“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”(***)
Directed by Sidney Lumet

This fall is going to feel more and more like the seventies as we are getting new films from a trio of great directors of that golden era in American cinema: Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet and Brian De Palma. We’ll also see a brilliant new documentary from Jonathan Demme about the U.S. President who closed out the seventies under heavy criticism for a hostage crisis situation he could not resolve. The Coppola film, “Youth Without Youth,” is not in Toronto, but I am anxiously awaiting a press screening as it is Coppola’s first work in ten years as a director.

Sidney Lumet has been far more active but often with mixed results. The last truly great film he made was “The Verdict” in 1982, though in the fifteen years between he has certainly made some interesting films. His greatest works were in the 70s when he directed such films as “Serpico,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network,” “Equus” and into the 80s with “Prince of the City,” “The Verdict” and the criminally under-appreciated “Daniel.”

Through his career, which now spans six decades, Lumet has directed just about every major actor and actress, guiding some of the strongest performances ever put on film including Henry Fonda in “12 Angry Men,” Katherine Hepburn in “Long Day’s Journey into Night”, Rod Steiger in “The Pawnbroker”, Al Pacino twice in “Serpico” and again in “Dog Day Afternoon,” William Holden, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, Ned Beatty, Robert Duvall, and Beatrice Straight in “Network,” Richard Burton and Peter Firth in “Equus” and Paul Newman in “The Verdict.” He is a master craftsman, one of the greatest directors in the history of the cinema, and at 83, he’s still going strong.

Lumet’s latest film, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” is fresh and alive, a nasty tale of a robbery gone horribly wrong, unfolding like a grand tragedy, almost Shakespearean in its execution. Andy (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) are brothers, one reasonably successful, though stealing from his company, and the other not. They devise the robbery of a mom and pop jewelry store hoping to make a fast few thousand dollars, the catch being it is their parents’ store. The robbery goes as wrong as it could possibly go and their mother is killed in the shootout that was never supposed happen. Panicking, they do everything to cover their tracks, but Hank has involved outside parties who want to be compensated for their losses. Thrown into the mix is the fact Hank is sleeping with Andy’s neglected wife Gina (Marisa Tomei) who is simply fed up with her husband. When their grieving father, Charles (Albert Finney), starts poking around in their lives, he discovers that his sons were involved and the whole thing becomes a terrible nightmare for the family.

The performances in this film are superb, in particular Hawke’s as the terrified brother who knows he is responsible for his mother’s death and now fears being killed himself for his part in this entire mess. Hoffman is equal to him in every frame as the calculating, much colder brother who is upset his mother was killed, but really does not see it as his fault. Marisa Tomei has never before been this sexy or wounded; I loved every minute she was on screen. If there is anything I had trouble with it was Albert Finney’s slack-jawed father, though admittedly the performance grew in power over the course of the film. I wondered why he spent the first half of the film with his mouth open looking like an idiot. The slap on the face he delivers to Hoffman seems to wake him up and from that point on he is outstanding.

Nothing nice happens in this film, it is as bleak as they get, but well-told and nicely acted with Lumet’s direction superb.

“Man From Plains” (*****)
Directed by Jonathan Demme

Documentaries seem to be having something of heyday over the last decade, many enjoying mainstream success, with major filmmakers stepping into the role of director. Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Werner Herzog are just three directors who have gone the doc route to extraordinary acclaim. Lee was sadly ineligible for Academy Award recognition last year by not for his stunning efforts in “When the Levees Broke,” simply the greatest doc I have ever seen.

Jonathan Demme goes the way of non-fiction with “Man From Plains,” one of the best films of the festival this year, following former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his 2006 book tour for his best seller “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” which was acclaimed in some quarters and condemned in others. Though Carter’s presidency was tainted by his failure to get American hostages out of Iran, he makes clear here his thinking that rather than kill tens of thousands, including the hostages, he chose the more peaceful route and though that choice often made him look soft, in the years since, he has looked more and more like a great President and man of peace.

Indeed, Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in bringing peace to the world. The film documents his tour, beginning at home in Georgia where he attends church and barbeques, posing for endless photographs for those who love him, and then moves around the United States promoting his book, making television and radio appearances, always smiling, and certainly willing to take on anyone who challenges his beliefs in the book.

Carter comes across as a very intelligent, well-read, laser-sharp man who, in his 80s, may be in his prime. Along the way he discusses his 61-year marriage to the love of his life, poetry, his mother, history and religion and of course his thoughts on the presidency of current leader George W. Bush, who like many Americans, Carter has very little use for. I felt at the end of the film I knew Carter, and certainly had found a profound respect for the man emerging while watching the movie, and wished, oh how I wished that this man was in office right now. If he was, would we be Iraq? The film is an insightful, probing effort that is a frontrunner for best documentary feature of the year.

“Redacted” (****)
Directed by Brian De Palma

“Casualties of War” was a dark, troubling, unsettling film set in Vietnam about a squad denied liberty, who decide to kidnap a young Vietnamese girl for their sexual pleasure. They take her out of her bed, from her home while her mother weeps and hands her a scarf, take her into the jungle where they rape her for several days, brutalize her and then kill her. Only one refuses to take part and reports his buddies when they return, finally seeing them court marshaled for their actions.

The incident was true, first written about in 1969, and read by Brian De Palma who waited 20 years to make the film, casting Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox. The film is one of the finest studies of the madness in Vietnam, but audiences shied away from the all too real horror, making it of course one of the most authentic studies of that war. The late Pauline Kael hailed the film as a masterpiece, but one is hard pressed to find anyone who has seen it. I believe it to be, along with “Blow Out,” the finest work of De Palma’s career.

He too makes a profound comeback with “Redacted,” an angry, ferocious new film shot on digital video with the look of a documentary about a squad of soldiers in Samarra caught in the middle of a civil war and the madness of the war in the Middle East. Like the misguided young men in “Casualties of War,” they too take a young girl from her home and rape her repeatedly, but then murder her entire family to cover their tracks. What we see is unsettling and horrifying, as De Palma’s camera goes for the ultimate in truths. We listen to YouTube confession from soldiers who have been in the war, watch juxtaposing images that offer different points of view, but are never far from the nightmare of what these young men have done. There is a stunning moment at the end of “In the Valley of Elah” in which a clear-eyed young soldier speaks about going to food after committing a heinous act, and I was constantly thinking about that while watching this film. Are they merely trained to be killers and not given an off switch, or is it possible to give one an off switch?

There is something vital and immediate about this film, as though the soul of the young woman murdered was screaming from her grave for justice, a justice that may never come. A powerful and often frightening film, “Redacted” is among the most fearsome studies of war put on the screen.

I first became aware of Ellen Page while watching her astonishing performance in “Hard Candy” in 2005. She portrayed a vengeful young teen out to get (and I mean get) a photographer who may be a pedophile. Page dominated the film with a confidence I had not seen in an actress so young since Jodie Foster in “Taxi Driver.” She is a tiny little thing, looking much younger than her twenty years, but is one of those wise young people who seem older than their years simply by the manner in which they carry themselves.

