Profile: Phillip Noyce
posted Sept. 12, 2006

Director Phillip Noyce discusses what went into making ‘Catch a Fire,' based on the true story of a South African family man politicized after a brutal police encounter. READ MORE...

Review: Babel
posted Sept. 11, 2006

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu's follow-up to 21 Grams is the equally dire and A-list actor studded Babel, which is visually dazzling and, despite its significant pacing problems, effectively heartbreaking as it weaves together the tales of an affection-starved deaf Japanese schoolgirl, a pair of preteen brothers in rural Morocco and the dysfunctional, vacationing San Diego couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) they shoot at, and the bad choices the couple's nanny must make in their absence. READ MORE...

Review: Borat
posted September 10, 2006

Any movie that lists someone with the job of feces provider in the end credits is either going to be a disaster or one of the funniest, most outrageous films of the year. Boratis clearly the later, 82-minutes of the uber-outre antics of Sacha Baron Cohen’s hapless, casually racist, sexist, and faux Kazakhstani TV reporter alter-ego as he road-trips across America in an odyssey of bears, rubber fists, chocolate faces, and naked Greco-Roman wrestling. READ MORE...

Fest Overview
Posted Sept. 7, 2006

Three hundred and fifty two films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, so little time. There certainly is a cacophony of high profile films to choose from. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet in Alejandro Gonzalez Innarritu’s Babel, Jude Law in Breaking and Entering and Heath Ledger and the very capable up and coming actress Abbie Cornish in Candy, Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, and the Cannes Palm d’Or winner The Wind that Shakes the Barley starring Cillian Murphy are just a few. One report has already noted that there will be 500 stars here walking the red carpets for their movies.READ MORE...

Update #6
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Update #5
Here and Queer
Posted Sept. 14, 2006

A look at Shortbus, Twilight Dancers, The Bubble, and many of the other gay-themed films at this year's festival. There's always been plenty of queer cinema at Toronto, but one would expect no less in the city of legal gay marriages and don't ask and do tell, where the tranquilly diverse city streets stood in for [an oddly glam fantasy of] Pittsburgh in Showtime's Queer as Folk. Though lesbian and transgender movies were few and far between this year, some of the gay male offerings were truly outstanding. Hopefully, they'll find a distributor to satisfy post-Brokeback expectations that have yet to be met. READ MORE...

Update #4
Glenn Kenny's Take
Posted Sept. 11, 2006

I was just reading about the near-riot the other night at a midnight screening of Borat after a projection malfunction about 20 minutes into the picture. I wasn't there myself—saw Borat at Cannes, enjoyed it quite a bit—but given what I hear from several reliable sources that wasn't quite the case. The Toronto film festival does not riot, or near-riot. I can only assume it takes a handful of loud boos for aspiring scandal peddlers to declare an international incident. READ MORE....

Update #3
Michael Moore Galore
Posted Sept. 9, 2006

After entertaining the crowd at the aborted screening of Borat on Thursday night, Larry Charles and Michael Moore teamed up again for "An Evening With Michael Moore" at the Elgin Theater — an "Actors Studio" type chat with Borat director Charles asking the questions, mixed with clips from Moore's two new projects, Sicko and the Great '04 Slacker Uprising. Unfortunately, for the second night in a row there were technical glitches (this time, sound problems) with the clips, prompting Charles to wonder, "Is it me?" and Moore to respond, "It's me — I'm violating one of my rules, which is not to show a work in progress." READ MORE....

Update #2
Volver and the Glut
Posted Sept. 9, 2006

There couldn't be a nicer place for an international film festival than Toronto. It has many of the highs of urban living that one might find in an American megalopolis and few of the lows. The "gorgeous mosaic" of ethnicities that former New York mayor David Dinkins once spoke of exists here in fact, not fantasy. September is a beautiful and temperate time of year in Toronto, late summer without the oppressive heat. And yet... READ MORE....

Update #1
Borat Takes Canada
Posted Sept. 8, 2006

You can bet that someone got their asses handed to them after Thursday night’s premiere of Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Those attending the Midnight Madness screening of the mockumentary at the Ryerson Theater on Sept. 7 came expecting an evening of comedy but instead witnessed a comedy of errors that people will be talking about for a long time. READ MORE....