Religulous movie’s oct film festival

Our crystal ball for fall movie trends is actually a snow globe, which
we consult every year at the Toronto International Film Festival.
That’s where many of the more glamorous year-end releases are
previewed for the world’s critics. Last year, the festival was
the coming-out party for the eventual Academy Award winner for best
picture, the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old
Men.” The Coens were back in Canada last week with their new spy
comedy “Burn After Reading,” just one of more than 300
features in the festival. It’s too early to predict whether any
of them will be Oscar’s date for this year’s homecoming
dance but, based on what we’ve seen, we can ascertain the
following trends in fall film fashions. Dim the lights!

In “Burn After Reading” (opened Friday), John Malkovich is
a malcontent midlevel CIA agent whose tell-all memoir falls into the
feckless hands of health-club employee Brad Pitt.

“Nothing but the Truth” (Dec. 19) is a lightly
fictionalized version of the Valerie Plame case. Kate Beckinsale plays
a reporter who goes to jail rather than reveal the source who leaked
the identity of the spy played by Vera Farmiga.

Jean-Claude Van Damme kicks his laughingstock status upside the head
in “JCVD” (TBD) in which “The Muscles from
Brussels” plays himself, a washed-up action hero who is thrust
into the middle of a real-life hostage situation.

Mickey Rourke is generating Oscar buzz for his poignant performance as
a has-been grappler in “The Wrestler” (TBD), which won the
grand prize at recently concluded Venice Film Festival.

The latter film also marks a comeback for director Darren Aronofsky
(“Pi”), whose time-travel fantasy “The Fountain” was
laughed out of Toronto two years ago.

(Another director who appears to have been resurrected is Jonathan
Demme, the Oscar winner for 1991’s “Silence of the
Lambs.” Since his poorly received remake of “The
Manchurian Candidate” in 2004, Demme has made only a couple
documentaries, but the recovery drama “Rachel Getting
Married” (Oct. 24) has sparked awards buzz for himself and star
Anne Hathaway.)

Two new movies with similar sounding names in the title introduce us
to couples who are clearly made for each other but are wary of taking
the leap. In “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”
(Oct. 3), Michael Cera (“Juno”) and Kat Dennings are teens who meet
and bond on a nightlong search for their favorite band’s secret
gig in New York City.

Far racier is Kevin Smith’s new comedy “Zack and Miri make
a Porno” (Oct. 31), in which Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play
penniless roommates who consider filming a sex video to raise some
quick cash.

Two upcoming releases feature sculptures with magical properties. In
Spike Lee’s World War II drama “The Miracle of St.
Anna” (Sept. 26), an American GI believes that the marble head
he finds in Florence and lugs onto the battlefield will protect him
from harm.

In “The Secret Life of Bees” (Oct. 17), a fist-raised
statue of a Black Madonna that is scavenged from a shipwreck provides
spiritual sustenance to beekeeper Queen Latifah.

Strife in the Middle East was covered last year in several Hollywood
dramas, most of which fizzled at the box office. Only two are coming
in the months ahead, and neither directly addresses the political
underpinnings of the war.

“The Hurt Locker” (TBD), the long-awaited return of action
auteur Kathryn Bigelow (“Point Break”), is a thriller about a bomb-
disposal unit in Iraq.

In “The Lucky Ones” (Sept. 26), Tim Robbins, Rachel
McAdams and Michael Pena are furloughed soldiers on a cross-country
road trip, with a significant stop in St. Louis.

It seems that every year, at least one star has multiple movies on the
calendar. This season it’s Greg Kinnear. In “Ghost
Town” (Friday), he plays a philandering husband who is killed in
a bus crash and then haunts dentist Ricky Gervais to set things
straight.

In “Flash of Genius” (Oct. 3), Kinnear stars in the true
story of the inventor who waged a lengthy battle against Detroit
automakers over the patents for the intermittent windshield wiper.
Honest.

Two of the most talked-about films of the fall season are, in a sense,
about distorted vision.

“Blindness” (Oct. 3), adapted from a novel by Jose
Saramago by director Fernando Merielles (“City of God”), is about a
mysterious plague that robs the populace of its sight – and unleashes
the beastliness in human nature.

In “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Oct. 24), Sally Hawkins is a young
London schoolteacher who sees the world through rose-color glasses.

Maybe it’s contagious, because we’re looking forward to
some other autumn movies sight unseen, such as the Western
“Appaloosa” (Oct. 3), Bill Maher’s documentary
“Religulous” (Oct. 3) and Keira Knightley in the bodice
ripper “The Duchess” (Oct. 3).

Sun research media in religulous movie

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Religulous movie’s film maybe maher

By TOM MAURSTAD Media Critic
TORONTO – Maybe it was fate, maybe it was chance, maybe it was
just that in the day-after-day swirl of movies and moviemakers,
everything starts to blur into one unbroken event, one continuous
movie.

Whatever the reason, Sunday was a day of synchronicity at the Toronto
International Film Festival. Sudden and unexpected connections between
different movies and unrelated people would suddenly appear, like
puffs of smoke, hanging in the air for a moment and then drifting
away. There was time to kill between the morning’s first movie –
Middle of Nowhere, starring Susan Sarandon – and the first press
conference, so I ducked into a nearby theater to watch Unmistaken
Child, which had just started.