Roger Ebert has already called for her to get an Oscar nomination for her stunning performance in “Juno,” the new film from director Jason Reitman, and it just might happen as Page all but burns a hole in the screen with her galvanizing performance. As Juno, Page portrays a young girl who tries sex on a lark and gets pregnant. Her dumb-as-a-hammer boyfriend has no clue as to what is going on around him, which makes one wonder why she would bother with him, and her parents react with the appropriate horror. Yet nothing is as it seems here, including the young couple who decide they will adopt the baby once Juno has given birth.

In strong supporting roles are the sublime Allison Janney as Juno’s mother and Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the bizarre couple that are going to adopt the child. However, as good as they are (and they are superb), make no mistake; this film belongs to the astounding Ellen Page. To quote an old timer from Hollywood, “a star is born”

“Cassandra’s Dream” (***)
Directed by Woody Allen
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Woody Allen. What to make of this career rebirth?

Having recovered from the scandal that rocked his life in the early nineties when he was found to be having an affair with one of his lover’s adopted children, Soon Yi, whom he has since married, Allen seems to be undergoing some sort of renaissance.

Now in his seventies, one of the most acclaimed writer and directors in the history of the cinema has made a career out of writing from within, creating some of the finest films ever made. Allen’s best works, “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Bullets Over Broadway,” contain finely written roles for men and women, usually stronger for the ladies, and tend to be astute studies of life and relationships. He is arguably the greatest screenwriter in film history, and without argument one of the greatest directors. To his credit, Allen has continued to evolve over the years, despite an output of a film a year, sometimes two. “Match Point,” his devilishly clever thriller with Scarlett Johansson was a return to form for the master in 2005 and a break from New York as the backdrop for his films, seeming to change up his creativity with a new landscape in London, England.

Allen’s newest film, “Cassandra’s Dream,” is not a comedy but a tragedy of the highest order, nicely acted by Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell, two of the oddest Allen stars ever. Both do excellent work for the director.

Cast as two young brothers, men trying to make their way in life by dubious means, of course it is going to end badly, how else can a tragedy end? Their involvement with their jet-setting Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) will divide the brothers forever and bring them to the realization that good old Uncle Howard is not such a nice man. Wilkinson is again brilliant (when is he not?) and the film again breaks Allen from his best known genre of romantic comedy allowing him, at 70, to stretch those creative muscles.

A final non-review note: much is being made here over the subject matter in “Nothing is Private,” a film I have not yet seen and may not due to schedule issues. Apparently there is a sequence in which an adult has sex with a 13 year old girl, portrayed however by a 19 year old actress. Walkouts have been by the dozen and now the film is in trouble with some critics who have sharpened their pens and moved to go on the attack. What stops me from thinking the work is simply something exploitive is that it is written and directed by Alan Ball who wrote “American Beauty” and created the HBO series “Six Feet Under.” Hopefully I can see the film, but at this moment it is the talk of the fest.

Francois Girard’s “The Red Violin” was a surprise hit at the 1998 fest and went on to win several Genie Awards (Canada’s Oscar), including best picture and best director, later winning an Academy Award for best musical score.

“Silk” (**)
Directed by Fracois Girard

“Silk” marks Francois Girard’s first film since the success of that effortless work spanning decades in the life of a violin. Based on the bestselling novel by Alessandro Baricco, the film is a sweeping romantic drama set in the late 19th century, telling the tale of Joncour (Michael Pitt), who travels to Japan to retrieve valuable silkworm eggs. In France, the eggs are poisoned and the worms are dying, leaving the silk industry on the brink of ruin. Roguish trader Baldabiou (Alfred Molina) makes the young man an offer he cannot resist, and with the help of the boy’s overbearing father, he soon finds himself en route to Japan, three thousand miles away.

Before leaving, Joncour marries the love of his life, Helene (Keira Knightley), and then embarks on the dangerous journey, returning with the eggs and becoming wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. However, the mystery and beauty of Japan puts a hook in him that will not let go, in particular a beautiful young woman he encounters who leaves with him a note that forever alters his life.

The film reminded me of the period pieces of Merchant/Ivory, only moving slower and with less passion. Michael Pitt is a proven talent, but here has little to do with the material he is given and he is not yet strong enough to make do on his own. Keira Knightley does some strong work as the young wife who suspects her husband is infatuated with another, and Alfred Molina is always superb. The pacing of the film is unbearably slow and methodical, and the picture has a true lack of passion, of lust, which is essentially what we are dealing with here. When we have a love story lacking that chemistry between the actors and the audience, we have no film.

“The Stone Angel” (***)
Directed by Kari Skogland

Kari Skogland’s “The Stone Angel” will mean a great deal more to Canadian audiences as the film is based on a beloved Canadian novel by Margret Lawrence. Skogland has done a fine job of bringing the novel to the screen, relying heavily on her actors to create authentic characters that the audience will make a connection with.

First and foremost is Ellen Burstyn as the ancient Hagar, a proud and fiercely independent old woman who knows her son and his shrewish wife are about to put her into a nursing home. Her memory is not that great, nor is her health, but she manages to cash a check and grab a bus to head off to a cottage where she once was most happy. Though she finds the cottage in ruins, her memories come flooding back and she shares them with a young man she encounters on the beach, telling him her story.

Christine Horne is luminous as the life-loving young Hagar, rebelling against her tyrannical father and marrying a man he considers beneath her. Though initially deeply in love with Bram (Cole Hauser), he proves to be an unreliable drunk and eventually, as her sons grow, she leaves him to a life of drunkenness. She returns years later to find he lost his mind to the bottle. Hagar, the young and the old, has many lessons to learn about life, and though she suffers tragedies, we see in old age she never loses that spirit that burns so bright as a young woman.

Burstyn, one of the greatest living actresses, is superb as Hagar, capturing the anguish of an old woman who cannot remember some things, and remembers some things she would like to forget. But when the memories flood back they are unforgiving, assaulting her from all sides and reminding her of the mistakes she made as a person. The actress is profoundly astounding in the role, as is Christine Horne as her nubile counterpart, suggesting with every movement and facial expression the Hagar she will become.

The film is more sexual than I remember the novel being, though I admire Skogland for her use of the ever staring, ever watchful angel who guards the Curry family plot and seems to see all, including right through into Hagar’s very soul.

“In the Valley of Elah” (*****)
Directed by Paul Haggis

Paul Haggis’s latest is a troubling American masterpiece and destined to be one of the most discussed and debated films of the year, not to mention a likely Oscar candidate. Haggis has been the golden boy of Hollywood these past few years, writing “Million Dollar Baby” for Clint Eastwood, directing and writing “Crash,” which won him Oscars for best picture and best screenplay, and contributing to the story of “Letters from Iwo Jima.”

