Toronto is stuffed with celebrities and films worthy of praise
Danny Glover in Honeydripper
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- In five days of intense moviegoing and star watching, the first half of the Toronto International Film
Festival has earned a big thumbs up. The films that have impressed so far include the Coen Brothers' wonderful return to Blood Simple-like form with No Country For Old Men starring Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones. Early in day two, I found the new terrorist/CIA torture-themed film
Rendition starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal highly watchable.
Jodie Foster will be hitting a few buttons with her film The Brave One (opening this Friday), which tries so hard to be more than an exploitation revenge film, but presents a lot of scenes that
might get action fans riled up and cheering. There is also the fine drama about corrupt business people, murder and the men
trying to expose them, Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney in the title role.
Tuesday morning began with a terrific effort from John Sayles, Honeydripper, a 1950 period piece set in the deep south, starring the always wonderful Danny Glover as the owner of a roadhouse, Charles
Dutton as his best buddy, and Stacy Keach as the local sheriff. It's a delightful blend of character-driven storytelling and
foot-stomping music.
The sheer volume of films, stars, journalists and hype-generating industry mavens is pretty much overwhelming. The trick is
to stay cool, even when standing in a hallway for an hour waiting to get into a room to hear George Clooney pontificate (which
he does very well, by the way) about his new film. The films with big stars will sell themselves. Then there is a movie, like
Juno, director Jason Reitman's follow-up to Thank You For Smoking. It is the first movie that really popped for me. About a smartass and practical 16-year-old (Ellen Page) who finds out she
is pregnant, the movie is a funny mix of tasty dialogue, a fabulous ensemble of actors (Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, J.K.
Simmons, Allison Janney) and a talented director on a roll. This movie will be coming to a cinema near you shortly. Don't
miss it.
Helen Hunt, who hasn't been on screen often enough in the last few years, makes her directorial debut with Then She Found Me. Hunt smartly realized that if you are going to make a chick flick, put the call out to Bette Midler to play the mother that
gave you up for adoption 39 years earlier.
Sigourney Weaver gives a remarkable performance in The Girl in the Park, about a woman who has survived, but has never really gotten over, losing her three-year-old daughter in a city park 16 years
earlier. Weaver and great Toronto performances are a regular event. Last year she was fabulous in the underappreciated Snowcake.
Renny Harlin's new film Cleaner is an intriguing, character-driven murder mystery with Samuel L. Jackson taking the title role of a man who cleans crime
scenes. The movie doesn't completely sustain the excellence of its first half, but it is still a good thriller worth looking
for when it arrives at the multiplex.
The Toronto Fest is also very much about enjoying a taste of international cinema that probably won't make it across the border.
Mad Detective, a cop thriller from Hong Kong, is a little too weird for American audiences (the cop is literally loco, not angry), but
it was a fun jaunt into another culture. The same can be said for Brick Lane, a British-made drama about a Pakistani neighborhood in London that gives us insight into a culture that survives in the
middle of some hostility from the English residents, especially after 9/11. It is also a sweet love story.
This is exactly why I spend my working vacation every year at the Toronto International Film Festival. The 35th TIFF takes place this year from Sept. 9-19. This will be my 23rd trip to cover the global cinematic feast. The festival has grown from an understated, unpretentious celebration of emerging filmmakers, to a film festival that officially launches the Oscar buzz season
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