It’s a beautifully photographed documentary by Israeli filmmaker Nati
Baratz that follows a Tibetan monk’s search for the reincarnation of
his master, Lama Konchong, with whom he studied and served for 21
years. It’s a story of faith and hope, courage and sacrifice, joy and
despair, full of deeply affecting moments and images.

Then it was off to the conference where comedian Bill Maher and
director Larry Charles, whose last project was Borat,discussed their
new satirical documentary, Religulous, a film that the self-described
rationalists say they hope will help debunk the myth of religion and
religious belief.

The two were asked about not touching on many of the world’s
religions, especially Eastern religions such as Buddhism, in the film.
Mr. Maher explained that, among other reasons, they didn’t really know
much about them.

“But the one thing I do know about them is that they seem more
peaceful, but they’re still crazy,” Mr. Maher said. “I mean, the Dalai
Lama, they find a 2-year-old somewhere and declare him the new Buddha
– what’s that all about? It’s crazy.” He laughed, just about
everybody in the room laughed, and maybe if I hadn’t just seen
Unmistaken Child, I would have laughed, too. But I didn’t.

At one point, Mr. Maher referred to religion as a hoax that people
have bought into out of ignorance or fear.

After the conference, I raced over to catch Achilles and the Tortoise
, a film by Japanese director Takeshi Kitano. The film follows the
life of a mediocre artist, a young boy who loves to paint and who
grows into a man who loves to paint; he just isn’t very good at it.
He’s all drive, no talent.

After a fellow artist dies in an art-making accident (crashing a car
while making “action paintings”), the protagonist and his friends
despair. A street-food vendor, while frying up their dinner, tells
them to grow up: “You go to Africa, find a starving person and offer
them a Picasso or a rice ball, the starving person will choose the
rice ball. Art is one big hoax.”

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Religulous movie’s films toronto film

Toronto’s annual dance with the stars kicks off tonight with a
suitably Canadian bang, premiering Paul Gross’s Passchendaele,a gritty
look at the killing fields of World War I. And it will no doubt end
with a cross-eyed whimper 10 days from now, when the credits roll on
the last of 312 films featured in the 33rd Toronto International Film
Festival, a brilliant northern lights of glitz, stargazing, artistry
and sheer fun.

The festival is one of the world’s best, rivalling Cannes, Sundance
and Venice. This year it showcases 29 Canadian feature films and 38
shorts, in a program that includes 237 premieres and films from 64
countries. Necks will be bent trying to catch a glimpse of air-kissing
stars such as Brad Pitt, Charlize Theron and Isabelle Huppert, or
directors Atom Egoyan, Deepa Mehta, and Joel and Ethan Coen.

Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s multi-million-dollar cuts to the
arts, including film, can’t suck the fizz out of this champagne.

Where else can movie buffs revel in Che, Parts 1 and 2, a four-hour
retelling of Che Guevara’s ill-fated Marxist saga, then wander over to
see a zombie-themed flick like Pontypool, an irreverently
Religulouslook at faith, or Burn After Reading,which is not about
editorial writing. Who can resist films with titles like Daytime
Drinking, The Paranoids, The Good, the Bad and the Weird, or The
Secret Life of Bees?

There’s a serious Hollywood North business side to it, of course.
Oscars are previewed here. The festival draws the world’s attention to
Toronto, highlights our film industry, and pumps millions into the
local economy. It also showcases young filmmakers and their fresh
takes on raw drama, docs, comedies, “green” films and much more.

Like Passchendaele, TIFF `08 reminds us of who we are, and were and
want to be. Here’s looking at you, Toronto.

More in the news
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death Canadian technology spots snow on Mars Somali pirates a scourge
to ships in Gulf of Aden

This reader was 12 and it was a hot day sitting on the dock by the
bay.

Religulous movie’s film festival toronto

TORONTO — Will Brad run into Jen? Do the Coen brothers have
another Oscar winner on their hands? And can geeky heartthrob Michael
Cera keep up his streak of cinematic hits that have included “Juno”
and “Superbad”?

The 10-day movie extravaganza known as the Toronto International Film
Festival gets underway Thursday, unspooling 312 films from around the
world, spanning everything from experimental short flicks to
blockbuster Hollywood productions.

“The exciting part is being able to meet the directors and the stars
that come to the premieres, and getting a chance to actually ask them
questions about the movies they make,” said John Ricchiuto, a Toronto
resident who has attended the festival for several years.

Celebrities will often set aside time after screenings to take
questions from the audience, but there are plenty of other ways to
cross paths with the famous.

Rosemary Dale of Toronto has seen Sean Penn at least three times, in
hotel lobbies and on the street.

“It isn’t a reason why I take in the festival,” she said, noting that
the diverse slate of films from around the world draw her back every
year.

“I like the ones that have a very strong message, that cause me to
think or make me very angry,” she said.

This year a variety of films are bound to touch the nerves of viewers,
including the controversial biopic “Fifty Dead Men Walking,” about a
security agent who infiltrated the Irish Republican Army. The man
whose book inspired the film has questioned its authenticity and
threatened to protest the premiere.

Penn narrates “Witch Hunt,” a documentary about a small town that
became the target of law enforcement officials cracking down on child
molesters – imprisoning many locals who were apparently innocent.

Gross hopes the $20-million film receives a strong response from
festival audiences, which could help it secure international
distribution deals.

“It’s a little hard to say to somebody, you’re going to make a ton of
money at this,” Gross said, explaining how he managed to persuade
investors to participate in the lavish production.

