eptember is a month with many gifts: autumn, school, and the premieres of the latest in network television programming. All of these gifts share one thing in common: a tendency to cause depression. September can be a damn rough time. Summer is over and the weight of the world is about to drag you down. Fortunately Toronto is one of the few places in the world to offer some much needed excitement in September. After all, this is the month of the annual Toronto International Film Festival. For a few precious and unforgettable weeks the streets of this fair city are stocked with celebrities and the theaters are filled with some of the finest motion pictures that will be released this year.

However, it can be difficult to decide what TIFF events to take in during the festival. With so many options there simply must be a deep well of crap available…that’s just how things work. Well, the good people here at martiniboys care about your TIFF plight and wish to help ensure that your experiences at the festival will be as enjoyable as possible. With that in mind, we’ll be setting a little time aside each day to let you know how the films and parties are turning out. Discover hidden gems and learn from our mistakes. Hopefully we can help make your September a little more bearable.



A Film With Me In It
Directed by Ian Fitzgibbon
Starring Mark Doherty, Dylan Moran, Amy Huberman
This delightfully dark British comedy is not exactly the type of movie that grabs audiences by the balls and demands their attention. No, it’s a quiet little comedy in the vein of Local Hero or Waking Ned Devine that should delight audiences if they get the chance to see it. Describing any of the plot would spoil the fun, but let’s just say it involves a pair of professional fuck-ups struggling to deal with an unexpected pile of corpses. The perpetually deadpan Mark Doherty wrote and stars in the film and he has a wonderfully naïve presence. But the real scene stealer is Dylan Moran. Moran is one of the most famous comedians in Britain thanks to his prolific career as a stand-up and his beloved TV series Black Books, but he has yet to find success across the pond. This is a the biggest role he’s been given in a film yet and if the movie gets a decent North American release, this could be the project that finally launches Dylan’s career here. It’s definitely the best work that Moran has done an actor and will hopefully lead to him getting more roles. A Film With Me In It a hilarious little movie that demands to be seen. It will be a struggle for to see it outside of a festival setting, but damn it will it ever be worth it. Death and alcoholism have never been so funny.—PB

Martyrs
Directed by Pascal Laugier
Starring Mark Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Begin
Over the past few years there has been an explosion of hardcore horror films in France. Movies like Le Sheitan and Inside pushed the boundaries of good taste and explored a genre that hadn’t been very well represented in the country. The latest entry to this mini-movement is Martyrs and it is easily the most disturbing horror flick made in France yet. The plot revolves around the extended torture of women and children for a bizarre experiments and it has got be one of the most unrelenting horror films ever made. Make no mistake, this is not a film for horror-amateurs (after all, a woman had to run out of the theater to puke in the middle of my screening), but gorehounds everywhere should be impressed by the sheer audacity of this project. Don’t even think about bringing your mother to see this one. –PB



Slumdog Millionaire
Dir: Danny Boyle
Starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal
A perverse combination of a realistic depiction of the slums of India and modern fairytale, Slumdog Millionaire is arguably Danny Boyle’s greatest achievement since Trainspotting. While there are certainly moments that hearken back to that early masterwork (there is another diving into a toilet scene that has to be seen to be believed), this is a different beast entirely. The story is unashamedly romantic, but with a dark edge. The plot concerns a young man from the slums of India who unexpectedly wins the national version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but is forced to prove to the police that he didn’t cheat when the show’s host can’t believe than an uneducated youngster could win the series. He must then explain how he knows each answer and in doing so tells his life story, from an orphan childhood spent sleeping in abandoned huts through to the crime-filled underworld that he lives in today.

The depictions of contemporary India are quite disturbing, but not enough to make the film unbearable. This is ultimately a fairytale love story that builds to a romantic and thoroughly satisfying happy ending. Danny Boyle’s subversive sense of humor and unflinching depiction of the underbelly of humanity keeps the story grounded in a harsh reality and prevents the fantasy elements from making the film silly. This little movie should be a pleasant surprise for audiences when it is released this year. It has the potential to be a sleeper hit (despite some box office killing subtitles) and may even end up with a statue or two during awards season. Don’t miss this one.-PB

Adam Resurrected
Dir: Paul Schrader
Starring Jeff Goldblum, Willam DeFoe, Derek Jacobi
A movie starring Jeff Goldblum as a clown in the holocaust directed by Paul Schrader should have been a darkly comic masterpiece. Unfortunately, Schrader no longer self-censors and fills his movies with symbols and statements that are about as subtle as a swift kick to the nuts and twice as painful.-PB



The Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Starring Mickey Rourke, Marissa Tomei, Evan Rachael Wood
Coming to Toronto hot on the heals of winning the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, The Wrestler is sure to be this year’s “little movie that could.” Never in a million years did I expect there to be a film about a WWF-style professional wrestler that could be described with words like “subtle,” “touching,” or “true.” But here is a film that is all of those things and more. Mickey Rourke plays a former wrestling star who was on top of the world in the 80s but now lives in a trailer park and lets amateur wrestlers attack him with barbed wire and broken glass for money. Rourke delivers a monster of a performance that completely humanizes Randy “The Ram” Robinson and also ranks as the finest work he’s ever done.

The film is directed by Darren Aronofsky of Requiem For A Dream fame, which suggests that the movie is filled with endless MTV rapid-fire montages and lines like “ass to ass,” but The Wrestler is actually quite a quiet movie. Aronofsky is smart enough to know that his camera pyrotechnics aren’t needed for this simple story and simply shoots the movie with handheld cameras. The movie isn’t style-less, but it’s shockingly subdued for this particular filmmaker. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how consistently funny the movie is. The world of amateur professional wrestling is undeniably pathetic and former Onion scribe Robert Siegel milks all the comic potential he can out of the material without sacrificing any of the human tragedy (cult comic Todd Barry gets most of the funny lines as Rourke’s Deli manager). This isn’t a huge epic that will overwhelm audiences with its greatness, but a small and rewarding movie that should surprise audiences and make a splash during awards season. At this point in the year, Mickey Rourke and Benicio Del Toro are the actors to beat in the Oscar race. It’ll take some damn impressive acting to top these two.-PB



Che
Dir: Steven Soderbergh
Starring Benicio Del Toro, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Demián Bichir
Che was easily the most polarizing movie at this year’s Cannes film festival. Critics either hailed it a stunning epic or dismissed it as an overblown failure with no one sitting in between. The main reason this happened because when it was at shown at Cannes, Che was still being billed as a single 4.5 hour film. It’s now two movies that will be released separately. This is really too bad because despite the butt-numbing the two films actually play off each other quite well. The first half is the Che Guevara bio-pic that everyone would expect, it’s a bright and exciting telling of Che’s triumph in Cuba that combines footage of the revolutionary fighting in the jungles with a recreation of the famous speech that he gave to the UN. However, the second film is quite different. Shot in more subdued colors with less lively camera work, it’s apparent that something is wrong from the first shot. This movie depicts Guevara’s failed attempt to bring the revolution to Bolivia and it’s a much more tragic film that shows how the man’s best characteristics lead directly to his downfall. This darker story flavors the first in such a way that the two movies are inseparable. Viewed in a single sitting the project can certainly be overwhelming, but I’m not sure if either film will play as well individually. The ideal way to see this movie is in one long sitting with an intermission, but sadly that probably won’t happen outside of a festival setting. Ah well, at least I finally know what’s going on with those T-shirts everyone wears.-PB



Me And Orson Welles
Dir: Richard Linklater
Starring Zac Efron, Christian McKay, Claire Danes
If you don’t know who Orson Welles is, there is no point in seeing this film. The movie is an unapologetic love letter to the beyond brilliant 20th century Renaissance man, and will do little for anyone unfamiliar with his eccentric personality. The film stars tween favorite Zac Efron as a young man who inadvertently finds himself acting in Orson Welles’ infamous production of Julius Caesar. Efron is ostensibly the protagonist, but he really serves no purpose beyond being surrogate eyes for the audience while walking through the world of Orson Welles. Actor Christian McKay portrays the great actor/director and he not only bears a striking resemblance to Welles, but gives inarguably the finest performance of any actor to ever play the role. At times it’s hard to believe you aren’t actually watching Welles and the movie is completely absorbing whenever he is onscreen. Unfortunately, Efron takes center stage most of the time and he is far too bland and limited as an actor to be anywhere near as compelling as McKay (Efron’s relationship with an underused Claire Danes is particularly uninteresting). Expect to see plenty of awards thrown at McKay over the next few months and deservingly so. Richard Linklater directs with his detached visual style, subtle character humor, and brilliant work with actors. Linklater is undeniably one of the least predictable filmmakers working today, and while Me And Orson Welles is hardly his greatest movie, it is still a worthy entry to his eccentric directorial cannon.—PB