This time he puts forth a searing indictment of the American involvement in Iraq, but more importantly, it’s a lacerating study of the manner in which the military turns young men into fighting machines and yet does not train them to turn that off once they return home. Is there really any preparation for the horrors one will see during war? I don’t think so. In this film the soldiers seem so young going off to boldly defend the country in a war many believe to be predicated on a lie.

Tommy Lee Jones gives a brilliant performance, the finest of his career, as a retired military man investigating his son’s disappearance after the boy returns home from Iraq. Within a day he learns his son has been brutally murdered on American soil and resolves himself to find the answers behind the killing. With the help of Emily (Charlize Theron), a sympathetic detective, he slowly pieces together the events that led to the killing, though the answers will startle them, leaving them in absolute horror at what has transpired.

The valley of Elah is where David slew Goliath, and is of course metaphorical here in two ways. The first and most obvious is the little man going up against the military machine, while the second and more complicated is the manner in which the impact of war forever kills young men, taking away an innocence that is gone forever. Only a few are able to rise above it, the Jones character being one of them. Stunning and heartbreaking, the final images of the film make an extraordinary impact and political statement. Hopefully this is one President Bush sees.

“Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (**)
Directed by Shekhar Kapur

“Elizabeth: The Golden Age” may just be the most disappointing film of the festival, despite a luminous performance from the great Cate Blanchett who will undoubtedly earn an Academy Award nomination for her work. The film has many narrative problems and logistic issues, beginning with the fact it takes place twenty seven years into her reign which puts her in her fifties, and yet Blanchett does not look a day over 35. Added to that is the awkward timing of the film’s release, still very close to the HBO masterwork Elizabeth I with a marvelous performance from Helen Mirren as the Queen.

What hurts the film the most is the fact that this fiery ruler is reduced to a simpering lady all but begging for a kiss from a man she had banished previously for falling in love with Bess (Abbie Cornish), one of her ladies. These issues aside, Blanchett is superb as a Queen facing the greatest challenges of her life. Spain wants very much to see her killed and replaced by the Catholic Queen, Mary of Scotland (Samantha Morton), imprisoned by Elizabeth. When an attempt is made on the life of Elizabeth and it proves Mary is behind it, she has no choice but to execute her cousin, though she is devastated by the act.

Once the head of the treacherous Mary has rolled off her body, Spain launches a massive naval attack on England which threatens to bring the country down. Elizabeth resolves to fight back, not wanting her country to fall when she is on the throne.

There are some fine supporting performances in the film, best of all Abbie Cornish as love-struck Bess, and Samantha Morton as the Queen of Scotland who is stunned when her treachery is discovered. Clive Owen, a brilliant actor, does not have much to do except look roguish and dashing in his costumes, but the man handles the role of a hero very well.

This film lost considerable ground here at TIFF. But count on at the very least a nomination for the great Cate.

“Across the Universe” (****)
Directed by Julie Taymor

A magical mystery tour springs from the fertile and wild imagination of Julie Taymor, who last gave us the Oscar winning “Frida” in 2002 and before that the expressionistic “Titus” in 1999, with Anthony Hopkins raging as the mad king. On Broadway Taymor is best known for the superb production of “The Lion King,” which won countless awards and made her the toast of the great white way, though she has been turning more and more to film these last five years.

“Across the Universe” is without a doubt her finest achievement and greatest risk. Using the music of the Beatles as her inspiration, the film is about two star-crossed lovers, Jude and Lucy (I kid you not) and their adventures with the sixties as a backdrop and the specter of Vietnam looming large. Once again Taymor uses puppetry merged with live action to drive her narrative and it works beautifully, though one must be willing to take a leap of faith with the film.

Evan Rachel Wood is outstanding as Lucy, bringing a clear-eyed grace to the screen that few young actors have. Sean Penn was heard griping about the young talent in Hollywood, but with actors like Wood I think we are alright. The film is demanding in its depiction of a cultural revolution, but ultimately a love story at its heart and full of hope. You will leave the theatre floating on air.

“Margot at the Wedding” (****)
Directed by Noah Baumbach

Spending ninety minutes with the characters in Noah Baumbach’s latest effort is like spending time with people you know you could never like, and that you quite frankly despise. They are mean, treacherous to one another and believe without a shadow of a doubt that the universe revolves around them and their needs.

Margot (Nicole Kidman) is returning to her childhood home with her son for her sister Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to Malcolm (Jack Black). Upon laying eyes on Malcolm, Margot knows at once that Pauline is making a huge mistake because the man is clearly beneath her. There is nasty history between the sisters as they have not spoken in years, the result of Margot’s insistence of speaking her mind all the time and writing about everything that happens in the family. They are the sort of people who tell one another that what they are being told is confidential, but within minutes are confiding that secret in someone else. When they lash out, they do so viciously, finding the other’s weak spot and honing in on that.

Kidman is superbly venomous as the messed up Margot, struggling with her own marriage and petty insecurities. Leigh is as always a revelation; perhaps the Academy will finally honor her with a long-deserved nomination. However, stealing the film, and I cannot quite believe I am saying this, is Jack Black as Malcolm, the hopelessly screwed up fiancé of Pauline, who despite all of his issues – and there are many – truly loves her. Is love enough to hold them together?

Can any of these people honestly forgive one another and embrace each as family? After all that is what family does, right? Nicely directed and written by Noah Baumbach, fast becoming this generation’s Woody Allen.

“King of California” (BOMB!)
Directed by Mike Cahill

Touted high here as containing one of Michael Douglas’s finest performances, I felt embarrassed for the actor part way through this mess, wondering what exactly he thought he was accomplishing on the screen.

Portraying a father being released from a mental hospital after two years, he returns home to his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), a resourceful 17 year old who has quit school to work, bought a car off ebay (even though she has no license) and grown up very quickly in Dad’s absence. When he comes home, she finds very quickly that he has not really changed, and his latest scheme is buried treasure under the local Costco store.

Douglas seems to think that wild-eyed looks and frantic motion passes for madness on screen, and the use of that same high-pitched, eerie music from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” tells me that perhaps he actually thought this was his McMurphy. Not even close, my friend…a terrible performance and a dreadful movie. Poor Evan Rachel Wood, how could she have known what she was getting herself into?

Gremlins in the e-mail system have prevented my coverage from getting through to Kris these last few days and I think finally I have the problem solved. Rather than go day by day, let’s just get caught up on what I have seen these first few days.

“Rendition” (***)
Directed by Gavin Hood

Things got moving early with a morning screening of “Rendition,” the new political thriller from the director of the Oscar winning “Tsotsi,” a hit here a couple of years ago. The film stars Reese Witherspoon, which gave me immediate pause about as I am not a fan of the actress nor a believer that she deserved that Oscar she collected for “Walk the Line” two years ago. But after the film I was left eating my words.

Witherspoon does some fine work as a wife distraught over her husband’s detainment by the American government when evidence links him to a bombing in the Middle East. She is left asking the double edged sword questions: “Why would they target this good man?” and “What is there I many not know about my husband?” Witherspoon does a wonderful job conveying the sense of torment one would go through in a dilatation like this.