“We were extremely honest. We said ‘Well, we might make money and (we)
might not – it’s not the oil patch.’ But if the movie strikes, then it
will be very beneficial for everybody concerned.”

“Pride and Glory,” a crime drama starring Colin Farrell and Edward
Norton, was originally scheduled to hit theatres last spring before it
was bumped into 2009, and then yanked back to the fall – often the
sign of a troubled project.

Joel and Ethan Coen will be back at the festival with “Burn After
Reading.” The film has the tough job of living up to “No Country for
Old Men,” which left the festival last year with loads of buzz and
went on to win best picture at the Academy Awards.

After wowing audiences in “Juno” last year, Cera will be back in
Toronto with “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.”

Other stars could reap the benefits of festival exposure, including
one-time heart-throb Mickey Rourke. He has struggled to regain the
attention from his heyday in the mid-’80s when the steamy “Nine 1/2
Weeks” topped the box office. Rourke’s performance as a retired
professional fighter in “The Wrestler” has sparked talk of potential
awards nods.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is tackling what could be his most difficult
role to date, the semi-autobiographical film “JCVD.” The tongue-in-
cheek action flick portrays Van Damme’s real-life struggle for the
custody of his daughter and his eroding fame, all before he’s taken
hostage in a heist that tests his heroism.

Van Damme won’t be at the festival (he’s shooting another project),
but other stars expected to grace their premieres include John
Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Christopher Walken, Guy Ritchie, Zac Efron,
Jack White of the White Stripes, Claire Danes, Dakota Fanning,
Geoffrey Rush and Greg Kinnear.

Celebrity watchers will have their eyes focused on whether Brad Pitt,
in town to plug “Burn After Reading,” will cross paths with his ex
Jennifer Aniston as she touts her latest, the romantic comedy
“Management.”

Handlers for the two will be working overtime to ensure that neither
of them crosses paths in public – a dreaded photo opportunity for the
thirsty paparazzi.

Canada’s recently reunited love birds Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling
could walk hand-in-hand down the red carpet as she promotes her role
in the post-Iraq war drama “The Lucky Ones.”

On Tuesday, Tea Leoni scrapped her planned appearance for “Ghost
Town,” perhaps to avoid the inevitable questions about her husband,
David Duchovny, who checked into rehab for sex addiction last week.

Aside from all the celeb gossip, the Toronto film festival offers up
plenty of cinematic surprises, mostly because the movies that screen
with major hype aren’t always the ones that generate the most talk
come awards season.

Last year, a rush of films themed around the Iraq war managed to
capture the attention of festivalgoers and critics but flopped on
their subsequent theatrical release.

This year, the buzz is around “Slumdog Millionaire,” an unlikely love
story about a street kid in India who winds up appearing on a local
version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

The film debuted to strong reviews at the Telluride Film Festival last
week in Colorado and is being touted as this year’s “Juno.”

“Rachel Getting Married” is the dark tale of a dysfunctional family
that could score Anne Hathaway awards recognition for her turn as a
troubled young woman who comes home for her sister’s wedding.

But some of the year’s biggest Oscar hopefuls – particularly Oliver
Stone’s much-anticipated George W. Bush biopic “W” – will be absent,
due to the fallout of the Hollywood writers strike.

The film was expected to debut at the festival but is reportedly still
in post-production because the strike delayed shooting.

Viewers searching for controversy will find plenty to talk about when
Bill Maher skewers organized religion in the documentary “Religulous,”
while the French-Canadian drama “Borderline” graphically portrays both
straight and gay sex.

And the western genre gets a much-needed shot of adrenalin with
“Appaloosa,” which was directed by Ed Harris and co-stars Viggo
Mortensen, Renee Zellweger and Jeremy Irons.

Quebec-based filmmaker Joe Balass hopes that he can turn heads with
“Baghdad Twist,” a short film about his family’s decision to flee a
Jewish community in Iraq to avoid persecution. It has already played
the Amsterdam and Tribeca film festivals.

“(Toronto) is one of the top festivals … and it’s a great
opportunity for Canadian filmmakers to get their work out there and
known to film programmers around the world,” Balass said.

“And it’s definitely a film lovers’ festival, so those two things work
particularly well for a film like mine.”

Longest film: 330 minutes (“A Time to Stir,” U.S. documentary about
protests at Columbia University in 1968)

The religulous movie film toronto festival

(CNN) — A mere film festival cannot compete with the Academy Awards’
grip on the public imagination, but the 33rd Toronto International
Film Festival (which begins Thursday) comes pretty close — in part
because it has become the first important bellwether for the onslaught
of Oscar hopefuls.

Spike Lee’s World War II drama, “Miracle of St. Anna,” is one of the
hot tickets at the film festival.

Last year’s bumper crop of contenders included “Into the Wild,” “In
the Valley of Elah,” “Atonement,” “I’m Not There,” “The Assassination
of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and the eventual best
picture winner, “No Country For Old Men.” After 10 days in Toronto, it
was obvious that 2007 would go down as an exceptionally strong year
for American film.

According to pre-festival buzz, 2008 will struggle to match it. The
studio specialty divisions that produced many of last year’s quality
pictures — including Paramount Vantage, which co-produced “No Country
For Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” — have been cut back or
eliminated entirely, incorporated into their corporate parents.

And American movies mostly have been absent from this month’s Venice
and Telluride film festivals amid whispers that Hollywood’s
submissions just weren’t up to grade.

