Toronto Film Festival '09

Hey. Figured a lot of the movies showing here already have their own threads, so putting the thread here could act as a catch-all for discussing your festival and Toronto experience (and maybe even talk about the movies a bit). I went to my first TIFF last year, and I had a blast. Great movies, great town, and generally great people (though some of those people in Q and A I wanted to shove into a locker I specially made for the occasion).

So yeah TIFF. One of the most important film festivals on the continent. Just look at some of the movies premiering here:

The Men Who Stare At Goats
The Informant!
The Road
Up in the Air
Defendor
A Serious Man
Survival of the Dead

I'm fucking psyched about getting tickets for the midnight showing for Survival. I managed (and don't ask who I sacrificed for this) to get tickets for A Serious Man and the new Diablo Cody movie, Jennifer's Body, among others.

So who else is going?

Hey, I'm going to watch Valhalla Rising on Sunday. Never watched the Pusher movies (which I aim to change), but the synopsis seemed great. Just general Viking badassery.

So just came back from the Fest, and I'm still pretty tired. Tried to pack in five or six movies a day, probably going to have to cut back next year. But I'm really glad I tried to watch as much as possible because good god damn, where there a lot of good movies playing this year. The city itself is still as great as ever (I'm gradually falling in love with the place) and the staff and fellow movie-goers were just a blast to chat with. Got into an involved discussion with some random people after the Warriors and the Wolf screening about the movie's horrifying propagation of non-consensual sex being a tool for finding that special someone, and whether rape is the wilhelm scream for new far-east asian movies.

Anyway, just going to give a quick one sentence or so description and impression of some of the lesser known movies I saw, mainly because they ought to have their own post-release threads.

Passenger Side: Road movie starring the nurse from Knocked Up (Adam Scott) and who guested for a while on Six Feet Under. Sort of a bore, but the main actors were fun to watch.

The Hole: Joe Dante directed 3d horror movie. This is Are You Afraid of the Dark: The Movie. Straight-up ghost story with nothing you haven't seen before. Bad.

Valhalla Rising: Viking on a mission movie. Not what I expected at all. Surreal as fuck. Which doesn't mean that's it's bad at all.

Suck: Canadian movie about a bad band going demonic to make it big. Funny and worth watching, though I still think Jennifer's body is a better vampire movie. Would be a fun double bill. Oh, and Dave Foley is the shit here.

The Accident: Hong Kong movie about assasins masking their kills as everyday accidents. Cool concept and good ending, but it does sag in the middle. Not quite as good as Infernal Affairs.

The Loved Ones: An Australian movie about a blood-soaked prom night. Fantastic, hysterical, and has an amazing gory punch. There is one scene in particular, soon to be iconic, that had me yelling like a little girl. That was embarrassing.