The film is one of many politically charged films playing here this fall, and it makes a strong statement about what this sort of behavior does to one’s soul. Are we not stooping to their level by torturing one of our own, or a fellow human being? This is what the films asks. The only Oscar chances I see, however, are for Streep for best supporting actress.

“Michael Clayton” (****)
Directed by Tony Gilroy

“Michael Clayton” should do much stronger with both critics and the Academy as first time director Tony Gilroy has created a seventies style film that looks and feels like an Alan J. Pakula effort (meant with the highest of praise). George Clooney is Clayton, a high powered fixer for a legal firm who values him for his unique skills in making difficult issues go away for the firm’s rich clients. When one of the firm’s best lawyers has some sort of breakdown after discovering information that goes against the client he is representing, Clayton is sent in to fix the matter, but finds that things are not at all as they seem.

The lawyer, Arthur (Tom Wilkinson), is Clayton’s friend and a brilliant legal mind, with no real reason to go this way unless he was on to something. When he disappears, Clayton realizes the stakes are much higher than he ever thought and he soon has greater problems than the personal debt he is struggling with.

Clooney is among the rare talent to balance being an actor, and a damned fine one, with being a movie star, possessing that old fashioned movie star glamour. If they were to remake “Gone with the Wind,” he would have to be Rhett Butler. He delivers a fine performance here, one full of self-doubting and regret, nicely supported by the great Tom Wilkinson as a man who has found the very thing he treasures is sick and twisted. Tilda Swinton is all icy menace as the lawyer for the other side, proving to be far more drastic than anyone realizes. Clooney and Wilkinson are good bets for Oscar attention.

“No Country for Old Men” (*****)
Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

The Brothers Coen deliver one of the best films of the year “No Country for Old Men,” a modern day western full of dark humor and violence, reeking of the brand of film that has made the Coens among the most gifted filmmakers working in modern film. Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles onto a massacre, bodies everywhere, men and trucks riddled with bullets and a case filled with two million dollars cash. He takes the money, of course, and in doing so places events and actions in motion that will severely impact his life.

Hot on the trail of the cash is Chigurgh (Javier Bardem) a vicious, resourceful hitman who is a force of nature and seemingly unstoppable. He kills without conscience, almost for sport because in most cases he could let the person move on and does not. I cannot remember a more chilling character in movies in the last ten years. Tommy Lee Jones is the world weary sheriff close to retirement who seems to understand that this is a man not to be trifled with and is anxious to get to Moss before the killer does.

The sparse landscape adds to the film’s heat and tension, and the Coens create a screenplay that is both darkly funny and vicious in its humor.

A knockout and one of the years very best. Oscar awaits.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (*****)
Directed by Andrew Dominik

A masterpiece plain and simple – covered in a longer article.

“Eastern Promises” (****)
Directed by David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg’s latest provided another opportunity for the director to work with the great Viggo Mortensen, this time cast as a Russian driver for the mob in London. When a young woman dies, leaving behind a diary, the midwife (Naomi Watts) does some digging and finds where the young woman worked. Her uncle translates the diary for her and learns that the girl was a slave of the Russian mafia, addicted to heroin by the mob to use as a prostitute at the age of fourteen.

When the book links the mob boss directly to the girl, he orders the evidence destroyed and orders the driver to get involved and make the uncle disappear and orders his own son to kill the child. Nothing is as it seems in the film, which is loaded with surprises and loads of violence. Mortensen is brilliant as the sensitive driver, getting far more involved with this young midwife, nicely played by Watts than he should. The great Armin Mueller-Stahl is quietly terrifying as the mob boss who wants the girl dead. The Academy has long ignored Cronenberg, but they may not be able to do so any longer. This is superb on every level.

“Into the Wild” (****)
Directed by Sean Penn

Sean Penn’s most accessible film to date allows him to paint on his largest canvas. He delivers a superb film with an astonishing performance from young Emile Hirsch as a rich child of privilege who gives away his college fund, all his belongings and hits the road inspired by the work of Jack London and Tolstoy, both of whom struggled with nature and man’s insight into himself.

Chris (Hirsch) is looking for something he does not see in the world, some sort of beauty that he finds in nature. There are stunning moments watching him conquer the wild, being moved to tears at the simple sight of a herd of reindeer, throwing him into this thing called life. Obviously Penn, a patriot against the war in Iraq, is making a statement here, asking Americans to look at their country through the eyes of Chris and realize it is not about possession, it is about living. Though Chris moves far from the path he was to follow, he truly lives, more than anyone else around him. There are strong supporting performances from William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as his smug parents and Jena Malone as the sister who loves him enough to let him go. Just brilliant filmmaking.

Back tonight with more.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (*****)
directed by Andrew Dominik

For reasons known only to me, a film junkie, a lover of the American western, I could not get “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” out of my mind – not while watching another movie, not in the evening as I sat down to write, and not this morning when I awoke. The film has seared itself a spot on my brain, I think forever.

There is something contradictory about the great westerns because the genre itself seems so simple. Yet that simplicity is misleading because the best westerns, those that challenge us as people are complex and powerful, asking moral questions that are often difficult to answer.

The last thing Ethan expected to find on this quest was his humanity, yet that is precisely what he finds looking into the terrified eyes of his sole family member. Should we hate Ethan for what he was going to do, or take him into our hearts for what he did?

In Ford’s classic film we recognize that Ethan will not join the community he brings Debbie back to, as he is forever an outsider, a wanderer not unlike his Indian enemies. When the film ends it is Ethan's unpredictability we cannot shake, that knowledge that he may kill at any given moment.

Though John Wayne won an Oscar thirteen years later for “True Grit,” the greatest performance he ever gave was in “The Searchers,” followed closely by his final work as a cancer ridden gunslinger in “The Shootist.”

Brad Pitt brings that same sort of inner rage, that unpredictability, to his performance as Jesse James in this new film. Ever watchful eyes, taking in everything in the room, it is a small detail that never leaves you while watching the film and obviously, for me after. There air seems to go out of the room when Jesse walks in, as all eyes are on him but often for all the wrong reasons. His growing paranoia leads those around him to wonder when they will get on his bad side and end up dead – even when delivering praise there seems an under current of anger that frightens the person being praised.

By all accurate historical accounts of James, Brad Pitt seems to deliver an astonishing performance of great authenticity, disappearing under the skin of the character moments after the film begins. There is no trace of Pitt during the film, he is Jesse James, inhabiting the skin and finding the dark soul of this celebrity.