For better or (frequently) worse, the prefers to operate a more open-
door policy with the studios, which at least guarantees glamour-
starved Canadians a steady stream of celebrities trotting down the red
carpet. More than 500 are expected this year, including Brad Pitt,
Jennifer Aniston, Dakota Fanning, Jeanne Moreau, Ricky Gervais and
Charlize Theron. (Pitt and Aniston will not be together.)

Hot tickets — and at nearly $40 for gala screenings, they better be
— include the Coen brothers’ latest, “Burn After Reading,” which also
screened in Venice; Spike Lee’s World War II drama, “Miracle of St.
Anna”; and new films from Jonathan Demme, Darren Aronofsky and Richard
Linklater.

Toronto also will provide North Americans their first chance to see
many of the most talked-about films from May’s Cannes International
Film Festival, including Steven Soderbergh’s two-part epic “Che,”
brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s “Silence de Lorna” and Terence
Davies’ highly praised “Of Time and the City.”

With a lineup of 249 features from 64 countries, there can be no
shortage of potential, and talk is enthusiastic about a number of
films.

“Borat” director Larry Charles is back with a satirical documentary
fronted by Bill Maher, “Religulous,” which threatens — or promises —
to put a cat among the doves.

There are hopes Ed Harris can pull off a grand Western in the old
style with his film of the Robert Parker novel “Appaloosa.” A cast
headed by Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renee Zellweger and Harris
himself certainly makes the prospect appetizing.

Last year’s spate of Iraq-themed pictures failed to ignite the box
office, but Kathryn Bigelow’s bomb-disposal thriller, “The Hurt
Locker” (with Jeremy Renner, Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce), could be
the first to buck the trend. According to Toronto Eye critic Jason
Anderson, this one has “real breakout potential.”

Meanwhile, Telluride reviews for Danny Boyle’s true-life fairy tale,
“Slumdog Millionaire,” have been little short of ecstatic. Can a movie
really be both “Dickensian” and “a blast,” as Variety proclaims?

The religulous movie movie documentaries up

Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge in a scene from David Guggenheim’s
“It Might Get Loud.” Image courtesy of the Toronto International Film
Festival.

If a single lesson emerges from this year’s crop of documentaries at
the Toronto International Film Festival, it might be this: Who needs
Paris Hilton when you have Agnes Varda? Both the overexposed starlet
and the French New Wave legend showed up in Canada this week to watch
themselves on the big screen, although at least Varda had the audacity
to direct herself. Like most of her famous cinephilic colleagues, the
playfully existential octogenarian continually churns out unique,
startlingly creative movies.

She continues that tradition with her latest autobiographical essay,
“Les Plages d’Agnes” (“The Beaches of Agnes), a sweeping visitation to
her childhood and early days as a filmmaker. Hilton, meanwhile, showed
up with paparazzi in tow for the hotly contested premiere of “Paris,
Not France,” first-time director Adria Petty’s exploration of the
hotel heiress’ seedy reputation from the inside out.

Although most attendees were less than enthusiastic about the quality
of the movie, its presence at Toronto was the cause of ongoing
controversy leading up to the premiere, once the festival cancelled
all but one screening in the face of threats from Hilton’s camp. If
the purpose of Petty’s project was to get behind the crazed Hilton
infrastructure, it ended up simply magnifying the problem.

Nevertheless, the movie fit neatly into a visible trend of high
profile subjects among the documentaries in this year’s program. From
Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge sending rock fans to cloud nine
when the trio showed up for David Guggenheim’s “It Might Get Loud” to
Hilton’s flash-and-click drumbeat, many of the documentary screenings
seemed to rival those of the narratives at the festival in terms of
sheer star power. Still, the smaller, specialized work of the genre
also had a significant presence. “One of the things we’re trying to do
is create a balance between those high profile, celebrity-driven works
and works that don’t have the same instant recognition, but they’re
very complicated, emotional stories that tell us a lot about the
world,” said TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers.

Indeed, one of the major themes tackled by several TIFF documentaries,
both large and small, involved comparisons of myth and reality. In
“Les Plages d’Agnes,” Varda films herself walking backwards on a
beach, as if journeying through time and unraveling the crop of
stories that have, over years, helped shape her esteemed career. In
her characteristically jovial manner, she stages love scenes on the
beach to evoke nostalgia for her youth, and even manages to provide a
concise history of the French New Wave with help from her colleague,
Chris Marker, who hides behind a gigantic cartoon cat. Although
frequently humorous, the movie often switches to intimate observations
of Varda’s personal woes, such as the scene in which she bemoans the
loss of her husband, Jacques Demy.

While Varda’s work has specialized appeal, nobody could deny the
built-in selling point for the premiere of “It Might Get Loud,” which
focuses on a conversation that took place on January 23, 2008 between
Page, The Edge and White. The trio discuss their distinctive rock
techniques, which vary wildly from White’s down-and-dirty approach to
Page’s classically trained riffs. Guggenheim cuts between each artist
discussing his background and the details of the conversation, but he
refreshingly avoids the cliche of delving into the culture of rock
stardom.

No sex and drugs here — just musicians talking about music. Fresh
from directing Barack Obama’s biography video for the Democratic
National Convention, Guggenheim told the audience at the premiere that
the idea for the movie came from producer Thomas Tull (“The Dark
Knight”), a longtime guitar player who wanted to see the instrument
get the proper treatment on film. “No one really talks about the
journey of the artist,” Guggenheim said. “We just brainstormed about
how it could be done.”