Deadgirl
Directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel
Starring Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Segan, Michael Bowen
On a scale from 1 to “fucked up,” this dirty little horror flick gets an 11. First time directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel pulled off a small miracle in securing financing for this one. The movie is about two teenage boys who discover a dead naked female body when exploring an abandoned mental hospital. Initially disturbed, they are soon discover that the girl is still alive and decide to have a little fun with the body while they can. It’s a sick premise and makes for easily one of the most disturbing films of the past few years. If told as a straight horror movie, this would be a borderline unwatchable direct-to-DVD nasty, but the filmmakers fill the story with a surprisingly large amount of dark humor and use the concept as a vehicle of exploring adolescent sexuality. This is not a movie for most people. It will appeal only to those who enjoy nasty horror flicks and those people will love it. It’s hard to imagine Deadgirl securing any sort of broad North American distribution, but expect to this become a cult favorite amongst the Fangoria crowd. Even if you hate this movie, there’s absolutely no way that you will ever forget it.—PB



Appaloosa
Dir: Ed Harris
Starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger
Every few years it seems like the Western is dead, but then another film comes along that extends the lifespan of the ancient cinematic genre. This time it’s Ed Harris who managed to reinvent the wheel and make cowboys seem relevant again. In his second directorial outing (after the brilliant Pollack), Harris casts himself as a world-weary gun-for-hire who takes over as sheriff in a small town along with his hetero-life-mate Viggo Mortensen. Together they try to drive an evil Jeremy Irons (who struggles with an American accent throughout the film) and his band of not-so-merry men out of town. Oh, and of course Harris also finds love in a mysterious and beautiful piano player played by Renee Zellweger. The set up is little more than a collection of well-worn genre conventions, but Harris manages to overcome cliché by filling his movie with clever self-referential humor and knowing genre subversions. Harris’ aged gunslinger is not a wise old man but a threatening figure with limited intelligence who occasionally even relies on his partner to finish his sentences. Zellweger is no fantasy bride either, but a woman who views sex as a means of survival and uses he beauty to secure the support of the nearest alpha male. It’s very much a meta-Western in the vain of Unfogiven, but isn’t quite able to reach the heights of that film due to Ed Harris’ unfortunate limitations as a director. Ever since Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone had their way with the Western its been a director’s genre, defined by striking visuals, elaborate set pieces, and sheer cinematic style. Harris doesn’t quite have the directorial chops to make his film play on the epic scale that it should, but the script is so tight and the characters so well formed and performed that it still stands proud as a memorable entry in the ongoing history of the Western. I don’t even like Westerns and I enjoyed this one. That’s gotta be worth something, right?—PB

Berlin Calling
Dir: Hannes Stöhr
Starring: Paul Kalkbrenner, Rita Lengyel, Corinna Harfouch
With all the Film Festival madness, it's often easy to overlook some great non-TIFF selections. Such was the case with Berlin Calling. The Hannes Stöhr directed film was submitted for nomination for the festival, but was not chosen to the surprise of both Sabotage Films and electronic music fans. Despite the exclusion, the screening at the Royal Theatre felt like TIFF. From the sold-out theatre to the glitzed and glamoured crowd (including a well-dressed Sean Avery of the Dallas Stars), it would be easy to forget this is actually an Alterna-TIFF (I'm so sorry). Berlin Calling stars Paul Kalkbrenner as DJ Ickarus, a superstar neo-trance star in his native Germany. The narrative follows Ickarus through his highs and lows (but mostly lows) as he performs, gets laid, does a lot of drugs, and lands himself in "voluntary" drug rehab, which leads to a few One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest-esque scenes. Kalkbrenner, an actual neo-trance superstar, performs admirably in his first acting role, despite the fact he didn't have to stretch very far. As you might expect, the film pulses with quick editing and various cinematography tricks to simulate the feel of German mega-clubs and the drugs associated with them. Like the electronic music scene itself, this one is guaranteed to be a hit in Europe, but overlooked on this continent. I would advise you see it if you get the chance. - R.T.



