Recently in TIFF 2008 Category

The best of 2008 in just under 8 minutes. Watch the movie, identify the images (all titles listed at the end). Some last only a few seconds, some for a minute or so. Coming soon: Shot-by-shot commentary (or, why I chose these particular shots for my tribute to the year's best favoritest.). And, of course, the second annual Exploding Head Awards!

Text list after jump...

I still haven't gotten 'round to writing about some of the best movies I saw at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, including "Wendy and Lucy," "Liverpool," "35 Rhums" and (below) "Goodbye Solo":

Here's what distinguishes Ramin Bahrani's films for me, and why I like them so much. When I watch a movie by director of "Man Push Cart," "Chop Shop" and "Goodbye Solo" (which just won the FIPRESCI critics prize at the Venice Film Festival), I don't feel somebody has begun with a pre-set story and then figured out how to film it. I feel like I'm watching something that is rooted in concrete observation, inquiry, exploration. It feels as though the filmmaker has noticed something that has moved him or roused his curiosity, and that he has decided not just to incorporate those things into his movie, but to actually focus on them and see where they they took him from there.

"The war is over. The revolution has just begun."
-- Che Guevara (Benicio Del Toro), after Cuban guerillas have overthrown Batista's dictatorial regime on New Year's Day, 1959, in "Che"

Even without titles or credits, the running time of the gorgeous digital print of Steven Soderberg's "Che" that screened at the Toronto Film Festival was listed as 261minutes (that's four hours and 21 minutes for those of you without calculators). The working title for the epic was "Guerilla," then "Che," and despite Benicio Del Toro's fully-lived performance as Che Guevara, a more suitable title might be "Revolutions." Because this doesn't feel so much like a biopic as a documentary portrait of the recipes for political revolutions, successful and failed, in Cuba and Bolivia. The titles may rhyme, but nobody's going to mistake "Che" for "Ray."

Cell phone photo at right: MSN Movies editor Dave McCoy, New York Deli, Bay Street, Toronto, 9/10/2008. Seven years later and what have we done?

Torontoids #2:

"I've seen a lot of good shit and a lot of bad shit but not a lot of meh."

* * *

Old man on a bench, speaking to a wire construction fence, or possibly a pigeon on the other side of it. Or maybe a Bluetooth headset: "But the best picture Judy Garland ever made was..." (Just then, a loud truck roared past, in the opposite direction from the one I was heading, and drowned out the title. I hesitated, almost went back to ask, but I was hustling to get to a screening. I'm kind of hoping it was "Meet Me in St. Louis.")

The only real blasphemies in Bill Maher's anti-religion documentary, "Religulous," are that it's not terribly smart and only sporadically funny. Three or four big laughs, a lot of snide, pompous misfires and innumerable fish-in-a-barrel potshots do not make for much of a movie, or a coherent case against the incoherence of faith or organized religion. Maher's line is that he is pro-doubt, that he really "doesn't know," that he's "just asking questions." That's a load of crap (he's not really promoting doubt any more than anti-abortionists are "pro-life"), but what makes it offensive is that Maher's smart-ass tone sounds as dead-certain, smug, smarmy and self-righteous as Jerry Falwell or Ted Haggerty.

But I kid.

What a sweet little movie "The Wrestler" is.

Warm. Endearing. Really nice.

This may be the first time adjectives like these have been applied to the work of Darren Aronofsky ("Pi," "Requiem for a Dream," "The Fountain") or Mickey Rourke ("Johnny Handsome," "Sin City"), neither of whom has an on-screen reputation as Mr. Charming. But there's not a mean or cynical (broken) bone in this movie's soft-bellied, soft-hearted, battle-scarred, age-tenderized old body.

It's the question you dread, at least from total strangers, but it's unavoidable at a film festival -- kind of like "What's your major?" in college:

"Seen anything you like?"

My dulled response while immersed in this cinematic maelstrom (my brain runneth over) is to say something like: "Yeah..." and then forget where the hell I am in time and space. But I like listening to other strangers trade views on what they've seen, whether I have a clue as to what they're talking about or not. (Yes, I like to eavesdrop: Film is a voyeur's medium.)

The other night at dinner, for example, some French (French Canadian? Belgian?) fellows were sitting behind us on a rooftop patio. A little mist was falling, but we were protected by table umbrellas. I turned just in time to hear one of them say, I a heavy accent, "Yes, but then the two protagonists..." I can't really tell you why I liked that so much, but I keep thinking (as I often do): "Oh, that would be so great to put in a movie!" I have loads and loads of fleeting images and snatches of conversation that need to be stuffed into some kind of Altmanesque tapestry someday.