There’s no doubting that they landed on the right idea. It doesn’t
take much of a trained eye to see that these three musicians aptly
represent separate generational approaches to rock, which makes the
final jam session so interesting. That the collaboration ends up
relatively tame is sort of the point. It’s hard to imagine such vastly
different aesthetic mentalities finding anything in common beyond the
universality of rhythm.

Generational continuity also comes into play in “Every Little Step,” a
fascinating peek at the auditioning process for the recent Broadway
revival of “A Chorus Line,” which recently closed. A kind of “American
Idol” for theater geeks, the movie, directed by James D. Stern and
Adam Del Deo, seems validated by the resulting production (hardly seen
onscreen), which received rave reviews. The filmmakers frame the
auditions with choreographer Michael Bennett’s original formulation
for the show in 1974, when he taped dancers discussing their personal
lives. “It’s really about examining a group of people in this
society,” the late Bennett says. The documentary does that as well,
gliding along the meta wave of a movie about auditioning for a play
about auditioning for a play with ease.

According to Powers, “Every Little Step” and “It Might Get Loud” have
attracted major interest from distributors at the festival, providing
a sharp reprimand to last year’s oft-reported story about
documentaries flailing at the box office and losing the interest of
the industry. “I always thought the doom-and-gloom scenario was
overrated,” he said. “All that argument is saying is that there’s not
a Michael Moore documentary, or an Al Gore documentary, or a penguin
documentary — but those films have always been the weird exception.”

More conventional documentaries are visible throughout this year’s
program. “The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World,” from TIFF
veteran Weijun Chen (“Please Vote for Me”), doesn’t quite succeed at
selling you on the significance of the sprawling West Lake Restaurant
in Southern China, which seats five thousands guests at a time, but it
still manages to provide a window into distinctive cultural nuances.
The founder, Mrs. Qin Linzi, reveals that she has $4 million in
assets, and flaunts her prominence in a country that favors male
dominance. Ironically, she remains subservient to China’s communist
ideals while managing her 1000-person staff. Chen’s verite approach
never climaxes with any serious drama, but it retains a mildly
interesting anthropological angle.

The lower budget documentaries at TIFF also grapple with the myth-
versus-reality schema. Although it sounds like a Midnight Madness
entry, “Blood Trail” is actually an amusing portrait of war
photographer Robert King, whose early days as a wannabe
photojournalist in 1993 Bosnia are contrasted with his more
accomplished status in the present. Following King through his giddy
days on foreign soil, when he can barely muster the courage to run
across a bullet-filled battlefield, “Blood Trail” becomes a totally
disarming comedy. Later in his career, King remains not completely
satisfied with his achievements, raising the question of personal
fulfillment that plagues many traveling journalists.

“The Examined Life” also deals with issues of self and purpose, but it
takes the abstract route. Taking a cue from Plato’s line that “the
unexamined life is not worth living,” documentarian Astra Taylor
(“Zizek!”) attempts to create a movie exclusively focused on
philosophy. Anyone with a tendency to squirm during heavy-handed
academic lectures won’t find much respite here, but patient types are
bound to discover a series of entertaining personalities not unlike
those on display in Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life.” Taylor gives a
variety of excitable philosophers, including Cornell West and Avital
Ronell, ten minutes to discuss the practice of philosophical
discourse. Although it generates a constant sense of contemplation,
the arbitrary narrative does start to wear after the first few
encounters.

Comical documentaries present a certain challenge; documentaries that
cause authentic emotional discomfort face an entirely separate one.
“The Heart of Jenin,” a moving portrait of Middle Eastern turmoil seen
from the specific angle of a Palestinian father, uncovers familial
discomfort that few screenwriters could possibly portray. In 2005,
twelve-year-old Ahmed Khatib was accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers
who thought his toy gun was real. After his death, the boy’s father,
Ismael, agrees to donate his son’s organs. Among the many recipients
is an Orthodox Jewish family, whose beliefs don’t exactly correlate
with those of the Khatibs. The tension between the two backgrounds, as
Ismael attempts to maintain contact with the Israeli family and
continually fails, culminates in a remarkable confrontation.

As far as confrontations go, however, nothing gets more awkward than
the ones making up the bulk of “Religulous,” where filmmaker Larry
Charles (“Borat”) follows Bill Maher around as the comedian confronts
a variety of religious extremists and mocks their perspectives.
Maher’s circus routine is easy to enjoy, particularly since it appears
driven by his assertion that religion has become “detrimental to the
progress of humanity.” That conclusion holds steady, but the movie
suffers from serious structural problems. Most of the footage
comprises of one confrontation after another, with very little to
shape the final product into a cogent piece of storytelling.

Only Maher’s fiery, apocalyptic conclusion validates all that comes
before, to the point where it would’ve been better if he had put it
out there earlier. Regardless, the premiere of the film at the Ryerson
Theater had a certain charm to it, as protesters appeared outside the
building while Maher strode the red carpet. When Powers took the stage
to the introduce the film, he set out to give the festival a
democratic edge. “Let’s hear it for the protesters!” he said to
shrieks and applause. “Everyone is welcome in this house of cinema.”

