Me and Orson Welles
Director: Richard Linklater
Orson Welles still gets more celluloid than a ping pong table. He has turned up in a horde of films played by a variety of actors, including Liev Schreiber (RKO 281), Vincent D'Onofrio (Ed Wood), Danny Huston (Fade to Black), and Angus Macfadyen (Cradle Will Rock). Here, Christian McKay plays Welles, but the focus isn't really on him. Instead, it's on Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) who battles a theatre-era Welles over a Shakespearean production and a girl (Claire Danes). This is a chance for Efron to break free of the teen heartthrob tag and it doesn't hurt that Richard Linklater is at the helm (try to disregard Fast Food Nation and A Scanner Darkly). -S.T.



Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1
Director: Jean Francois Richet
Grindhouse got ripped asunder and Billy Walsh's epic, Medellin, is going to get paired down (though perhaps not into two parts). Steven Soderbergh is at TIFF with Che, which will also play as The Argentine and Guerrilla. Quentin Tarantino scored big with Kill Bill. There's a moral there: two-part epics have become a cinematic trend. Here, in part one of Mesrine, director Jean-François Richet has assembled a stellar cast to tell the story of famed French gangster, Jacques Mesrine. The always absorbing Vincent Cassal (La Haine, Eastern Promises, Oceans 12) gets the title role and he should imbue the character with fitting complexity. Also along are chameleon par excellence, Mathieu Amalric ( Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, Munich, Kings and Queen) and a bevy of France's finest actresses, including Ludivine Sagnier (Les Chansons d'Amour), Cécile De France (L' Auberge Espagnole), and Anne Consigny (Le Scaphandre et le Papillon). Expect fast-paced action, charisma, confliction, and awards. -S.T.



Miracle at St. Anna
Director: Spike Lee
Marquee directors like going to war (at least cinematically). Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, and Terrence Malick have all made forays into the fray, and Quentin Tarantino is getting set to ship out. War flicks go in and out of vogue, but inevitably return. With inherent pathos, action, death, and other genre tropes, major conflicts are dramatic treasure chests (ask Shakespeare). Spike Lee has lensed his first war epic. Miracle at St. Anna follows a cabal of Second World War soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. The story is anchored by a 1983 storyline about a shocking murder. Thanks to Inside Man Lee is again getting the backing he needs to tell big budget stories. Led by the always fantastic Derek Luke, who broke out with a powerful performance in Antwone Fisher but has had to endure second-rate films and characters for too long (see Definitely Maybe and Lions for Lambs), the cast is stellar. Joseph Gordon Levitt (Mysterious Skin, Brick) continues to diversify his reel as a reporter in search of the proverbial truth and this should get him some much deserved. Furthermore, John Turturro, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, and John Leguizamo also star. -S.T.



Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Director: Peter Sollett
Suburban white kids love mixtapes and their modern day equivalent (i.e. playlists). They also love love stories with indie rock soundtracks, trips to the city, and Michael Cera. Here, the checklist gets fulfilled as a heartbroken Nick (Cera) heads to New York, has a cute meeting with similarly spurned Nora (Kat Dennings), and sets out on a music inspired picaresque adventure. It sounds like a tween dream and it probably is, but appearances by Justin Rice (Mutual Appreciation) and his band, Bishop Allen, as well as Jay Baruchel (Undeclared, Million Dollar Baby) give it a hit of geek-cool appeal. Furthermore, director Peter Sollett helmed 2002's strong Raising Victor Vargas so he knows how to handle an adolescent romance. -S.T.



Pride and Glory
Director: Gavin O'Connor
The family/fraternity of cops thing has been done before (Striking Distance, the Departed, Cop Land), but never with a title that so strongly invoked sports films. Ed Norton, who's boundlessly capable but due for a hit (commercial or otherwise), stars as conflicted cop, Ray Tierney, whose investigation into misdeeds, murder, and corruption within the department could lead him dangerously close to his brother (Noah Emmerich) and brother-in-law (Colin Farrell). The strong cast should buoy the familiar material. Thanks to In Bruges, Farrell has hopefully shaken the good-actor-in-bad-films tag. Also, Jon Voight should spruce up the thankless patriarch roll - he plays Tierney Sr. - and I've never seen Emmerich in a film I didn't like (though, I've only seen Beautiful Girls, the Truman Show, and the aforementioned Cop Land). Will there be Mexican standoffs and bravado? There had better be. -S.T.



Religulous
Director: Larry Charles
Bill Maher has been offending and enlightening people with his views on Religion for decades. Larry Charles offended and delighted TIFF audiences two years ago with Borat. What do you get when you put them together? Um…a movie that is guaranteed to offend and enlighten this years comedy loving TIFF crowd. Bill Maher showed clips of his work in progress last year and the scenes of the comedian traveling around to the biggest religious sites in the world to administer his unique brand of atheistic comedy were absolutely hysterical. Book tickets now for what is guaranteed to be one of the most controversial and hilarious films of the year.—PB



RocknRolla
Director: Guy Ritchie
I was sitting in the cinema enjoying Vicky Cristina Barcelona, thinking, "no one onscreen is channeling Woody Allen. This is great." Then, Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) starts spastically explaining a recent sickness. "There it is," I thought. Jason Statham isn't in Guy Ritchie's return to guns and brawn. Instead, a tights-free Gerard Butler gets the streetwise victim of circumstances role. I wonder if he'll just play Statham; probably not. When writer/director Ritchie broke out with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and followed it up with its big-star cousin, Snatch, he looked like the Brit Tarantino (pre-Kill Bill Tarantino, that is). Then he hit the Madonna hump, which temporarily derailed his career. RocknRolla could be a return to form, or it could be Smokin' Aces (Jeremy Piven's in this, too). Either way, it has a strong cast, with the always reliable Tom Wilkinson, will be starlet, Gemma Arterton, should be bigger, Thandie Newton, and one of the best rappers turned actors of all time, Ludacris. Incidentally, Ritchie's next project is a Sherlock Holmes reboot with Robert Downey Jr. in the title role, which bodes well. -S.T.



Le Silence De Lorna
Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Belgian directing brothers Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne return with a meditation on the taciturn -- well, not exactly. The movie is about an Albianian woman who marries a drug addict to obtain Belgian residency and citizenship. The critics should swoon at a plot that is such a political and moral hot potato. Awards will follow, but thanks to the subtitles most North American audiences will probably stay away. As always, TIFF is a great opportunity to broaden your cinematic horizons. -PB



Slumdog Millionaire
Director: Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle continues his series of movies about people who inadvertently end up with a big bag of money (a story that went tragically wrong in Shallow Grave and oddly religious in Millions). This time he's telling the tale of an illiterate streetkid from Mumbai who goes on the Indian equivalent of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in an attempt to grab the attention of a girl he loves, only to end up winning the jackpot. It looks like an unusually sweet movie for Boyle that is disappointingly Scottish-impaired and heroin-free (sigh…). When are you going to make Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting sequel Porno, Boyle? When's it going to happen?—P.B.