Religulous
Dir: Larry Charles
Starring Bill Maher and a team of religious nutcases
For years Bill Maher has been the comedic poster boy for atheism. Since the 80s, the incendiary comedian has been attacking religious institutions along the blind beliefs and poor thinking that they install in their disciples. With the separation of church and state non-existent in George Bush’s America, Maher decided to create a movie that openly criticizes the stranglehold religion has over a vast portion of the world’s population. Rather than write a screenplay for a fictional movie that would never get made, Maher hit the road with a documentary crew instead, interviewing religious and political figures about the issue. The “interviews” offered Maher the opportunity to do what he does best: debate with his interviewees in the same caustic, sarcastic, and hilarious style that made him famous on Pollitically Incorrect. The only man crazy enough to direct a project like this is Borat helmer Larry Charles, who attacks the subject with the same reckless satirical abandon as his collaboration with Sacha Baron Cohen. The movie is funny and shocking from start to finish, ending with an extended rant from Maher pleading with the audience to abolish religion. The sentiment is surprisingly strong and will undoubtedly earn the comedian a variety of death threats. It’s a film that took serious balls to make and only Maher could have pulled it off.—PB

The Brothers Bloom
Dir: Rian Johnson
Starring Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo
After making an auspicious debut with the icy cool Sundance hit Brick, writer/director Rian Johnson returns with this much anticipated con-man flick. Brick managed to find originality in well-worn genre tropes by combining two seeming disparate genres: the film noir and the high school movie. The Brothers Bloom isn’t quite as ambitious in it’s genre subversion, sticking closely to the con-man form that has been in place since Ernst Lubitsch 1932 classic Trouble In Paradise. However, Johnson proves himself to be quite a talented writer and constantly finds ways to make old conventions feel fresh and new. The movie is without any high-minded purpose and wants only to entertain, but Johnson proves to be a master of audience manipulation ushering viewers into an exciting and vibrant world without a second of screen time wasted. A brooding Adrien Brody and a playful Mark Ruffalo star as the titular con-artist brothers attempting to separate Rachel Weisz’s wealthy eccentric from her money. Within minutes you’ll feel that you know exactly where the movie is going and while it ultimately reaches that destination, the film does so in such unexpected ways that you’ll be surprised anyways. While the cast are all excellent, the real star here is Rian Johnson who has found a unique directorial tone pitched somewhere between the ironic, knowing genre-play of the Coen brothers and the picture-book surrealism of Wes Anderson. The Brothers Bloom is a pleasant surprise and a must see.—PB



Zack And Miri Make A Porno
Dir: Kevin Smith
Starring Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson
The last time Kevin Smith stepped out of his Jay And Silent Bob comfort zone the result was Jersey Girl, a film that was unfairly attacked during the anti-Bennifer backlash, but was still disappointing. Even amongst the director’s supporters there was always concern that Smith wouldn’t be able to pull off a movie set outside of the View Askewiverse. Fortunately, Smith has proven the detractors wrong and made one of the funniest films of his career. The plot can be summed up by the title, but that’s not a bad thing. Smith’s films are all about character interaction and with the amazing cast he compiled there’s barely a second of screen time that doesn’t pass without a laugh. Seth Rogen proves to be an ideal mouthpiece for Smith’s unique brand of intelligent lowbrow humor as Zack. Rogen and Smith’s comedic sensibilities are so similar that it almost feels like they’re longtime collaborators. Co-star Elizabeth Banks has been on the cusp of stardom for years, delivering scene-stealing comedic turns in such titles as Wet Hot American Summer and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Banks excels when finally given a leading role as Miri and it should be a breakout performance for the talented comedienne. View Askew stalwarts Jason “Jay” Mewes and Jeff “Randal” Anderson also appear as members of the porno production and steal a few scenes away from the movie stars (Anderson has one gag that is guaranteed to be the most disgusting joke in film this year). Toronto’s own Kenny Hotz draws plenty of laughs out of his first appearance as an actor. However, the surprise comedic standout in Zack And Miri is Craig Robinson, a long underrated comedian who has finally started to ease his way into the public consciousness with roles in The Office and Pineapple Express. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Zack And Miri Make A Porno is how sweet and touching the central love story is. Who would have thought that a movie about poor people driven to make amateur porn to survive would be one of the most believable romantic comedies of the year?-PB

