For the spiffy new Bell Lightbox, and for finally moving the festival so that screenings could be more centralized, closer together, and less Gucci, the Toronto International Film Festival gets a Gold Star.
For an equipment breakdown that completely shut down a pricey Roy Thompson Hall Gala screening, forcing the film to a much smaller venue and leaving many patrons waiting for hours or not seeing the film at all, well, no Gold Stars on that one.
On the whole, though, TIFF 2010 was a good one, loaded with a very diverse lineup of films that people actually wanted to see and then - hooray! - enjoyed having seen once they were done. Here are a few brief impressions.
One, if you're a Toronto local and have not been to the Lightbox yet, go at your earliest convenience. It's gorgeous and it's going to change the film landscape in this city in a big way. The screening rooms are tip-top but - more than that - the entire space actually evokes the feeling of a video arcade as opposed to just a movie theatre. It's spacious, and very well designed, with quality restaruants -- and if you hit the gallery space right now you can cozy up to 2001's HAL. Yep, the real HAL. He's in there right now along with some Cronenberg artifacts and a variety of other geek-worthy items. That'll all be cleared out to make space for a Tim Burton exhibition in the near future, though, so get your sci-fi on now.
Two, the movies were great. Over the course of a 30+ film screening schedule I saw only three that I really actively disliked. There were others I was only middling on but to have less than ten percent be stuff I thought sucked... well, that's a nice hit rate. Here's a sampling of the stuff I liked:
Armadillo: This is Denmark's submission to the Oscars this year -- and not only do I think it'll get that nomination but I think it should draw serious consideration for the overall Best Feature Documentary as well. The story of Danish soldiers in Afghanistan, Armadillo was the first documentary ever invited to the Critics Week selection in Cannes and therefore became the first ever doc to win the section when it did so a couple weeks later. This is intense, powerful stuff shot by a crew that had seemingly no regard for their own safety.
Submarine: If you're a fan of The IT Crowd or The Mighty Boosh then you're already familiar with Richard Ayoade as an actor, and his first turn as writer-director sparked a bidding war that landed the film with The Weinstein Company once the dust had settled. The comparisons to Wes Anderson have already started but I think Ayoade's got his own thing going on -- something far more sincere and heartfelt.
Stake Land: The sophomore feature from Mulberry Street's Jim Mickle, Stake Land is a surprisingly atmospheric road trip to the heart of horror with a man known only as Mister and a teenage boy struggling to make their way across a blasted America to a fabled promised land where they hope to find safety from the vampires and far right religious freaks who dominate the land. This one took home the Audience Award for the Midnight Madness section for good reason: It's one of the most striking American horror films to release in years.