The religulous movie film up white

TORONTO — The Toronto International Film Festival ended
Saturday after unspooling 312 films during a 10-day cinematic
marathon. The Canadian Press writers who covered the festival pick
some of the highs and lows among the movies they saw and the
celebrities they encountered:

“Before Tomorrow” – A haunting tale of survival after an encounter
with white explorers leaves an Inuit grandmother and child abandoned
on a desolate island.

“C’est pas moi, je le jure!” – At turns hilarious and heart-breaking,
this Montreal coming-of-age film documents the unravelling of a 10
-year-old hellraiser struggling to cope with the split of his parents.

“Hunger” – A portrait of the 1981 Bobby Sands hunger strike from
British director Steve McQueen that takes viewers on a disturbing
journey into the hellish depths of the Maze prison near Belfast. With
a mind-blowing performance by Michael Fassbender as Sands.

“It Might Get Loud” – Davis Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for “An
Inconvenient Truth,” turns in an entertaining documentary about the
electric guitar, with commentary from U2’s the Edge, Jack White of the
White Stripes and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. No earth-shattering
insights, but a whole lot of fun.

“JCVD” – A one-man tour de force that may just resurrect the career of
Jean-Claude Van Damme. The hook has the former action star poking fun
at his image in his hometown of Brussels, where he inadvertently ends
up involved in a bank heist.

“Lovely, Still” – This wonderful effort from first-time filmmaker Nik
Fackler features Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn as elderly neighbours
who live out a second childhood when they fall in love – with a final
act that is heartbreaking.

“Religulous” – A laugh-out-loud attack on religion, with comedian Bill
Maher roaming the world to challenge Jews, Christians and Muslims on
their faith.

“Slumdog Millionaire” – An inspiring audience-pleaser that follows a
homeless teen from Mumbai to the final question on India’s version of
“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” all while he searches for the girl he
loves.

“Synecdoche, New York” – Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as a dejected
theatre director, the film has a title that’s hard to pronounce and a
storyline that’s sometimes even harder to follow. That’s the genius of
screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who makes his directorial debut.

“The Wrestler” – A brilliant account of a has-been fighter beaten by
life but looking for a second chance.

Sally Hawkins plays an overly optimistic school teacher who faces
trouble head-on in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky,” successfully walking
the line between lovable and downright obnoxious.

Anne Hathaway is riveting as a chain-smoking, recovering drug addict
in Jonathan Demme’s dark family drama “Rachel Getting Married.”

Antoine L’Ecuyer is a young phenom whose portrayal of 10-year-old
hellion Leon in “C’est pas moi, je le jure!” imparts a rare mix of
humour, vulnerability and charisma.

Julianne Moore gives a nuanced performance in “Blindness” as the only
sighted person in a defunct mental facility housing victims of a
mysterious epidemic.

Mickey Rourke was the festival’s comeback kid in “The Wrestler” as a
washed-up fighter who’s told he’s no longer fit for the ring. Co-star
Marisa Tomei is equally powerful playing an aging stripper who reaches
out to the grappler.

Kristin Scott Thomas is mesmerizing as a newly released prison inmate
struggling to re-enter society in the French-language drama “I’ve
Loved You So Long.”

Jean-Claude Van Damme? We’re as surprised as you are, but the
vulnerability that the action star puts into his “JCVD” performance is
astounding.

Matt Damon in “Che,” where the heartthrob surprisingly pops up as a
missionary in Bolivia, adding to the mishmash of accents in the
Spanish-language film.

Renee Zellweger awkwardly flirts through scenes with Viggo Mortensen
in “Appaloosa.” Playing a promiscuous widow, her seemingly Botox-
infused face fails to emote.

With a cast of Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz, it seemed
like con-man caper “The Brothers Bloom” couldn’t miss. But it did.
Though the film looked amazing, it made little sense and journalists
at one press screening had no qualms about heading for the exits well
before the final credits rolled.

Mark Ruffalo, Matt Damon, Ricky Gervais, Alicia Keys, Bruce McDonald,
Paul Gross, Julianne Moore and Evangeline Lilly all make the list for
being affable and generous with the media. Gervais giggled throughout
his interview, and McDonald offered to continue the chat later when
cut short by a publicist.

Keira Knightley makes this category for the second year in a row after
snippy comments during interviews for “The Duchess.” Philip Seymour
Hoffman, just roused from a nap (according to a publicist), was curt
at the start of an interview for “Synecdoche, New York” but softened
up after lighting up a smoke.

Adrien Brody wins for the thick beard he claims was grown “for life”
and not for a movie.

Seth Rogen shaves his hairy face in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” when
production begins on his amateur film.

George Clooney gets grizzly for the Coens to play a moronic federal
marshal in “Burn After Reading.”

The usually clean-shaven Steven Soderbergh arrived fully bearded in
Toronto, perhaps inspired by Che Guevara, the subject of his 4
1/2-hour bio-pic.

By Canadian Press film festival reporters Victoria Ahearn, Andrea
Baillie, David Friend, Gregory Bonnell and Cassandra Szklarski.

Religulous movie’s film don’t people

Sunday capped a typically busy first weekend at the Toronto
International Film Festival. While audiences and industry anticipated
the North American premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler,”
other films in the spotlight included Nik Fackler’s “Lovely, Still”,
Deepa Mehta’s “Heaven on Earth,” Larry Charles and Bill Maher’s
“Religulous,” and Steve McQueen’s “The Hunger.”

