The A.V. Club at the Toronto Film Festival

by Scott Tobias
September 5th, 2006

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!