Toronto Film Fest Launches Fall Oscar Mania

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The New York Sun

Few film festivals in the world provide as much bang for one’s buck as the Toronto International Film Festival, the annual post-Labor Day gathering that launches the American film industry into Oscar season. Sundance is still the ideal place for the unattached art-house wannabe, and Venice and Cannes have the tabloid appeal of red carpets and paparazzi pits, but it is Toronto — the 33rd edition of which opens September 4 — where critics and distributors turn up with Oscar gold on their minds.

The festival arrives this year at a precarious time for the independent players in the movie industry. Despite the record-breaking success of “The Dark Knight,” 2008 has witnessed the dissolution of several smaller independent distributors, including New Line Cinema, Picturehouse, Warner Independent Pictures, and Netflix’s Red Envelope. And, according to an article published last week in Variety, financial concerns are leading major studios to reconsider which festivals are worth attending. Fewer small studios are prowling the festival scene looking to buy, and major studios are beginning to tighten their belts and look for the most economical place to premiere.

All of which means this year’s Toronto Film Festival will be a more intense race to the finish line, with filmmakers, producers, and buyers all fighting through a clouded marketplace in search of the next Oscar-worthy dark horse (think “Lost in Translation” or “Brokeback Mountain”).

Nearly 250 films will screen at Toronto, but a dozen or so have already been earmarked as the titles worth watching. Topping the list are Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,” featuring Mickey Rourke as a down-and-out brawler rallying back from the brink, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Burn After Reading,” a drastic departure from “No Country for Old Men,” about a former CIA agent who winds up losing the text of his memoir.

Spike Lee is also stirring Oscar talk. In his period drama “Miracle at St. Anna,” Derek Luke stars as one of four black American soldiers who find themselves trapped in a Tuscan village during World War II. Another period piece, “The Duchess,” features Keira Knightley as the powerful but insulated Duchess of Devonshire in 18th-century England. Elsewhere, “The Secret Life of Bees,” based on the popular novel by Sue Monk Kidd, arrives in Toronto on the wings of the heralded performances from an eclectic cast that includes Dakota Fanning, Alicia Keys, and Oscar nominees Jennifer Hudson and Sophie Okonedo. The story, about a 14-year-old struggling to overcome the memories of her late mother, is set in 1964 South Carolina.

Other anticipated performances include that of Ralph Fiennes in Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker,” about an elite Army bomb unit in Iraq; Peter O’Toole in “Dean Spanley,” based on Lord Dunsany’s novel “My Talks With Dean Spanley,” about a father who grows closer to his son after an improbable visit with a swami, and Bill Maher in “Reilgulous,” a documentary, helmed by “Borat” director Larry Charles, about the modern religious movement.

Among the hundreds of films showing in Toronto, several major directors will attempt to stage triumphant returns. Charlie Kaufman, who won an Oscar for writing “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” is back not only with a new script, but his directorial debut: “Synecdoche, New York,” about the imploding mind of an aging artist (played by perennial Oscar favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman). Kevin Smith, of “Clerks” fame, returns with a new non-Silent Bob comedy, “Zak and Miri Make a Porno,” starring Seth Rogen. And Danny Boyle returns with “Slumdog Millionaire,” a romantic comedy starring Irfan Khan as an illiterate boy who goes on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” in hopes of reconnecting with the girl he loves.

There’s even a hint of New York magic to be found at Toronto. In a follow-up to “Paris, Je T’Aime,” the 2006 collection of short films about the wonders of Paris, 12 filmmakers have participated in this year’s “New York, I Love You,” a mosaic of shorts about the Big Apple. Mira Nair and Fatih Akin are on board, as are actresses Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, testing out their directing chops.

Which of these films will dominate the headlines and endure through the fall Oscar season? Which ones will fade into memory as works that overpromised and under-delivered? This is the allure of the Toronto Film Festival.

ssnyder@nysun.com


The New York Sun

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