Producers Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy are clearly on a roll. Named to
Variety’s 10 Producers to Watch list last week, the duo (producers of
“Wild Tigers I Have Known” and “Old Joy”) are expected to imminently
announce an overhead deal with mentor Scott Rudin early this week. In
the meantime, they’ve been quite busy working the scene here at the
Toronto International Film Festival. On Sunday, Knudsen and Van Hoy
shuttled from a noon-time press & industry screening of Nik Fackler’s
“Lovely, Still,” popped over to a showing of So Yung Kim’s “Treeless
Mountain” and then back to an afternoon tea reception for “Lovely,
Still.”

Outside Sunday’s “Lovely, Still” showing, reps Cassian Elwes (from
William Morris) and Cynthia Swartz (from 42 West) worked an end of
hallway after the screening, while Knudsen and Van Hoy greeted well-
wishers. Fackler’s first feature had just stirred an emotional
response among a number of those who connected with his story of an
aging romance, starring Martin Laundau and Ellen Burstyn. The small
town story walks a tightrope and then takes a dramatic turn at its
climax, leaving viewers both heartbroken and uplifted.

“If the actors were my age, it wouldn’t be a big deal,” Fackler told
indieWIRE, when asked whether people are focusing too much on the fact
that, at age 17, he wrote the story of these two older lovers. Now 24,
he seems to take the questions in stride. William Morris’s Craig
Kestel, rep to such filmmakers as Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, Ryan
Eslinger and The Duplass Brothers, found then music video director and
artist Fackler’s website. He later packaged the film, concealing the
would-be filmmaker’s age until after the connected with the script.
They would eventually work with Jack Turner and White Buffalo
Entertainment to get the movie made and on the fest circuit within a
year.

Ellen Burstyn reiterated a particular fondness for filmmakers at an
early stage of their careers. She worked with Martin Scorsese, Peter
Bogdanovich and Darren Aronofsky early on. Explaining to indieWIRE
that she relishes the chance to work with a director before they’ve
been through the “meat-grinder” she noted that emerging filmmakers are
less likely to second guess themselves when they have less to prove
and have not yet faced too much failure (or success).

Buzz is growing for Fackler’s feature, but those involved are still
mapping out the best release strategy for the picture. The team is
taking the temperature of buyers, while balancing a hope to get the
movie — set during the Christmas holiday — out at the end of the
year to make the most of post-fest (and awards) buzz. If they decide
not to sell the movie, don’t be surprised if they take a high-profile
DIY approach. In last week’s biz assessment ahead of TIFF, indieWIRE’s
noted that marketing consultant Matthew Cohen is already on board to
help with distribution.

“We have plans in place,” producer Lars Knudsen told indieWIRE last
week. “If we don’t get the offers we want or anticipate, it doesn’t
end there. There’s been the sense: If you don’t get your film acquired
at a festival, what do you do? Now people are waking up and saying:
We, as producers and filmmakers, need to do that research and
understand the marketplace better.” [Eugene Hernandez]

Domestic violence takes the spotlight in Indian director Deepa Mehta’s
“Heaven on Earth.” Starring Bollywood actress Preity Zinta and actor
Vansh Bhardwaj, the film opens with colorful festivities celebrating
the wedding of Chand (Zinta) and Rocky (Bhardwaj) but fades when the
bride is taken to her new home in Canada and the reality of a violent
home life takes root.

“I discovered most people don’t want to talk about domestic violence
because they feel they deserve it or are embarrassed,” said Mehta
about her latest film. She also learned that after filming the project
many of her friends were also victims of spousal abuse. “Unles we
start talking about it, nothing is going to change. It’s a universal
issue, domestic violence knows no caste, race or [borders].”

Zinta was sanguine when asked if she thought the film would be able to
find an audience in her homeland – a country internationally known
more for producing over the top musicals then hot-button issue-
oriented work. “Indian audiences have matured. People who are
‘confident’ will get the film. Of course there are still the escapist
musicals that are just fun and you can just leave your brains at
home… they’re my bread-and-butter. But these [non-Bollywood] films
do have an audience…” [Brian Brooks]

Director Larry Charles and comedian Bill Maher at the Toronto press
conference for their film, “Religulous.” Photo by Brian
Brooks/indieWIRE.

“Borat” director Larry Charles and comedian Bill Maher take on the
final sacred cow by tapping their irreverance to stroke the slippery
slope of skepticism when it comes to the God issue in their film,
“Religulous.” Maher travels to some of the holiest sights in the world
for some of the biggest names in monotheism: Jerusalem, Vatican City
and Salt Lake City to openly polarize and debunk what Maher sees as
the ridiculousness of religion.

“I say I’m a ‘rationalist.’ I don’t like the word ‘atheist.’ It’s too
dogmatic. I don’t say there’s no God, I don’t [ultimately] know… A
‘rationalist’ is someone who bases their thinking on rational thought
based on scientific evidence,” said Maher Sunday afternoon in Toronto
about his personal view on faith. “We’ve become the Woodward and
Bernstein of religion,” joked Charles. “We want to destroy the whole
system…”

Maher, who apparently was picketed the night before at the debut of
his doc the night before, went for the jugular when asked by a
Canadian journalist why American political candidates wear their
religion on their sleeves more then in other countries. “Because we’re
a dumber country then you are,” he quipped. “People argue that if you
get rid of religion, society will implode, but we see Western Europe
has moved away from religion and despite that, we haven’t seen a
collapse, in fact they’re quite well off…”

