A.V. Club Blog

On Thursday, Noel Murray and I take off for another 10 days of bleary-eyed

bliss at the Toronto Film Festival.

Just like last year, we’ll be blogging the hell out of it on these virtual

pages, giving you some early thoughts on this annual smorgasbord of superstar

auteurs, Oscar wannabes, and notable obscurities as it unfurls. I won’t

speak for Noel, who has a few reservations about this year’s line-up,

but I can’t recall a year with so many international heavyweights, including

new films by Pedro Almodovar, Tsai Ming-liang, Apichatpong Weeratheskul, Hong

Sang-soo, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Jafar Panahi, Paul Verhoeven, Ken Loach, Alain

Resnais, Werner Herzog, Aki Kaurismaki, Benoit Jacquot, Hal Hartley, Takashi

Miike (okay, he’s around every year, but still), Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Bruno

Dumont, Kim Ki-duk, and Anthony Minghella. There’s also the already-controversial

D.O.A.P., a political fantasy that ponders the aftermath of George

W. Bush’s assassination (pinch me, etc.), and low pleasures like the highly

anticipated (by me, anyway) Borat. But what I’m looking forward

to most are the unknown pleasures, those under-the-radar entries from new or

unheralded filmmakers that completely knock you out. So to the Mementos

of tomorrow, I salute ye.

If you’re at the festival and have any buzz items for us, drop me a line

at stobias@theonion.com. Last year, I offered that address to viewers interested

in discussing the ending of Caché, and after a year and about

300-400 queries, I’m still getting emails. (As a sidenote, I apologize

to anyone who’s written within the last few months and hasn’t gotten

a response. You can find all—or some, or none—of the answers to

your questions at this webpage.)

Look out America, Jr., here we come!