Casey Affleck is equally fine as Robert Ford, the bullied and picked-on little brother who worships James and cannot quite believe his good fortune at being near the outlaw. In fact this worship borders on being psychotic behavior. Speaking in a high pitched, reedy voice, an odd smile springing to his face, easily shamed, this is not a man you would want in your party with a gun at your back. We understand why he kills James, but so charismatic is Pitt’s performance that we do not want him to die, and Ford discovers, too late, that neither did he.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is a masterpiece, a brilliant film that will be remembered for years to come, though I am not sure if audiences today will find the film as masterful as I did. It unfolds at a leisurely pace, unhurried, and is much more of a character study than most westerns dare to be. The director makes demands on his audience, perhaps confusing them with some of his choices in lighting and cinematography, blurring the edges of the frame from time to time, perhaps to suggest how history has blurred the legend of James, elevating him to near-mythical proportions. Hopefully it will be recognized that he has done something new, something fresh and bold, something that goes far beyond the standard mainstream fare being dumped on audiences these days. And that is something worth celebrating.

I intend to try and see the film again today, and will be first in line when it opens in theatres in a few weeks. It is utterly astonishing and may be the year’s best film.

“The Brave One”
Directed by Neil Jordan

(((SPOILER WARNING)))

When the film was over, my only thought was of the blatant irresponsibility of the writer and director in creating a film that not only champions vigilantism, but shows the audience a by the book cop break the rules and allow himself to be sucked into a web of murder…

I WAS STUNNED AT THE MESSAGE THIS FILM WAS SENDING!!!!

Jodie Foster stars as Erica, a radio talk show host in New York City – like Woody Allen, her city, the city she loves. One night, Jane and her fiancée are attacked by a group of thugs who beat her love to death and take her dog. Badly beaten herself and left for dead, Jane recovers from the savagery, now angry, somehow changed by what has happened to her. She makes the perfectly irrational decision to buy an illegal gun and quickly learns how to use it.

Jane then takes to the streets, quickly overcoming a phobia, where it seems each time she is out and about she encounters criminal activity that requires her interference…meaning she shoots and kills people breaking the law. This happens not once but several times as the places she visits seem to be conveniently teeming with injustice.

Jodie Foster is incapable of giving a bad performance as she is far too fine an actress, far too intelligent. Her work here is extremely focused, very strong, though I question why, as actress and executive producer, she would not have questioned the film's ending?

Oscar nominee Terence Howard is equally good as the cop who becomes her friend and then violates everything he believes in to protect her. But I wanted to scream at the screen, “You just blew it!!!”

Comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” are ridiculous. Travis Bickle was driven by madness while Foster is driven by a need for closure and revenge. The horror of “Taxi Driver” was that he got away with it because they believed he was saving a young girl when in fact he was feeding his bloodlust. Where these comparisons come from I don’t know, and I certainly will not be sucked into thinking the same.

This is a well crafted and well acted film, but it is horribly irresponsible in its conclusion.

I was a cynical 12 year old in a theatre with my dad watching a re-release of Cecil B. Demille’s “The Ten Commandments” in 1971, long before home video. When one wanted to see a film from the past again, we were at the mercy of the studio to re-release the picture. Dad, also a movie fan, had gone on and on about this movie, so much that, naturally, I was not expecting all that much. From the opening sequence I was hooked by the enormous scope of the thing, the size, the color, the spectacle. Charlton Heston was mesmerizing as Moses (could anyone else get away with speaking those lines?) and Yul Brynner was the perfect villain. The moment that seared into my mind and began this obsession with the cinema was the parting of the Red Sea. I honestly expected perhaps for the tide to go out, but the sky grew black, Heston looked magnificent against the swirling black clouds atop the rock, his arms stretched out, his voice booming, “Behold his mighty hand!” and the waters opened, two massive walls on either side, raging madly as the exodus crossed.

I was stunned by what had just taken place on the screen.

In college, I studied film and theatre, with hopes of being an actor. But in the back of mind I knew what I really wanted to was write about film. A screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” opening day in Toronto confirmed that. I watched, hypnotized by Coppola’s imagery and left the theatre wanting to tell people, wanting others to experience what I had just experienced. I wrote for myself at first and kept diaries of the films I had seen, fully intent of launching a career as a critic.

It took a long time, but I finally did it in the late eighties and became a full time film critic and historian. I now write for several outlets in Canada and lecture at the Toronto Film School.

Over the years I have seen tens of thousands of films and still avoid being jaded about the product on screens
around the world. Each film I see might be the greatest film ever made. You never know.

I am now 48 years old, married for 17 years, the father of two wonderful girls ages 15 and 7, lucky to be married to my soul mate who shares this crazy love of cinema. A long time ago I learned that “The Ten Commandments” really just…isn’t very good, hokey in fact, but I cannot look away if it is on. Next year my study of Clint Eastwood as a director will be published as “Eastwood: American Filmmaker,” by Greenwood Press, followed by “The Great Under Appreciated Films of the Eighties in 2009.” Somewhere down the line I will write a biography of Steven Spielberg for Greenwood, as promised.

I am handicapped, the result of a devastating head-on collision six years ago that left me in constant pain and crippled, my legs forever damaged. My heart was damaged in the crash and I underwent open heart surgery before regaining consciousness one month after the crash. After five months in the hospital where they twice told my wife I might die, I left, and though initially there was concern whether or not I would walk…I do. I have vowed not to let my handicap interfere with my life and I do not, though the pain can be frustrating some days.

Asked which filmmakers I admire, I answer easily: Francis Ford Coppola (in the seventies), Scorsese, John Ford, Elia Kazan, Steven Spielberg (successful but still under appreciated), Woody Allen, Quentin Tarantino, PT Anderson, Ang Lee, Julie Taymor, David Fincher, Peter Jackson and Oliver Stone. I have never lost the acting bug and remain fascinated with that craft, which brings me to watch Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Holly Hunter, Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Diane Keaton and countless others I admire.

I believe the single greatest performance given by a male is Robert Duvall in “The Apostle” and by a female, Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice.”

And the most often asked question of a film critic?

“What’s the best movie you have ever seen?”

OK, there are a few.

“The Godfather Part II,” “The Godfather,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Schindler’s List,” “Citizen Kane,” “The Searchers,” “On the Waterfront,” “Apocalypse Now,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “Jaws,” “Raging Bull,” “Cabaret,” “King Kong” (1933 and 2005), “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “The African Queen,” “Magnolia,” “Unforgiven,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Passion of the Christ,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Mystic River,” “Fight Club,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Pulp Fiction,” “JFK,” “Trainspotting,” “Blow Out,” “Reds,” “E.T.,” “Terms of Endearment,” “The Sweet Hereafter,” “Away from Her,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “Blue Velvet,” “Manhattan,” “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” “Shane,” “The Hustler,” “The Stunt Man,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Hair,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Shootist,” “All the President’s Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Tootsie,’ “City Lights,” and several others.

Now…you know me just a little better.

A couple of things excite me, one being the arrival of Sidney Lumet’s “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead” with Ethan Hawke, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Albert Finney. Lumet is one of the great directors of modern cinema. Efforts such as “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network,” “Prince of the City” and “The Verdict” are brilliant works more than deserving of the accolades they received over the years. “Daniel” and “Equus” are two efforts that briefly come to mind that are equally stunning and yet under the radar of the general movie-goer.