Maher quickly dispelled any notion that he had a difficult religious
upbringing and was using bitterness as a tool to attack religion,
saying his Catholic childhood was void of any personal trauma. “People
ask me if I’m doing this because I’m bitter since I was raised
Catholic, and the answer is ‘no!’ I wasn’t abused as a child or
anything like that, and quite frankly – I’m insulted…” [Brian
Brooks]

“This film is all about taste, texture, and smell and sound,” said
artist and first-time filmmaker Steve McQueen at the Q&A; following
the Toronto screening of his fantastically visceral work, “The
Hunger.” In McQueen’s riveting, disturbing film, we see the final
weeks of Bobby Sands, an IRA reactionary who lead a protest in the
notoriously brutal Maze Prison during the heated Irish conflict in
1981. Atypically though, the film offers an unbiased view of the
disturbing conflict, showing with striking imagery the prisoners as
well as the guards and the brutality that they all witness. Commenting
on how his film compared to others that have documented this part of
Irish history, McQueen said, ” “I don’t think about what other people
have done before.” He added, It’s about communicating ideas with
images…You always have to put two things in a frame.”

Actor Michael Fassbender, who captures the tragic story of Bobby
Sands, lost 35 lbs to offer the disturbing sight of a man slowly dying
of self-inflicted starvation. When asked about working with
Fassbender, McQueen said, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s on the
screen.” McQueen offered a bit more, saying that “A look or one or two
words and we were on the same page.” When one audience member asked
how he lost the weight, Fassbender quipped, “”You looking for some
tips? Stand up, let’s take a look at you.” Fassbender added, “I had
ten weeks to lose the weight. I ate lots of berries, nuts, and
sardines.” [James Israel and Cameron Yates]

Movie welles film in religulous movie

(09-10) 04:00 PDT Toronto – — Looking all grown up in a strapless
black cocktail dress, Evan Rachel Woodtold a Toronto International
Film Festival audience that it was her 21st birthday. The crowd burst
into a round of “Happy Birthday.”

The best present she could have received had come over the weekend
when “The Wrestler” – a gritty movie about an aging wrestler in which
she plays his neglected daughter – was awarded the Venice Film
Festival’s highest honor, the Golden Lion. As hard as it is to imagine
MickeyRourkeas fathering the delicately lovely Wood, the two pull it
off.

“The Wrestler” is a comeback for Rourke, who took a bow at the Toronto
screening. Director Darren Aronofskytold the audience that before
hiring him he heard “a lot of baloney” about how problematic Rourke
was to work with. There’s Oscar buzz about his unsparing performance.
Before Aronofsky learned that Fox Searchlight had bought the American
rights for the film (news that came later that day), he joked that if
anyone wished to talk to him, he would be available after the
screening.

— As Bill Maherstrode down the red carpet, he could hear chants of
“Pray for Bill” emanating from protesters gathered nearby. They were
demonstrating against his documentary “Religulous” – his first foray
into filmmaking – in which he takes on organized religion, comparing
it to a comedy routine with its tall tales of talking snakes and Jonah
living in the belly of a whale. Demonstrators carried placards saying
things like “Don’t mock my religion.” Instead of hurting the film,
their presence only drew more publicity for it.

Onstage before a screening, Maher asked how many in the audience were
praying for him. He indicated that his own prayers were answered by
the selection of Sarah Palinas the Republican candidate for vice
president. “When I saw they had nominated a full-fledged Jesus freak,
I knew it was going to be good for my movie,” Maher laughingly told
the crowd.

— Talking about politics, Spike Lee was as omnipresent at the
festival – dashing from bookstores to interviews to news conferences
for his new movie, “Miracle at St. Anna,” based on the novel of the
same name – as he had been at the Democratic Convention a few weeks
back. He was pictured on TV wearing a T-shirt showing Barack
Obamadunking a basketball over JohnMcCain’s head. “Everybody called me
afterwards to find out how to get a T-shirt like that,” said Lee, who
said he plans to do as much campaigning for the Democratic candidate
as he can.

“Miracle at St. Anna” is the filmmaker’s first World War II movie. It
tells the story of the nation’s first African American infantry
division. The Buffalo Soldiers, as they were called, served in Italy.

— It was somehow fitting that “Flash of Genius” should premiere on a
rainy day in Toronto. The deeply affecting movie tells the story of
Robert Kearns, inventor of what is known as the “intermittent
windshield wiper,” the device that stops and starts your wiper so it
doesn’t run continuously.

At a news conference, Greg Kinnear, who gives the performance of his
career as Kearns, suggested everybody turn on their wipers in tribute
to him. Kinnear said he wasn’t concerned about mimicking Kearns’
gestures and voice. “This wasn’t like playing Nixon. Nobody has got an
idea of what the guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper
looks like.”

— On the other hand, many people know what Orson Welleslooked like,
even if it was just from his wine commercial. Director Richard
Linklaterconsiders himself fortunate to have found someone who looks
uncannily like Welles to play the maddening genius in “Me and Orson
Welles” – a movie about Welles’ early years on the Broadway stage.
When Christian McKaycame onstage before a festival screening, the
audience gasped at the resemblance.

The film also stars Zac Efronas a young actor beguiled by Welles.
Efron is a celebrity among teens for his role in “High School
Musical.” When Linklater tapped him to be in “Me and Orson Welles, “I
was like ‘thank you, somebody, for offering me a serious role,’ ”
Efron told the audience.

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