I’ll soon be jetting off to New York and Washington DC for a quick holiday and then it’s off to the 2011 Toronto Film Festival. Can’t wait!
My media accreditation has been approved which will get me into the press/media screenings. Those times haven’t been released as yet and so if they are more suitable than what I’ve listed below, I may juggle some things around.
As I noted in an earlier blog, tickets for many of the films below are handed out via a lottery system. Hopefully I’ve given myself the best chance to get what I want with an upgraded membership. Some of the films though are special premieres and I’ll have to try to secure single tickets when released publically on September 3.
All of that said, I’ve sifted my way through the 444 page program (you can check out a photo here) and I’ve picked out my dream program.
I’ve gone with a few left field choices but for the most part, I’m sticking to the more commercial releases. I’d like to be at the forefront when trying to generate Oscar buzz for those films that deserve it.
There are hundreds of films that look great but I’ve had to limit it to 30 films over the 8 days. The list includes 17 world premieres and 11 North American premieres. Not sure how I’ll hold up in terms of stamina but if these movies are as good as they look, the adrenalin might help me get to the finish line.
In all, there are 268 feature films at the Festival. They include 112 world premieres and 98 North American premieres. That's a staggering number. 33 different screens across Toronto will be used to fit them in.
Sep 3 Update - This list has now been updated following the allocation of tickets. I missed out on a couple of films I was after and there were a few clashes but here in my locked in TIFF program for 2011…
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Restless
North American Premiere
9:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Elephant)
Plot: Two young teen outsiders are drawn to each other through their fascination with death. Both have secrets from their past that explain this common bond and as their relationship deepens we come face to face with their separate tragedies.
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Friday, 9 September 2011
Friends With Kids
World Premiere
6:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein)
Plot: When a few members of a close group of married and single friends start to have children, it has a big impact on everyone. Stars Kristen Wiig, Megan Fox, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph and Edward Burns.
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360
World Premiere
9:00pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Fernando Meirelles (City Of God, The Constant Gardener)
Plot: Director Fernando Meirelles reunites with his Constant Gardener star Rachel Weisz, who stars opposite Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, and Ben Foster in this uncompromising dramatic thriller fuelled by the notion of how sexual relationships can transgress social boundaries.
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Saturday, 10 September 2011
The Ides Of March
North American Premiere
11:00am – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: George Clooney (Good Night, And Good Luck)
Plot: George Clooney is back in the director’s chair for this edgy political drama set in the days leading up to a fictional presidential primary. Clooney also stars as a Democratic candidate who schools his idealistic campaign press secretary (Ryan Gosling) in the dubious machinations of modern politics.
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Moneyball
World Premiere
2:30pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Bennett Miller (Capote)
Plot: Bennett Miller’s follow-up to 2005’s Capote stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics’ general manager whose unorthodox approach to fielding a team had a major impact on the game. Jonah Hill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman co-star in this clever and compelling work of sports realism.
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The Descendants
World Premiere
6:00pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways)
Plot: George Clooney plays the leader of a storied Hawaiian family as they are forced to decide what to do with their last, vast parcel of land. At the same time he learns a secret about his critically ill wife.
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Drive
Canadian Premiere
9:15pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn (Valhalla Rising)
Plot: Ryan Gosling plays a stunt driver by day, getaway driver by night in this lean and mean crime thriller by the director of Valhalla Rising that won Best Direction in Cannes.
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Sunday, 11 September 2011
Take This Waltz
World Premiere
12:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Sarah Polley (Away We Go)
Plot: Sarah Polley makes a welcome return to directing with her first feature since 2006 Festival favourite Away from Her. Luke Kirby, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman and two-time Oscar-nominee Michelle Williams star in this bittersweet story about a married woman struggling to choose between her husband and a man she's just met.
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Dark Horse
North American Premiere
2:30pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Todd Solondz (Happiness, Storytelling)
Plot: Todd Solondz creates an intimate dark comedy about a manchild whose desire for a romantic relationship runs smack into reality.
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Shame
North American Premiere
7:00pm – Princess Of Wales Theatre
Director: Steve McQueen (Hunger)
Plot: Michael Fassbender plays a New York man confronting his sexual compulsions and the self-destructive acts of his sister (Carey Mulligan).
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The Skin I Live In
North American Premiere
10:00pm – Princess Of Wales Theatre
Director: Pedro Almodovar (All About My Mother, Talk To Her)
Plot: Pedro Almodovar's disturbing and gripping new thriller sees the director reteaming with star Antonio Banderas after 21 years. Banderas plays an accomplished plastic surgeon who creates a new kind of synthetic skin and uses his worst enemy as a guinea pig.
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Monday, 12 September 2011
Albert Nobbs
World Premiere
12:30pm – Winter Garden Theatre
Director: Rodrigo Garcia (Six Feet Under, In Treatment)
Plot: Glenn Close co-wrote and stars in this adaptation of the play about a nineteenth-century Irishwoman who disguises herself as a man and works as a butler for twenty years. Mia Wasikowska, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Aaron Johnson co-star in this intelligent and often surprising period drama.
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50/50
World Premiere
6:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Jonathan Lavine (The Wackness)
Plot: As far as movie formulas go, cancer and comedy shouldn't mix. But 50/50 defies these odds by finding the perfect balance of humour and honesty. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a 27-year old nice guy who's been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Luckily, he doesn't have to face this dark journey alone: by his side are his best friend (Seth Rogen), his doctor (Philip Baker Hall) and a therapist-in-training (Anna Kendrick).