Rocknrolla
Dir: Guy Ritchie
Starring Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson, and Thandie Newton
After 8 years spent creating flashy and vapid films and commercials in between marathon sex sessions with Madonna, director Guy Ritchie has finally crafted a worthy follow up to Snatch. Granted, RocknRolla treads familiar territory from Lock, Stock, And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (namely wisecracking low-lives in London whose lives inadvertently connect in intermittently funny and violent ways), but considering that’s Ritchie’s gift, it’s hard to complain. For the most part Rocknrolla is just as hilarious and unrelentingly entertaining as the director’s early work. It loses points only for familiarity and a limp first act that is almost entirely comprised of expository set up. Still with a soundtrack this good, visuals this arresting, dialogue this quotable and a stable of talented actors (including a scene-stealing Tom Wilkinson), it’s hard not to be entertained. Make no mistake this is a movie made by blokes for blokes. But taken on that meager level it’s also an absolute fucking riot.-PB



Burn After Reading
Dir: Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich
One of the major hits of last year’s Toronto Film Festival was the Coen Brothers’ Oscar winning masterpiece No Country For Old Men. For that reason, the brothers’ triumphant return to this year’s fest is highly anticipated…but sadly disappointing. This CIA black mailing farce has a variety of hysterical sequences, but the script is surprisingly inconsistent and unfocused. This is quite odd given that screenwriting has always been the siblings’ major strength. Unfortunately, this movie feels like a collection of scenes and characters that amused the brothers awkwardly combined into a confusing narrative that some characters even mock onscreen for being convoluted and insubstantial in the final scene. All that said, Burn After Reading is not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. The Coens are just too subversively funny and the all star cast too talented for that to happen. However when you reach the stature of Joel and Ethan Coen your work gets judged by different standards. If anyone else made this movie it would probably be discussed as a fresh and amusing farce. But, in the hands of such brilliant filmmakers Burn After Reading can only be described as a mildly amusing trifle between substantial efforts. They are capable of much more and will undoubtedly deliver next time.-PB



Ghost Town
Dir: David Koepp
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni, and Greg Kinnear
After achieving legendary comedy status by writing, directing, and starring in The Office, Ricky Gervais has become a major figure in contemporary comedy. He’s achieved such immediate and massive success that it was inevitable that Hollywood would come knocking. When it was announced that Gervais would be starring in Ghost Town (a film about a uptight dentists who starts seeing ghosts after a botched surgery). I was concerned that he had made a massive career misstep along the lines of Steve Coogan’s disastrous Around The World In 80 Days. The concept of a comedic Sixth Sense sounded like a terrible movie on paper. Yet somehow against all odds the film works. While some of the “ghosts fixing unfinished business” moments in the final act drift a little bit into the land of sentimental cliché, the bulk of the film works surprisingly well. The tired story line is saved by a perfectly cast Gervais who is able to use all of the bitterness, awkwardness, and sarcasm that define his comedy. He works perfectly with the underrated Tea Leoni, a woman who he must seduce to appease the wishes of her dead husband (played by a surprisingly snappy Greg Kinnear). Though far from perfect, this is a delightful little comedy that should please most audiences…even if it won’t linger very long in their memory once the lights come up.—PB

Synecdoche, New York
Dir: Charlie Kaufman
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton
Charlie Kaufman is undeniably one of the most brilliant screenwriters of our time. His scripts for Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind are undeniably the most brilliant pieces of cinematic writing in he recent years. But, he is also an indulgent writer (Adaptation, anyone?) who benefits from collaborating with great directors who can reign in his ideas and keep him under control. This latter point has been made abundantly clear by Kaufman’s muddled, but occasionally brilliant directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. In Kaufman’s typical mind-fuck fashion the film is about a writer who reconstructs his entire life as theater in a soundstage replica of New York. It’s a brilliant idea filled with wonderful visual possibilities, but Kaufman lacks the directorial skill to pull it off. His movie is visually boring and convoluted. It was rumored that the original cut of the film was over four hours long and it certainly seems that way as most of the scenes feel awkwardly truncated. Kaufman seems to have stretched his ambitions too far on this project, which transforms into a meditation on the meaning of life by the conclusion. It feels like Kaufman’s failed attempt at the great American novel. That said, there are enough moments of brilliance (such as Samantha Morton’s surreal perpetually burning house and the beautiful concluding speech) to make worth seeing as long as you curb your expectations accordingly. Let’s just hope that Kaufman has learned a lesson and will go back to letting ingenious directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry tackle his screenplays from now on.—PB