There was a little festival in town last week and our ears are still ringing from all the buzz about it.
Although the Toronto International Film Festival brought droves of reporters and critics to town, the focus was clearly on the screen this year.
The Guardian reported that the offbeat romantic comedy
Silver Linings Playbook, from director David O. Russell, took the people's choice award.
"Toronto has no jury but its top prize is nevertheless a useful indicator of future Oscars success: previous winners include
The King's Speech,
Precious and
Slumdog Millionaire."
The Wrap's Steve Pond had mixed reviews of TIFF's offerings, but still praised the festival.
"Toronto is still the best place to see a whole lot of very good movies."
"Yes, TIFF programmers served up some disappointments. (I didn't care for
Hyde Park on Hudson, except for Bill Murray's performance, and felt that the makers of
The Central Park Five could have told the same story far more succinctly and effectively.)"
"But the festival's lineup of documentaries was strong and deep, including the horrifying and riveting
The Act of Killing and the eye-opening likes of
Mea Maxima Culpa, How to Make Money Selling Drugs and
Artifact. And more often than not, I liked the narrative films I saw, even if it was a struggle to stay alert during the first hour of
Cloud Atlas when that hour happened to be 9-to-10am."
"The consensus, which solidified during the front-loaded first weekend and endured even as more dubious titles debuted later in the festival, is that this year's festival offered far more winners than losers, more happy surprises than clanking disappointments…. And now it's time to see how many of those titles will survive outside of Toronto."
Read the full stories
here and
here
Original sources: The Guardian and The Wrap