Lumet’s direction of actors is legendary, and though he has never won an Academy Award he was given an Honorary Oscar a couple of years ago. The director is also taking part in the Dialogue series, one of the festival’s most popular events in which a filmmaker or actor selects a film that inspired them and after screening the film discusses the picture with the audience. Lumet has selected “The Best Years of Our Lives,” the Oscar winning masterpiece by William Wyler that helped heal a nation with its study of post-wartime America and the re-adjustment of the vets.

I would have hoped Sir Richard Attenborough would have stopped directing films after “Grey Owl” in 1998. But here he is again with a Gala Presentation of his new film “Closing the Ring,” which mercifully is not a biography (as Sir Richard seems incapable of making a good biography). And yes, I include the vastly overrated “Gandhi,” which one year after winning eight Oscars looked like an old fashioned Hollywood biography. How did “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” or “Tootsie” lose to that film?

But I digress. “Closing the Ring” is a love story interwoven between present day and the Second World War with Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton and the master of the acting craft, Neve Campbell.

Renny Harlin’s new film “Cleaner” is a big screen “C.S.I.” (sort of), exploring the people who clean up the mess when the body has been taken away. Samuel L. Jackson plays such a soul, responsible for cleaning up the blood, the brains, and the pungent odor of death. Forced to dispose of evidence, he is drawn back into the world he had hoped he had left behind. Ed Harris and Eva Mendes star in this, another Gala.

My favorite program, the Special Presentations, has the aforementioned Lumet film as well as Michael Moore’s latest, “Captain Mike Across America,” a documentary about Moore’s attempt to stop George Bush from being re-elected. The film chronicles Moore’s journey across the US trying to get folks to vote for John Kerry or anyone but Bush.

Another Presidential flavored documentary is Jonathan Demme’s “Man from Plains,” which studies former President Jimmy Carter’s book tour after penning the controversial book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” We watch as Carter, not a young man anymore, his presidency haunted by the hostage crisis, proves to be a most worthy subject, full of gusto and determination to get his message of peace across.

A favorite of the festival, Brian De Palma is back with his newest film, “Redacted,” focusing on a squadron of young soldiers in Iraq. Using different points of view to explore the confusing messages of war, De Palma plunges his audience into a hell that leads to a tragic incident that impacts the squadron.

Of course there are many more titles to check out, but these represent the big ones announced this morning. Others of interest include Alison Eastwood’s “Rails and Ties” with Kevin Bacon, and also in the Dialogue series, Ellen Burstyn will present and discuss her Oscar winning performance in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”

Counting the days, the minutes….

Though we are two weeks away from final announcements, the Toronto International Film Festival is looking more and more like an unofficial Academy Awards preview. Though it seems by now we’re used to that notion. After scouring the Oscar sites on the web, I found that many of the films already announced are among those being touted for Oscars in the major categories, and a few will likely slip in as sleepers. Never before has the festival looked so strong so early, and in all honesty 2007 could be the finest version of the festival yet.

Kris himself has named several of the films here as major contenders.

Among the films arriving that can be considered definite hopefuls for the Academy Award for best picture are the Coen brothers’ acclaimed film “No Country for Old Men” and Paul Haggis’s new picture “The Valley of Elah,” both featuring Tommy Lee Jones, who is being touted for best actor for the latter film.

Joe Wright brings “Atonement” here after the success of “Pride and Prejudice” in 2005, again working with Keira Knightley in another British romance that many writers seem very high on. And though snubbed for the brilliant “A History of Violence,” David Cronenburg could find himself in the running this year for “Eastern Promises,” a thriller with Viggo Mortenson.

If that isn’t enough, there is buzz building for Sean Penn’s new picture “Into the Wild,” based on the book by Jon Krakauer about a wealthy young man who walks away from his life and heads into the wilderness to seek adventure and challenge himself as a human being. Again, inside word is building fast on this one, and Penn is long overdue for some attention for his directing.

Not long ago “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” was being labeled a troubled film, but recently there has been a turnaround on that front, with some web writers who have seen the film claiming it to be the finest American western since “Unforgiven.” High praise indeed. Is it best picture material? The Academy has always been loathe to name westerns best film of the year, snubbing “Shane” in 1953 and “The Searchers” in 1956, yet honoring “Dances with Wolves” in 1990 and the aforementioned “Unforgiven” in 1992. Indeed, the only other western to claim a best picture prize of its own was “Cimarron,” way back in 1931. If Andrew Domink’s film is as good as the potential of Ron Hansen’s novel, then perhaps we will have a western on the nominee list once again.

Jodie Foster, a two-time Oscar winning actress may find herself up for another performance, this time as a vigilante in Neil Jordan’s “The Brave One.” Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman seems to be in on the comeback trail in Noah Baumbach’s “Margot at the Wedding.” After winning an Oscar for “The Hours” in 2002 and being cheated of a nomination for “Cold Mountain” the very next year, Kidman cooled off quickly. But this could be the one that brings her back to Oscar. Also in the film, Jennifer Jason Leigh, so long overdue for a mere nomination it is frightening. She may find herself in contention in the supporting actress category, co-star Jack Black across the way in supporting actor.

Best actor in 2005 for “Capote,” Phillip Seymour Hoffman will be seen with Laura Linney in the Sundance sensation “The Savages.” The Tamara Jenkins film could land them both nominations.

Elsewhere, Denys Arcand brings his newest work from Quebec, “Days of Darkness,” while the most recent announcements see two of the more creative directors bringing their films to our fair city. Julie Taymor was here five years ago with “Frida,” which began its march to six Oscar nominations in Toronto. This time she brings “Across the Universe,” a musical of sorts dealing with the hippy culture, Vietnam and love in the sixties. The film has also been the subject of behind-the-scenes editorial strife.

Finally, Woody Allen brings “Cassandra's Dream,” his newest with Colin Farrell (an interesting match) and another in the director’s latest slate of films set outside his beloved New York City.

In the weeks to come festival co-director Noah Cowan has promised some major announcements leading to all sorts of rumors and speculation about which films not yet announced could be coming. Me? I think “There Will Be Blood” is a strong possibility if only because director Paul Thomas Anderson launched both “Boogie Nights” and “Punch-Drunk Love” here to great acclaim.

Francis Ford Coppola watched daughter Sofia bring “Lost in Translation” to the fest and eventually become the first American woman nominated for best director. So it is likely his first film in a decade, “Youth Without Youth” will make an appearance.

Flying far under the radar is “The Bucket List,” not even being mentioned on Oscar sites despite the presence of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two dying men who take a road trip in a film directed by Rob Reiner who was here twenty years ago with “The Princess Bride.”

And finally, Sir Ridley Scott has been here often with his films, thus leaving me thinking that “American Gangster” will move into Toronto for the festival. We’ll soon know the score.

How many of these films will move into the Kodak Theatre for a date with Oscar? Some will, some will fall the way of inevitable disappointment. In two weeks I will begin screening the cream of the crop for 2007.

