moses parts the Red Sea.
Followed by. Oh. Really? Yep. It’s Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada.
One of the shutterbugs, Saul, reaches out with his hand: “Hey Justin!” They shook hands and security whisked the Canadian-Prez away and into the back entrance of Roy Thomson Hall.
Good on Saul for breaking our stunned freeze. Justin was there to open TIFF and to Tool Time Salute The Tragically Hip.
(As Justin walked past us, about 2 or 3 blocks over on John St. Choir! Choir! Choir! were leading a Tragically Hip singalong. What a bizarre collision of Canadian cultures. Are we supposed to go eat poutine, now?!)
Another odd Canadian heritage encounter?
Back in 2001, Gord Downie released Coke Machine Glow his first solo album. I ended up working on the crew shooting the live special…think it was for CBC? I can’t remember where the special ended up.
I was working with the jib operator. My task was spotter...make sure the jib didn’t land on a person or hit anything on the set.
Anyways, after the audience left, show is all done, we’re (as in the crew) packing up the gear…Gord came back out to hang with the crew…telling us funny Kingston sailing stories. Cool.
The Tragically Hip is the most Canadian band name of all time. And this is their story.
🎥 SAMMY SUGGESTION: PIECE BY PIECE
Director: Morgan Neville
Streaming TV Date: I dunno…
Why #PantsWorthy?
I’m cheating here as Piece by Piece will not be streaming…soon. However, it will open wide on October 11. And yes: you need to go.
Piece by Piece is a beautiful ode to creativity and the potency of imagination. Basically? It’s Pharrell.
The Get Lucky into Happy segment left me verklempt. Yo. There are profound moments though most of the darkness is kept at bay as this as…after all a Lego movie.
At my Q & Eh? following a TIFF screening Pharrell freely offered this insight: “Lego gave me the texture to be seen as a Black man.” It’s so odd yet he’s 100% right: Pharrell’s humanity, Pharrell’s Blackness, Pharrell’s soul and Pharrell’s essence…all that make him Pharrell shine bright through the Lego.
You need to see this movie. Bring the kids.
🎥 SAMMY SUGGESTION: FANATICAL: THE CATFISHING OF TEGAN AND SARA
Director: Erin Lee Carr
Streaming TV Date: Hulu & Disney+ Canada on October 18
Why #CouchWorthy?
High School is a 2019 memoir by twin sisters Sara Quin and Tegan Quin, aka Tegan and Sara. It was published on September 24, 2019 and as you can tell from the title: it recounts their childhood and adolescence in Alberta plus their musical beginnings.
That biography was adapted into a TV limited series biopic in 2022 for Amazon Freevee. I’ve not seen the TV series not read the book. Though, Tegan and Sara have some fresh tunes…still: as this documentary can attest they’re not made for me.
Tegan and Sara’s sonic success allowed them to establish an online safe space especially for LGBTQ+ women. In practice it all sounds noble. The reality was a horror movie.
A catfisher—known as “Fegan”—pretended to be Tegan online. This anonymous con artist built fake relationships with fans, shared false personal details, and stirred up chaos in their tight-knit community.
Again this is a social media problem but this isn’t the standard criticisms of short attention spans or teenage girls fashionably picking up eating disorders. Online communities can connect us to the celebrities we enjoy and whose work we admire but…we’re not friends.
It’s all a lie and an illusion. You could very well be the No. 1 fan but that don’t mean anything. We want to connect with these people so badly and that desire leaves us vulnerable and open to be taken advantage of.
In this case…this is what happened. (My primary online rule has never changed from Day 1: if I don’t know you I cannot trust you. I’m keeping my wallet in the my front pocket so I don’t get pickpocketed.)
🎥 SAMMY SUGGESTION: ROAD DIARY: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND
Director: Thom Zimny
Streaming TV Date: Hulu & Disney+ Canada on October 25
Why #CouchWorthy?
At TIFF I saw on the same day: Piece by Piece and Paul Anka: His Way.
In the morning movie Pharrell said relevancy is a drug. He’s acknowledging there’s a massive difference between being relevant and being popular. (Relevancy is damn hard to do. Popularity is easy, just scan TikTok.)
Then in the evening documentary; Paul Anka just over 80 years old and still actively touring and recording reflects on his life and his work…why hasn’t he retired by now? He concludes; it’s like a junkie with a needle in his arm.
Relevancy is a drug. To that list add Bruce Springsteen who is well into his 70s despite a number of health issues. Road Diary isn’t the story of a tour…rather it’s the preparation to go out on the road.
He’s firing up the E Street Band as a machine that needs to be warmed up. That prompts Bruce looking ahead as well as looking back.
Variety reporting from TIFF said: “Throughout the film and in the post-screening Q&A, though, the 74-year-old rocker stressed that he doesn’t plan to hang up his guitar any time soon. He wants to keep rocking until “the wheels come off.”
“If I went tomorrow, it’s OK,” Springsteen told the crowd to loud applause. “What a fucking ride!”
Undaunted, you keep going. The road…The Work is a phone call and I’m ecstatic these delightful dudes continue to pick up on the first ring.
🎥 SAMMY SUGGESTION: ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE
Director: R.J. Cutler & David Furnish
Streaming TV Date: Disney+ on December 13
Why #CouchWorthy?
Elton John gets a Last Dance.
Back in high school English, the cheat was to watch a movie adapted from an assigned book…especially the Shakespeare junk.
So, if you didn’t read Me Elton John’s official autobiography from 2019 this documentary is the movie version to avoid reading the book.
All the stunning visuals of a flamboyant life that only Elton John could live. It’s Elton John. That’s it. What else can be said? Cue Almost Famous…
“The grace God has shown me after years of being pompous is beautiful.”
A Pharrell quote from the Q & Eh? following my Piece by Piece screening. I appreciate he took the time to openly discuss grace.
What was disappointing however was my TIFF crowd.
Piece by Piece is layered with the beats and music Pharrell has crafted over decades of work. Hollaback Girl, Drop Like It’s Hot, Blurred Lines, Happy, Get Lucky, Grindin and more. So much more! And yet…
Nobody moved.
Nobody danced.
Nobody cheered.
Rump Shaker is the anthem and nobody fist pumped.
That’s not right. If things are not adding up change the equation: move, dance and sing.
TIFF 2024 has gone from #PantsWorthy to #CouchWorthy…
Sammy Younan
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Sammy Younan is the affable host of My Summer Lair podcast: think NPR’s Fresh Air meets Kevin Smith: interviews & impressions on Pop Culture.