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Ten Year
World Premiere
9:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Jamie Linden
Plot: A group of high school friends meet again at their high school reunion and discover that the passing of time changes some things--and others not at all. It stars a large ensemble cast that includes Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Kate Mara, Anthony Mackie and Chris Pratt.
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The Incident
World Premiere
11:59pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Alexandre Courtes
Plot: When a power outage hits a high security mental institution, three cooks working in the kitchen endure a cat and mouse chase with the maniacs on the loose.
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Tuesday, 13 September 2011
The Oranges
World Premiere
12:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Julian Farino
Plot: A guy falls for the daughter of a good friend, resulting in a massive upheaval for all the families involved. The cast includes Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney and Adam Brody.
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Killer Joe
North American Premiere
3:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: William Friedkin (Rules Of Engagement, The Exorcist)
Plot: Emile Hirsch plays a desperate Texas debtor who plots to kill his mother, with help of his family (Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon). They hire a crooked cop (Matthew McConaughey) to do the job, but Killer Joe asks for their teenage daughter (Juno Temple) as a "retainer."
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Like Crazy
International Premiere
6:00pm – Ryerson Theatre
Director: Drake Doremus
Plot: Anna (Felicity Jones) notices Jacob (Anton Yelchin) in one of her college classes in Los Angeles. In a move worthy only of her youth, she scribbles a love poem and leaves it on his car. The pair soon catapults into that most potent brand of romance: naïve, pure and possibly fleeting.
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Sisters & Brothers
World Premiere
8:30pm – AMC 6
Director: Carl Bessai
Plot: Carl Bessai’s third installment in his familial trilogy is a bracingly funny look into the lives of four sets of siblings. Brimming with affection, hostility and a healthy dose of guilt, it is a rich and gratifying journey through siblinghood's love and dysfunction and features an impressive ensemble cast that includes Cory Monteith from Glee.
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Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Damsels In Distress
North American Premiere
9:15am – Scotiabank 4
Director: Whit Stillman (The Last Days Of Disco)
Plot: Damsels in Distress takes a unique look into the psyche of privileged American youth, focusing on a group of undergraduates at a leafy East Coast university that has only recently begun to accept female students.
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Peace, Love & Misunderstanding
World Premiere
11:00am – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Bruce Beresford (Mao’s Last Dancer, Driving Miss Daisy)
Plot: Australian film veteran Bruce Beresford delivers a heartfelt comedy that centres on a conservative lawyer (Catherine Keener) who, after splitting with her husband, takes her two teenage children to meet their estranged, eccentric grandmother (Jane Fonda).
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Butter
World Premiere
2:30pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Jim Field Smith (She’s Out Of My League)
Plot: Olivia Wilde and Hugh Jackman star in this deliciously unlikely comedy about a Midwestern misfit thrown into the hostile, high-stakes world of competitive butter carving. Also starring Jennifer Garner, Ashley Greene, Alicia Silverstone and cult-comedy favourites Rob Corddry and Kristen Schaal.
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Heleno
World Premiere
6:00pm – Scotiabank 1
Director: Jose Henrique Fonseca
Plot: Rio in the forties was an oasis in a world fraught by war. Its star was Heleno de Freitas, (a stand-out performance by Rodrigo Santoro), a footballer, whose violent temper both on and off the pitch led to his decline in the late fifties. Shot in luminous black and white, José Henrique Fonseca’s latest feature film evokes Heleno’s glory days when he was king of Rio’s night and day, to his lonely end in a sanatorium due to untreated syphilis.
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Jeff, Who Lives At Home
World Premiere
9:00pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Jay Duplass and Jeff Duplass
Plot: When he leaves his house on a banal errand for his mother, Jeff discovers that the universe might be sending him messages about his destiny. Stars Jason Segel, Ed Helms, Judy Greer and Susan Sarandon.
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Thursday, 15 September 2011
That Summer
North American Premiere
12:00pm – TIFF Bell Lightbox 1
Director: Philippe Garrell
Plot: A couple living together in Paris, he a painter, she a film actress, befriend a couple of film extras who fall in love with each other. All four go to Rome where their relationships undergo profound changes as emotions shift and change.
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Breathing
North American Premiere
2:45pm – AMC 3
Director: Karl Markovics
Plot: An 18-year old boy incarcerated for accidentally killing a minor consistently fails to hold down a job through the day-release program as if he never really wants to get out.
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Violet & Daisy
World Premiere
6:00pm – Visa Screening Room (Elgin Theatre)
Director: Geoffrey Fletcher
Plot: Oscar-winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher's visually adventurous directorial debut is a brutal fable about a pair of teenage assassins, played by Saoirse Ronan and Alexis Bledel, who believe they've landed a straightforward assignment but soon find themselves thrown off their game when their latest target isn't who they expected.
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Hysteria
World Premiere
9:30pm – Roy Thomson Hall
Director: Tanya Wexler
Plot: Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy star in this cheeky romantic comedy about the invention of the vibrator. Victorian London is brought to life in vivid colour as a young doctor (Dancy) struggles to establish himself while confronting the gutsy daughter of his boss (Gyllenhaal). Rupert Everett and Felicity Jones play supporting roles.
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