Your Guide to the Toronto Film Festival
A week from today, the Toronto International Film Festival gets underway. It may not be as prestigious as Cannes or as star-studded as Sundance, but it's arguably the most important festival that happens all year. For one thing, it's a gathering place for many of the movies that will be part of the Oscar conversation this year, bringing in the best of Cannes while also including many of the most anticipated movies that will premiere at Venice and Telluride a week earlier. Put it this way: If you only had one festival to attend to get a sense of how awards season will shape up, you'd pick Toronto.
The festival was first held in 1976, and this year it will serve host to movies from 65 countries. There are going to be 268 feature films and 68 shorts as part of the 11-day event, which doesn't even include the panel discussions and filmmaker interviews that go on as well. No wonder critics get positively stressed out trying to put together their screening schedules: It's not a question of seeing enough good stuff but figuring out how to cram it all in without going brain dead. Screenings can start as early as 8 a.m., and the Midnight Madness sections (devoted to horror and other genre pictures) don't get done until around 2 a.m. It's very easy to see five films a day every day of the festival and still feel like you only got a glimpse of all that was on display.
Even if you can't go, we don't want you to feel like you missed out on the important Toronto films. The Projector will be at the festival, and we'll be filing reviews, but right now let's take a look at one big movie that will be screening per day. Things can always change between now and the end of the festival -- there are always those sleeper surprises that come out of nowhere and become a huge sensation -- but here's what's intriguing us as of right now:
Thursday, September 8
The festival kicks off with one of its biggest Oscar contenders at 12:30 pm (all times Eastern). That would be "Moneyball" (starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill), which tells the true story of Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, who took on much richer baseball teams like the New York Yankees to build a Bay Area playoff contender. This screening is the film's world premiere, and right now expectations are high for the drama, which is directed by Bennett Miller ("Capote"). By around Thursday afternoon, we'll know if it's a legitimate Oscar player or just a movie that has Pitt in it.
Friday, September 9
What is Roland Emmerich, the director of "2012" and "The Day After Tomorrow," doing at Toronto? He'll be presenting "Anonymous," his change-of-pace historical thriller that investigates the conspiracy theory that Shakespeare didn't actually write all those great plays. Emmerich's never been someone known for his thoughtful, nuanced films -- he blows stuff up -- so the inclusion of "Anonymous" at the festival is an intriguing head-scratcher. Has he made his masterpiece? Will the movie be the laughing stock of Canada? One of the great things about Toronto is that, at this point, it could be either -- which is what makes it so fun.
Saturday, September 10
Hope you didn't stay out too late Friday night, because Saturday's big world premiere is at nine in the morning. "The Descendants" is director Alexander Payne's long-awaited follow-up to "Sideways" and stars George Clooney as a father and husband trying to put his life back together. Its familiarity might make it work -- the movie almost sounds like a riff on Payne's "About Schmidt" that instead of Jack Nicholson features Clooney's trademark life-has-beaten-me-down persona -- but critics may feel that we've seen this before from these two guys.
Sunday, September 11
Can you make a comedy about cancer? That's been the question hounding "50/50," a daring mix of unhappy subject matter and bromance-style laughs. The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who gets the cancer diagnosis and decides to start living life. His buddy is Seth Rogen, who's also one of the film's producers. It's a delicate tightrope act these guys will be walking with this film. If it works, it'll be a thing of beauty. If it doesn't, it'll just validate the I-told-you-so crowd that will insist that, really, you shouldn't make a comedy about cancer.
Monday, September 12
Director Luc Besson is known for stylish action films like "The Professional" and "La Femme Nikita," but he has tried his hand at a biopic. Unfortunately, that turned out to be "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc," which was a critical and commercial dud. But that was 12 years ago: He's back with "The Lady," which looks at the life of Aung San Suu Kyi (played by Michelle Yeoh), the Burmese opposition leader who was placed under house arrest by the government over the course of several years. "The Lady" is supposed to be more than a straight biopic, focusing on her relationship with her husband Michael Aris (David Thewlis). That's a heavy movie for 8:30 in the morning, but it also could be a great one.
Tuesday, September 13
By Tuesday, most films have had their world premiere, so you can start thinking about movies you missed that you want to make sure you catch up with. Which brings us to "Into the Abyss," the new documentary from Werner Herzog, the man responsible for "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" and "Grizzly Man." "Into the Abyss" explores a triple homicide in Texas and features an interview with the murderer just days before his execution. And in typical Herzog fashion, he touches on everything -- even the phenomenon of "death-row groupies."
Wednesday, September 14
Writer-director Lynn Shelton's "Humpday" was one of the most insightful and affecting indie films of the last few years, looking at marriage and male friendship with a casual brilliance. (Too bad a lot of people just know it as "that movie where the dudes make a gay porn.") Shelton's new film is "Your Sister's Sister," and it's about a young man (Mark Duplass) reeling from the death of his brother and falling for his brother's ex-girlfriend (Emily Blunt). That sounds emotionally delicate, which is something Shelton has proved to be quite adept at handling. There aren't any clips of "Your Sister's Sister" available yet, so here's the trailer for "Humpday" if you haven't seen it.
Thursday, September 15
After a long hiatus, director Francis Ford Coppola has started making movies again of late. Those films -- "Youth Without Youth" and "Tetro" -- haven't been wholly successful, but the man's legacy is such that it's impossible to deny an interest in whatever he makes next. That will be "Twixt," which, according to the program notes, "charts the descent into the mind of a tortured writer [played by Val Kilmer] as he slips into a dream world where imagination meets deep-seated fear." We always thought Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" was underrated, so we're hopeful he can deliver another superb Gothic horror film. We have to admit, though, this trailer makes us nervous.
Friday, September 16
Indie filmmakers the Duplass brothers started moving into the mainstream with their third offering, "Cyrus," and they're back with "Jeff, Who Lives at Home," which is another star-studded affair. This comedy features Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Susan Sarandon, and its plot sounds extremely meta: Segel plays a guy who goes out on an errand and decides to let fate determine his every move. The directors haven't released a clip yet, so we'll take this opportunity to show you a trailer from our favorite of the Duplass brothers' films, "The Puffy Chair."
Saturday, September 17
By this point in the festival, most critics have gone home, which gives everyone still there a chance to relax and seek out things that just seem interesting. No film in Toronto qualifies as more adventurous than "The Story of Film: An Odyssey." If that title seems pretty all-encompassing and imposing, you don't know the half of it: This 15-hour documentary seeks to chronicle the entire history of cinema, from silent to the present. As part of the film, director Mark Cousins (which is adapting his own book) talks to everyone from Roman Polanski to Wim Wenders to Gus Van Sant. Toronto is showing the film in installments -- again, it's 900 minutes long -- but that's still a lot shorter and cheaper than going to film school.
