Various personal comments and News of the Toronto International Film Festival

Odd things have happened to my family since I last posted. My big brother, a medical student, who is volunteering in the Republican Dominican at a secluded hospital, has not eaten anything in three days because the food for the staff has stopped being shipped to their location which is 45 minutes away from the nearest town and surrounded by guards. Due to the stupidity of the organization which planned this venture, the volunteer staff have been without food for days. As a result, my brother and others are returning home on friday, although they may still go without food for two more days (totalling five days without food, for the mathematically impaired). I hope he gets some proper food soon or, at least, on the plane trip before he arrives to Montreal. Sigh...crazy week.

To take my mind off this horrible situation, I will post some more film related news.

Since I have recently been obsessed with film festivals, I have decided to leap ahead to September 7-16 and give you information about the Toronto International Film festival, a festival which is, at least, within reach for Canadians as opposed to the Venice Film Festival. It is the largest film festival in Canada. One day I will attend this festival (Hopefully, next year's festival, if I moved to Toronto, but I doubt it).

Although not all the films have been announced, I will mention a few which are of interest.

First, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel will have its North American premiere at the Toronto festival. I can't wait to see this film since I loved the Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga team who have worked together on Amorres Perros and 21 Grams. This film will mark the end of Inarritu's Death Trilogy (the first two films were Amorres Perros and 21 Grams).

Ken Loach's film The Wind that Shakes the Barley (its name obtained from an Irish poem), which won the Palme D'or at a overall disappointing Cannes film festival early this year. The film features Cillian Murphy (Red Eye, 28 Days Later, Batman Begins) and revolves the Irish nationalist movement's attempt at independence in the 1920s. With a top festival award under its arm, it will most likely do fine at the festival, but it will not be in competition.

Other Cannes' prize winners at the festival are Bruno Dumont's Flandres (Grand Prize) and Andrea Arnold's The Red Road (Grand Jury).

Another film coming to the festival is John Cameron Mitchell's follow up to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus, which was one of the few films at the Cannes film festival to get positive reactions. The film concerns a group of New Yorkers who meet at an underground salon which features art, music, and a lot of sexual experimentation, actually, mainly the last one. Here is a teaser trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw5F7wEJLEE

Even the new remake of All the King's Men featuring Sean Penn will have its world premiere at the festival. This was meant to be last year's Oscar contender, but problems delayed it to 2006 and here it is again set for the fall, hoping to be another Oscar hopeful. If you watch the trailer, the film is clearly an attempt to get another Oscar for Penn. Often, films that try to overreach for the Oscar turn out either uninteresting due to its conventionality or downright annoying. Yet, despite these possibilities, the academy often still nominates them for reasons I will never grasp.

Another film of interest is Kim ki-duk's latest film "Time" (Loved 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....and Spring). Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition, Gozu) is bound to shock and disturb everyone who views his new film "Bang Bang Love, juvenilia". At least, I have always been disturbed by his films (In fact, I will never watch Ichi the Killer again), but have been strangely led to them again and again.

I will add more films later on. Some of the more obscure, but potentially interesting films as well as the documentaries premiering at this year's festival.