Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF 2011: Sarah Palin – You Betcha! Review

In Sarah Palin – You Betcha! British documentarian Nick Broomfield and his tiny team cozy up in Wasilla, Alaska to try to gather opinions and footage from Palin's friends, colleagues and even Palin herself. Two thirds of those goals do not go very well at all, and for some bizarre reason Broomfield lets you in on every production misfortune.

TIFF 2011 Picks Part Three: Hidden Gems

Lost in a sea of major Hollywood releases and hyped international films are the hidden gems of the Toronto International Film Festival. has picked three films that are defintely not your typical fare, but that he believes are nonetheless worthy of your time and attention.

TIFF 2011: The Skin I Live In Review

The Skin I Live In is a hypnotizing feat, a contemporary reflection of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die resulting in a Frankenstein tale making sweet, Spanish love to body politics. Almodóvar is gently taking us by the hand down and leading us down a trail of science gone mad, and it feels as classically minded as it does completely original.-

Toronto International Film Festival Kicks Off

Despite the glamour and glitz associated with the TIFF, there are few things more lovingly dorky than a major film festival. This doesn’t necessarily extend to people who work within the industry (the talent, the buyers, the movers, the shakers) or the people who have to deal with the industry types, but for film lovers a festival is no different than playing video games for hours on end or obsessively collecting action figures.

TIFF 2011 Picks
Part One

The 2011 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off tomorrow and will run until September 18th. Now you're going to hear a lot about the celebrities in town, the parties going down and the massive queues, but at the end of the day TIFF is about the movies. And with over 330 movies playing this year, there's definitely no shortage of films to choose from.

TIFF 2011: Midnight Madness Lineup

This morning, the Toronto International Film Festival announced the full slate of Midnight Madness titles, and it's an extremely exciting line-up featuring films from newcomers and returning vets alike. Midnight Madness is where you'll find world premieres of some of the best genre flicks of the year. This programme is for your inner dork; the place to be if you don't feel up for the stuffiness and pretension found elsewhere in the festival. Crime, action, horror, sci-fi - it's all here.

TIFF 2010
Fubar II Review

As much as I always loved the first Fubar movie, I was very skeptical when I found out they were premiering the sequel at this year’s festival. To mix metaphors, I thought they were returning to the well to milk a dead cow. Fortunately there was enough water left in the well to keep the cow alive and ready to be milked for our viewing pleasure once again!

TIFF 2010
The Butcher, the Chef
& the Swordsman

Director Wuershan’s feature debut, The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman is pretty much the epitome of a Midnight Madness film. A combination of period film, slapstick comedy, food film, love story, martial arts film and revenge thriller, with objects, images, and a contemporary soundtrack constantly being thrown at the audience, this is a film that should not work, but somehow it does.

TIFF 2010
Detective Dee Review

In a strange alternative past set during China’s Tang Dynasty, a woman is about to ascend to the Emperor’s throne. She has ordered that a great Buddha statue be built in her likeness, and it must be ready for her coronation. But on a tour for a visiting dignitary, a high-ranking official mysteriously burns from the inside out. The soon-to-be-empress, Wu Zetian, tells her most trusted warrior, the beautiful lady Shangguan Jing’er, to bring back Detective Dee, who has been jailed by Wu for daring to oppose her, to solve the mystery.

TIFF 2010
The Illusionist Review

The Illusionist is director Sylvain Chomet's follow-up to the hugely successful The Triplets of Belleville, and while he is able to top his previous efforts' aesthetic beauty and craftsmanship, the story is perhaps too subtle and minimal to really draw viewers in.

TIFF 2010
Stake Land Review

A recent trend in horror and science fiction films is examining the world not in the midst of disaster, but once it has begun to adjust to the aftermath of a disaster. This can lead to some very interesting examinations of contemporary issues. Winner of the Cadillac People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award, Jim Mickle’s Stake Land is set in a future that includes vampires. But these are not sparkly vampires, nor ones that have souls. These are vampires are little more than animals, and like George A. Romero’s zombie film series, society must adapt to the new world order.

TIFF 2010
I Saw the Devil Review

Korean cinema has churned out its fair share of revenge thrillers, chief among them being Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy. Kim Ji-Woon’s I Saw the Devil might not be as good as these films, but it is a solid revenge thriller that abandons any pretence of satisfaction and keeps piling on the tragedy.

TIFF 2010
You Are Here Review

Quirky and original new film from Canadian director and screenwriter Daniel Cockburn. Its plot is certainly hard, if not impossible, to summate, as a traditional plot as such does not exist. But that certainly doesn’t mean the film has no story; far from it.