Movies of the Moment – Toronto Film Festival Edition

OK, in this edition of Movies of the Moment, my movie comments will be about select films playing at the Toronto Film Festival, which starts next Thursday.

Lets go.

The 30th Annual Toronto Film Festival
The Toronto Film Festival has WAY too many films for me to comment on them all. These are a selection of films that caught my eye (and I am going to try to see, at least, ONE of the films). For a full film list (and scheduling and ticket information for those of you in the GTA from Sept 8 – 17) go to http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest.

Hostel
Because it’s part of the Midnight Madness program, this is the film I am LEAST likely to see during the festival, however I still feel inclined to talk about it. This is, director, Eli Roth‘s follow up to the horror film “Cabin Fever,” which was a big hit at the festival back in 2002.

Apparently this film takes no prisoners, and is not for the faint of heart. Though for fans of these sort of extreme horror flicks, this may be worth checking out.

Everything is Illuminated
This movie is the directorial debut of, actor, Liev Schreiber. It features Elijah Wood as a Jewish-American writer, who travels to Ukraine to find some missing pieces of his grandfather’s life. This is the time of artsy, independant film, that dominates festivals like these, however I saw the trailer, and I liked what I saw.

Oliver Twist
Roman Polanski follows up, his Academy award winning film, The Pianist, with this adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel. With the exception of Ben Kingsley, there are no big stars in this film. However, there hasn’t been an film-adaptation of this story for decades (even the, Disney film, Oliver and Company is getting old), and, like Merchant of Venice last year, this should get some good notice.

Shopgirl
Of all the films I am interested in at the film festival, this is my top pick to try and see. This film, based on a novella by Steve Martin (who also stars in the film, and wrote the screenplay), is a romantic comedy about a clerk at a shop (played by Claire Daines), who gets stuck in a love triange with both a wealthy computer executive (Martin) and a young hipster (Jason Schwartzman).

Even though I’m not a big fan of romantic comedies, there are still the odd few that catch my eye. This is one of them.

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
This film makes it’s regular opening a couple of weeks after the festival, so it’s no big loss if I don’t see it now.

Tim Burton’s last stop-motion film, The Nightmare Before Christmas, has become a cult-favourite to movie fans everywhere. This film is Tim Burton, at his best – dark, but not TOO dark. It’s a treat that we have two Burton films coming out in the same year. Film festival or not, I am definitely seeing this film.

Well, those are my select comments for the film festival. Sometime on the weekend, I will post the regular MOTM post for the month of September.