It seems appropriate that the first screening I attended for the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival should be a movie about stories and con games: "The Brothers Bloom," written and directed by Rian Johnson, maker of "Brick," one of my favorite movies of 2005.

Now look back at that sentence and you'll notice it's a setup for another story. (And con?)

I mean, of course it's going to make sense to me that the first movie I see in Toronto is going to be about storytelling as con artistry, in which stories themselves are the biggest cons of all -- because, then, seeing the movie becomes part of my story, and the lead (or "lede," if you prefer) for the story you're reading now, about my first TIFF 2008 screening. That's the way stories work, and the way we work stories.

In a Coen Brothers movie every pause and stutter, every "um" and grammatical (mis-)construction, every repetition and idiosyncratic pronunciation, is inscribed like a note on a musical staff. The composer-conductors write the music, indicate the pitch, tempo and duration of each passage, and the select musicians -- soloists and ensemble players -- attack their assigned parts with the virtuoso flair for which they are known. As composers have often written works specifically suited to the talents of their favorite musicians, so the Coens frequently write roles tailored to the individual actors they want to work with.

"Burn After Reading" is a deft little piece, directed with a straight face and performed with a roiling comedic energy that matches brio with precision. That's what makes it funny. Emmanuel Lebezki's cinematography, Carter Burwell's score, Roderick Jaynes' editing (yes, we all know that's a pseudonym) could proudly serve any modern espionage picture. All serve a ridiculously plotted absurdist farce, which is what the best spy stories usually boil down to, whether they're comic or tragic.

A winter afternoon. A man walks down a muddy village backstreet with his shoulders hunched against the chill, accompanied by what could be industrial noise or a string score. Whatever it is, it evokes tension and anxiety. The catches the attention of a passing German Shepherd, who strains on its leash to keep an eye on him -- all the more so when the man attempts to conceal himself around a corner. In a small general store, he buys an axe. The clerk wraps the blade neatly in crisp brown paper. The camera tracks a slow-moving car that is being pushed along by several other men, the "driver" looking behind him through an open door. The man places the axe against his side, facing us, to shield it from their view.

What are we watching?

Later, a man enters a flat. The door of a small refrigerator is ajar, the light glowing inside. The man grabs an object from a white plate sitting on top of the fridge. It is a woman's black shoe.

So, what is this? A horror movie? A crime thriller? A macabre mystery? Sure. But I think a more accurate genre description would be romantic comedy.

How to plan my Toronto schedule when there are a few dozen movies screening every day and I want to keep from knowing much of anything about them before I see them, so that I can (as much as humanly possible) avoid preconceptions, false expectations, artificial festival "buzz," and other distractions that have little or nothing to do with what's on those screens? (See last year's accounting: "What did I know and when did I know it?")

The first thing I look for are the names of directors whose work I'm interested in following (or whose work I think I would like to follow). This year, for example, Danny Boyle, Kevin Smith, Rod Lurie and (as previously mentioned) Guy Ritchie all have films in this year's festival -- which, in my case, leaves more room to accommodate movies by directors I like. Not only for megastar filmmakers like the Dardennes and the Coens, but for Terence Davies ("The Long Day Closes"), Rian Johnson ("Brick"), Ramin Bahrani ("Chop Shop"), Katherine Bigelow ("Blue Steel"), Jerzy Skolimowski ("Deep End"), Kelly Reichardt ("Old Joy"), Michael Winterbottom ("A Cock and Bull Story" -- who makes two or three movies a year, it seems)... Those parenthetical titles, of course, are earlier films by these filmmakers. I don't even remember most of the titles from this year yet, because I haven't seen the movies. I've just been circling times and places on my screening schedule.

Oh, I have plenty to write about. Some of it even about TIFF, which officially kicks off Thursday. But I have to get up early to get to the first press screenings Wednesday morning. They start, auspiciously, with the new Guy Ritchie film, "Rocknrolla," at 9 am. (That's 6 am real time.) So, that means I can sleep in at least until 9:30 or 10. On the other hand, it would be nice to cover some films that probably won't get wider distribution. Ritchie sure fits that bill.

Meanwhile, Bloor Street looks like Gitmo (new construction!) and all Torontonians want to talk about is the governor of Alaska -- either with great concern or great disdain. (The Canadians have been openly laughing at us, nervously, for eight years.)

The movies will surely offer a welcome respite from the horror-comedy of the world at large right now...

Nighty-night. Be seeing you.