Tick, tick, tick…

One of the aspects about TIFF I admire most is the fact that the programmers and organizers have never lost sight of the vision of Bill Marshall: this festival was created to honor cinema from around the world, but also to promote and showcase Canadian films.

Being a filmmaker in Canada is a difficult process, which is why we lose so many to the United States where they have figured out for several years now how to make films and allow artists to have their visions. With no major studios up here, our artists are stuck having to go through the government for funding, and even then the budgets are ridiculously low. That great films are made for the funds they receive is a testament to the gifts of these fine artists.

Once the film is made the next challenge, probably the greater one is getting the film seen. Beyond the festival, there are very few venues for Canadian cinema in this entire country. The legendary Carlton Cinema on College Street has always been a godsend to Canadian filmmakers, providing a small theatre for the films to be screened to those interested. Of course that is the major problem, getting Canadians to see Canadian films.

Through the seventies and much of the eighties, there was precious little to celebrate in Canadian cinema, “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” (1974) and “The Silent Partner” (1978) two happy exceptions. Only in the eighties did things begin to look up, as Canada began to make interesting, often exciting films about something, usually character based pieces, sometimes importing American or British actors to lend their box office power to the project. This gave us such films as “The Changeling,” a terrific ghost story with George C. Scott, and “Tribute,” based on the hit play with an over-the-top, though Oscar-nominated performance from Jack Lemmon.
In 1981 a co-production with France, “Atlantic City” won rave reviews around the world and in December of that year collected top prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, best film and best actor for Burt Lancaster, as well as the New York Film Critics, who honored Lancaster for the finest performance of his career.

The small film then was nominated for four Academy Awards including best picture and it seemed, finally, the Canadian film industry had the break it so needed.

Not quite. When the highest grossing film in this country’s history is for several years the dumb teen film “Porky’s,” you know something is wrong.

Though audiences did not go, films got better through the eighties, drawing more and more attention from the Academy south of the border. Quebec director-writer Denys Arcand’s films “The Decline of the American Empire” (1987) and “Jesus of Montreal” (1990) were both nominated for best foreign language film before he finally won the Oscar for his superb “The Barbarian Invasions.” After success in Los Angeles, David Cronenberg came home to make “Dead Ringers” in 1988 and found himself the darling of critics.

The tiny Festival of Festivals, the annual fall film festival in Toronto, was renamed The Toronto International Film Festival in the early nineties, and along with the prominence of the festival came better Canadian films.
“Ararat” (2000), “Felicia’s Journey” (1999), “Last Night” (1998), “The Red Violin” (1998), “Kissed” (1997), “The Hanging Garden” (1997), Oscar-nominated “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997), “Crash” (1995), “Exotica” (1994), “Atanajurat” (2002), “Night Zoo” (1988) and “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (1995) are just some of the films that have been screened at the festival before being discussed by critics around the planet.

Yet still we struggle with getting Canadian viewers of Canadian films. It is quite sad because the finest film of 1997 in my opinion was Atom Egoyan’s haunting “The Sweet Hereafter,” and in 2002 it was the stunning Inuit epic “Atanajurat,” a miracle of a film shot in the frozen north. Just last year the finest film I saw at the festival was Sarah Polley’s powerful drama “Away from Her,” currently earning rave reviews in theatres and on target for some Oscar attention at the very least for actress Julie Christie, but if there is any justice, Polley as well.

This year the festival once again has done a wonderful job of finding the finest in Canadian cinema for audiences to feast upon. Major directors Denys Arcand and David Cronenberg will bring their new films to the festival for Gala Presentations. Arcand has directed a new picture entitled “Days of Darkness” about a writer who wrestles with the frustrations of his boring life by escaping into a fantasy world where he is everything he dreams of being. The new Cronenberg film, already striking interest around the globe, is “Eastern Promises,” once again bringing the director together with Viggo Mortenson, each of them having performed miracles on “A History of Violence” in 2005, which should have earned each some Oscar attention.

Gonzo director Guy Maddin brings to the fest his most personal film yet, “My Winnipeg,” about his hometown in the province of Manitoba. What is interesting here is that Maddin, never one to bend to any convention, will provide live narration while his film is screening.

Roger Spottiswoode, who has directed one of the greatest political films ever made, “Under Fire,” brings to us his new film “Shake Hands with the Devil,” the story of Lt. General Romeo Dallaire’s turmoil in watching the genocide in Rwanda and being powerless to help. Recent Genie Award winner Roy Dupis is well cast as Dallaird.

“Silk” is Francois Girard’s first film since his triumph “The Red Violin” in 1998, which won an Academy Award for best musical score. This time he explores what occurs when a forbidden love for a nobleman’s concubine threatens to tear the lives of the characters apart. Keira Knightley is cast in this film, no doubt looking for a stretch after the latest Pirates film failed to challenge her as an actor.

One of the greatest and best known Canadian novels gets the transition to film in “The Stone Angel,” directed by Kari Skogland. Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn has the plum role of Hagrid, which for me is reason enough to see the film. Ellen Page of “Hard Candy” co-stars.

There will also be a special screening in the Canadian Open Vault series of the classic Canadian film “Les Bons Debarras,” rarely seen since dominating the Genie Awards in 1982, and one of the greatest films to emerge from Quebec.

More announcements are available on the festival website.

With more films added to the various programs at the fest, excitement is beginning to percolate here in Toronto about what is shaping up to be one of the most impressive lineups we’ve seen here in some time.

As mentioned before, the major and minor studios often use Toronto as their launch towards Oscar glory, and thus far that seems to be exactly the case, as several films already announced seem to be sure-fire Academy Award contenders. Among the Oscar winners or nominees to begin their journey to the golden circle have been “Almost Famous” (2000), “American Beauty” (1999), “The Cider House Rules” (1999), “Crash” (2005), “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), “Walk the Line” (2005), and countless others.

Leading the pack thus far is “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” Shekhar Kapur's sequel to his Oscar nominated “Elizabeth,” which made Cate Blanchett one of the most sought after actresses in the industry. Nine years later she is an Oscar winner and multiple nominee, likely to be pegged by the AMPAS again for her performance as Elizabeth I in this film. The trailer looks extraordinary, and though I am all too aware one cannot judge a film based solely on that, the cast and director give the film a strong pedigree. The focus of the film will be England's war with Spain when the King of Spain makes it clear he wants England to become Catholic once again.

Oscar winner George Clooney will be on the big screen in “Michael Clayton,” portraying a hot shot in-house legal fixer for a massive law firm, confident in his work, though struggling in his private life. It falls on him to save the company when they are betrayed by one of their own. Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, and director Sydney Pollack co-star.

“Rendition” brings together some impressive acting talents with Oscar winners Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, and Alan Arkin, along with nominee Jake Gyllenhaal in a drama about a wife’s nightmare when her husband disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington. In the role of the desperate woman, Witherspoon tries to track her husband down while as a CIA operative, portrayed by Gyllenhaal, is forced to re-consider what he is doing with his life when he is asked to take part in an unorthodox detainment.

