Last month I had the privilege of attending the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) as press. This was my 2nd time attending the festival and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to attend. It was a challenging time for me because it was the same time that my channel was hacked and disabled. This meant I couldn’t cover the festival in the same way I had the previous year with out of theater reactions on my channel and such but it was a welcome distraction to everything that was happening in my life. I ended up seeing 20 films (I was there from Sunday to Friday.)

Here is my ranking of those 20 films (I didn’t really have anything I hated although some I didn’t go fresh on)

20. Love of Your Life- this was actually my first movie of the festival. It’s ok as a romantic weepie but particularly the husband character was painted as so perfect that it hurt the realism. Still if you want to watch beautiful people in beautiful places it delivers on that front.

19. Sunburn- this is well done. It’s just not my style of indie. There isn’t much plot here and the acting isn’t the best but I do appreciate the tone is positive which isn’t always the case for stories set in the inner-city.

18. The Idiot(s)- I love Johnny Flynn and it was fun to see him at the festival but this  is kind of a mess. It is about Dostoyevsky and his wife but then has modern moments but does so inconsistently. The tone is also all-over-the-place. Also his selfish gambling makes it hard to root for him in any way or find it funny.

17. Back in Black– this s a one joke movie of the mortician who needs more dead people so his granddaughter decides to help him with this problem. It’s ok but nothing memorable.

16. Ink- I have to admit my feelings on Ink have sunk lower the more time I have had to think about it. This tale of Rupert Murdock and Larry Lamb has an energy to it I enjoyed and the performances are good. The problem is it all feels undercooked. Everything feels like it was almost special but didn’t quite make it. In particular the second half revolving around a  kidnapping feels like a different movie. I hope they remove the AI. It was so unnecessary.

15. Babies- there is some humor that works quite well in Babies and I’m sure some childless by choice couples will feel seen by it. Unfortunately it also feels a bit out of touch with the extreme privilege of its characters. Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick have the luxury to act like child care would be a given and they just happen to live in an LA mansion. That kind of annoyed me.

14. Bitter Christmas- Pedro Almodóvar’s latest feels very personal diving into the heart of a writer and what it’s like to create a story. Here you have a director writing a screenplay and that story also taking place. It feels a little more forgettable from Almodóvar but entertaining with terrific lead performances.

13. A Talent for Murder- in this fun mystery Helen Mirren plays Patricia Highsmith in a fictional portrayal (but evidently she was a very strange personality in real life) that’s entertaining. Alden Ehrenreich has come to Switzerland to try and convince Highsmith to write another The Talented Mr Ripley novel but she is resistant to say the least. The story-within-a-story is less compelling but Mirren is great and the back and forth with Ehrenreich is a good time.

12. Tangles- I can’t completely review this because the projector broke and I couldn’t stay for it to be fixed because of my plane flight so I only watched the beginning. Still a sweet and tender story that I look forward to watching in completion soon.

11. Elsinore- bio-pics were all the rage at the festival and Elsinore is a bit of a mixed bag. Andrew Scott is terrific as actor Ian Charleson who wants to play Hamlet before he dies of AIDS. I wish the script was stronger. The dialogue often feels inauthentic particularly for Olivia Coleman’s character. Still it’s moving and worth seeing for Scott’s performance.

10. Tenzing- It’s nice to see a movie like Tenzing about driven but genuinely good people. It tells the story of Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary who ascended Everest for the first time in 1953. This doesn’t reinvent the wheel but it is inspiring with likable performances and characters. The kind of movie my Dad would love.

9. The Stunt Driver– this tells the story of Ken Carter who was basically Canada’s Evil Knievel (who is a character in the film.) He wants to jump his car over a lake and this is a goal over many years. Jay Baruchel brings warmth to Carter who is a pretty selfish character. Ed Helms plays an engineer helping him build the car. I thought given the cast it was going to be funnier but still enjoyed it.

8. The Debut- I must admit I was a little disappointed this isn’t more of a traditional musical (it advertised original music and lyrics in the trailer but very few to be found) but aside from that it is entertaining. Julianne Moore is Oscar-worthy as mousy housewife who becomes a bit overzealous in her first role in her local community theater. I wish they had used the Broadway cast more but it is sweet and funny.

7. In Waves- this is an animated bio-pic about an artist that meets a girl who teaches him the joys of surfing. It is a romantic weepie but it feels genuine and touching. The animation is beautiful and the sound design/voice performances are excellent. It was neat to be seated in front of the girl’s real life family and hear how much she sounded like her.

6. Julian- another animated film. This one from Cartoon Saloon but a different environment than they normally use with young Julian going to visit his Grandmother in Brooklyn and learning they are a family of mermaids. Delightful

5. Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother- this reminded me a lot of last year’s One Battle After Another. Fans of that film will enjoy this. They are both about Dads in violent situations still trying to take care of their kids. In this case it is Mahershala Ali trying to find breast milk for his baby. Some times the tone can be a little wonky but I overall enjoyed it. Great action and it endears us to Ali’s character given he’s trying to help his baby.

4. Resident Evil– now this technically was not part of the festival but it was part of my festival experience so I’m counting it. I wanted to make connections with new PR people and the studios so when I found out Resident Evil screening was happening in Toronto I had to go. Fortunately it proved to be a super fun movie with creative setpieces like a maternity ward I wont soon forget. It also had very silly jump scares and dialogue that kept me laughing throughout.

3. Being Heumann– I did a full review of this film and talked about my disabled experience at the festival (read here.) This a crowd pleasing portrayal of the 1977 sit-in for disability rights at a federal building in San Francisco. I honestly didn’t know anything about this sit-in, and I appreciate it doesn’t portray the activists as paragons of virtue. They have flaws like anyone else. Also nice to have actual disabled individuals playing these characters.

2. Wild Horse Nine- I’m actually not the biggest Martin McDonagh fan. I don’t dislike his films but usually don’t love them as much as everyone else. This film, however, I thoroughly enjoyed. I love the friendship story with Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich having great chemistry together. The banter is first rate.

1. I Play Rocky– some may see this as a unsophisticated top pick but at the end of the day I go to the movies to be entertained and that’s what this film is. I loved learning how Rocky was made and Anthony Ippolito is uncanny as young Sylvester Stallone. It’s crowd pleasing and a ton of fun seeing how everything came together for one of my favorite movies. I can’t wait for everyone else to see it!

So there you go! The ranking of all 20 movies I saw at TIFF. Like I said, it was a stressful time because my channel was hacked but I’m grateful to have had the distraction and to have seen so many terrific films. Thanks to TIFF for inviting me and I look forward to next year.

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