Terry George returns to the festival after the success of “Hotel Rwanda” in 2004 with his new film “Reservation Road,” which features a strong cast including Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo. The film explores the lives of two fathers and families whose lives smash into each other after the death of a child. The film also stars Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino, each in need of a good performance.

Two-time Oscar winning actress Jodie Foster returns to Toronto as a woman who has it all in “The Brave One,” this time directed by Oscar winner Neil Jordan. A brutal attack takes all of that away leaving her badly hurt and her fiancée dead. Unable to shake the tragedy she begins a dark pursuit of justice, prowling the streets on the hunt for the men who did this to her. Terence Howard is the cop watching her closely, with supporting roles to Mary Steenburgen and Nicky Katt.

Helen Hunt joins the many directors who have launched their first film in Toronto with her directorial debut, “Then She Found Me,” in which Hunt portrays a 40 year old woman who hears that biological clock ticking and decides to have a child. This decision is torn apart when her husband announced their marriage was a mistake, leaving her bewildered and rather devastated. When an eccentric talk show host portrayed by Bette Midler declares herself Hunt’s birth mother and she begins a strong relationship with a new man, portrayed by Colin Firth, her life spins wildly out of control.

And the Opening Night Gala film, historically a Canadian project, will be “Fugitive Pieces,” directed by Jeremy Podeswa, who helmed many an episode of “Six Feet Under” and the Genie Award winning “The Five Senses.” With any luck it is a stronger film than last year’s opening night film “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen,” which led to the most walk outs I have ever witnessed at the festival. Me, I found myself lulled to sleep by the stillness of that particular effort.

Also announced so far are a number of films that bowed in Cannes, but this was just a preliminary glance. I’ll be back next week with further updates and commentary.

For more info check the festival site at www.torontointernationalfilmfestival.ca.

It starts in mid-August, when the festival pre-screenings begin, that hunger for cinema, as much as possible taking hold like heroin must grab a drug addict. My kids are getting ready to go back to school, and dear old Dad is getting ready for the Toronto International Film Festival, quite frankly the finest such event I have attended. For ten days I do nothing else but see films from around the globe and interview actors and directors who have come here with their films hoping for success. They have every right to hope, as Toronto has been the launching pad of many an Oscar winner, or a critic’s darling over its long history now spanning three decades.

We already know that “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” is coming to town, as is the Coen brothers’ latest “No Country for Old Men.” Recently added were Cannes standout “The Diving Bell and Butterfly” and Alan Ball’s as yet sans distribution “Nothing Is Private.” “Michael Clayton,” “The Brave One” and “Reservation Road” round out a list of awards-hopeful product set to unveil at the fest, and that’s just the tipping point. Announcements will soon start coming once a week, a couple of huge ones first, then through the summer some enticing ones, ending with a blow out press conference where the whole list of films is announced to a movie-hungry press.

In recent years films such as “American Beauty” (1999), “Brokeback Mountain” (2005), “Crash” (2004) and “Walk the Line” (2005) have premiered in Toronto, earning great success, while other such as “All the King’s Men” (2006) have crashed and burned. The festival organizers and programmers do an incredible job of combing the globe for the films they will bring to the festival, and though there have been blunders – last year’s Gala Opener “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen” being one – there are also major finds such as Sarah Polley’s breathtaking “Away from Her,” which was not only the best film I saw at last year’s festival, but the finest film I screened all year.

Sadly not all the films at the festival are winners. How could they be? I remember sitting in Roy Thomson Hall at the Gala screening of “All the King’s Men” last year, watching intently while that incredible cast was brought out at the beginning before the film for a round of applause. It is customary for the cast to remain and take a bow at the end of the film, but not for this one. They got out, obviously knowing what we now know, that their film was not up to snuff. And after admiring “The Apostle” so, I was anxious to see Robert Duvall’s “Assassination Tango” in 2002, only to be bitterly disappointed by the rambling, messy narrative and Duvall’s indulgent performance.

However, these let downs are worth putting up with if it means finding something like “The Red Violin” in 1998, “Little Children” and “When the Levees Broke” in 2006, “Far From Heaven” and “Auto Focus” in 2002 or “The Barbarian Invasions” in 2003. The chatter of film critics from around the world before the film begins is thrilling to hear because you may hear of a film they like that had not been on your list (but soon is), or you have something to offer them you may have seen at a pre-festival screening. It is truly an exciting environment.

One may think that covering a film festival as a critic is an easy job. It is anything but. True, I get to see a lot of product over the ten day event, but they are crammed into days of screening four, sometimes five films a day, depending on which actors and directors I am interviewing. Believe it or not, this is demanding, difficult work. Physically demanding.

I move into the Delta Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the festival because it makes sense to stay away from the ninety minute drive home and back each and every day. My family comes to visit on the weekend, though I do not see much of them. After setting up my laptop and organizing the room the way I like it, I will head over to the Press Office for my press pass and check my mailbox. This is a stop I make every day. Then I come back to the hotel and thumb through the now well-worn Program Book, a thick monstrosity that lands on the bed with a thud, and compare notes with the screening schedule, my Bibles for the next ten days. Before drifting into a fitful sleep, I will call my girls to say goodnight, and choose my clothes for the next day.

The alarm sounds at 6 and it begins. I shower, shave and dress and make my way downstairs to the Hotel dining room where a huge buffet awaits. Eating buffet cuts down on waiting time. I thumb through the movie pages of the three daily papers in Toronto as well as the New York Times and make some notes about the films I will see today. At 7:45 I jump into a cab and head to the Manulife Center on Bay and Bloor, the home of the Varsity Cinemas, where most of the press screenings are held. Showing my pass I walk in and sit for the first of the festival. From here I will go to another, and another and another, grabbing coffee and bagels in between, fuelling my body on caffeine and water (a lot of water). By seven that night I will have seen four, perhaps five films, made a visit to the Press Office for press kits and mail, and schedule some interviews for the weekend and beginning of next week. Exhausted I will head back to my Hotel and collapse on the bed for a brief nap before writing my reviews, which take an hour or so. I am blessed with the sort of mind that does not have to make rough notes; whatever spills out of my head hits the page.

If I am attending a Gala I will leave at 8:30 for that, if not, I may go back to the screening rooms for another film, or rest for tomorrow. A call will be placed to my girls regardless, and then, sleep.

The next day, at 6, it begins again…the fever has taken hold.

John will be logging reports on a nightly basis, rather than the film-by-film coverage you may have been used to out of Gerard Kennedy last year. So the pace will be a touch slower, but hopefully we'll get a lot of measured insight out of the approach. John's pre-coverage will begin in August as announcements start coming down the pike.

Please welcome John, and enjoy the coverage as we plunge headlong into the 2007 film awards season.

(For more reviews and commentary from John, check out his website: Foote on Film.)