FRANKENSTEIN: Bold, bombastic and beautiful, Guillermo del Toro‘s “Frankenstein” is an emotionally charged story of fathers and sons, of beauty and beasts and literary romanticism. It looks like a Gothic horror movie but can’t rightly be called a horror film. The creature (Jacob Elordi) has always been a sympathetic character, but del Toro humanizes him in a way unlike any other portrayal. The hulking creature is seemingly indestructible physically, but emotionally he’s a soulful character in search of family and love. The horror of the story comes from the abuses foisted upon the creature by Victor, played by Oscar Isaac, his creator, but certainly not his protector. “If you will not reward me with love,” the creature says to Victor, “I will indulge in rage.” Del Toro loves monsters and that affection is infused in every frame of the film as his creature explores what it means to be human.
TUNER: Niki, a piano tuner with perfect pitch and very sensitive hearing, played by Leo Woodall, discovers his talents are good for more than just tuning pianos when his mentor Harry (Dustin Hoffman) gets hit with massive medical bills. What begins as a surrogate father and son story becomes a crime drama as Niki uses his extraordinary hearing to crack safes. Academy Award winner Daniel Roher‘s narrative filmmaking debut is a character driven piece centered around a star-making performance from Woodall. He’s all understated charm as Niki, but this isn’t simply a story of a good guy who gets in over his head. Roher, who also wrote the script with Robert Ramsey crafts a finely tuned tale of the pursuit of perfection, loyalty and conquering life’s limitations.
& SONS: An uncompromising, but often very funny, family drama, “& Sons” is anchored by an inhibition free performance from Bill Nighy as an ageing literary superstar who drops a bomb of a family secret that literally blows up his family. No spoilers here, but it is a testament to the clever writing, and powerful performances from Johnny Flynn, George MacKay, Noah Jupe and Imelda Staunton that and sons doesn’t get lost in the absurdity of its central premise. (NO SPOILERS HERE) A story of regret, legacy and the worst dad since Darth Vader, is a nuanced look at intergenerational pain and the difficulty of healing old wounds.
LITTLE LORRAINE: Based on true events from the 1980s involving a cocaine smuggling ring in a small Nova Scotia town, “Little Lorraine” places a gritty crime story against Cape Breton’s economic struggles post-coal mining to create a story that authentically portrays the moral dilemmas of the lengths desperate people will go to in order to provide for their families. A standout performance from Stephen McHattie as a rugged crime boss brings an escalating sense of danger to the rugged beauty of the surroundings.
THE LOST BUS: The old saying that something “spread like wildfire” is brought to literal life by director Paul Greengrass and stars Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. Shot cinema verité style, “The Lost Bus’s” story of heroism amid the burning inferno of the 2018 California Camp Fire is an intense, you-are-there experience. Greengrass’s restless camera is in constant motion as he captures the action, but this isn’t an action film. Instead, it’s a horror film with the relentless fire as the monster. Driven by the intensity of the images, the movie loses marks for tin eared dialogue and underdeveloped characters. Made for Apple TV+, this will get a short run in theatres before moving to streaming, but it was definitely made with the big screen in mind.
JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME: Martin Short told “John Candy: I Like Me” documentary producer Ryan Reynolds and director Colin Hanks, they would not be able to find anyone with anything bad to say about John Candy. Short was right. Everyone in the doc speaks glowingly of Candy, his generosity of spirit and luminous talent, but this isn’t a straight up hagiography. Those nearest and dearest to the late comic actor, like his children Jennifer and Chris, widow Rose, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Macaulay Culkin, Dan Aykroyd and Catherine O’Hara, paint a colorful portrait of a larger-than-life character who battled fatphobia and an anxiety disorder.
YOU HAD TO BE THERE: Despite having virtually no footage from the stage production of “Godspell” that launched the careers of Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, and Jayne Eastwood plus musical director Paul Shaffer, “You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way)” does a good job of re-creating the time of creative growth and sense of exploration that made the show so dynamic. Firsthand interviews with the actors from the original run add humor, poignancy to the story of a stage show that was formative, not only in the lives of the performers, but also for the brand of humour and performance it nurtured.
WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY: The most fleet-footed, and best, entry in the “Knives Out” franchise, the star-studded “Wake Up Dead Man” benefits from the chemistry between Daniel Craig, as Southern detective Benoit Blanc and the young priest played by Josh O’Connor. Their scenes pop with energy and mystery, while Josh Brolin, as an unpredictable priest, brings an unexpected sense of menace. A tribute to locked-room mysteries, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and novelist John Dickson Carr, it mixes spirituality and death in a story that crackles with life.
CANCELED: THE PAULA DEEN STORY: A look at the scandal that ruined the career of celebrity chef Paula Deen, “Cancelled” is a sober, straightforward reconsideration of the facts. Director Billy Corbin guides the viewer through the unlikely rises of Deen to Food Network superstardom, and her rapid decline, but offers an opportunity for the people that know her best, and for Dean herself, to provide their sides of the story. It likely won’t rehabilitate Deen‘s career, but it does feel as though it provides a fuller look at the scandal’s eruption than previously seen.
SWIPED: As formulaic as its subject is innovative, the biopic “Swiped” is the story of Whitney Wolfe (Lily James), tech visionary and founder of online dating platform Bumble. Lily James, who also produces, is fine in the lead role, so it’s a shame the movie swipes left when it comes to aspiring to being anything than a Wikipedia page on screen. Lacking the drama of “The Social Network” or “Steve Jobs,” other films that have tread similar ground, it is as standard as biopics get.
I’ve been covering the Toronto International Film Festival for 30 of the 50 years of its existence. I’ve dusted off some memories from those years as a personal look back at the fest’s first half century. Entries 41 – 50!
2015: The backstage atmosphere was tense at the “Black Mass” press conference. Dakota Johnson, Joel Edgerton, Peter Sarsgaard, Kevin Bacon, Julianne Nicholson, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane and director Scott Cooper. Were all there, everyone except star Johnny Depp. There was grumbling and annoyed publicists until it was discovered that Depp was late because he was signing autographs and taking pictures with a large group of young “Pirates of the Caribbean” fans outside the venue. Inside when he was asked how it felt to portray a real person like gangster James (Whitey) Bulger he said, “You mean the Mad Hatter never existed? Or Willy Wonka? Are you going to tell me there’s no Santa Claus now?”
2024: Every year there is at least one guerilla style advertising campaign designed to catch your eye. Or maybe Matt Damon’s eye. Last year the producers of a film with a provocative name plastered posters all over Festival Street that read MATT DAMON (then in tiny letters) you are cordially invited to come and see THE PEE PEE POO POO MAN (tiny letters again) at Scotiabank Theatre. You just know Damon’s friends called him the Pee Pee Poo Poo Man for the entire festival.
2014: Sitting next to next to Boo Radley, Bill Kilgore and Tom Hagan, i.e. Robert Duvall who said, about acting, “There’s no right or wrong just truthful or untruthful.” He calls Billy Bob Thornton “The hillbilly Orson Welles…” and said “Brando used to watch Candid Camera.”
2014: After years of watching films at TIFF I finally got to be in one of them! “Red Alert,” the Barry Avrich documentary inspired by his red-haired daughter Sloan’s discovery of a rumor that redheads are going extinct, was my big screen debut but did not result in offers for more movie roles!
2007: Because I must wear a suit every day during TIFF I try to be creative with my ties and socks. When Kenneth Branagh, director of “Sleuth,” saw my wild socks he said, “I admire the sartorial eloquence in your ankle area.” Best dressed review ever!
2015: “Trumbo” star Bryan Cranbston told me, “I don’t want to portray this idea that I’m just about the art. I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich and rich is better.” Also: he said he likes to go up to people wearing the Heisenberg t-shirts he wore on “Breaking Bad” and, in Walter White’s voice, say, “Nice t-shirt,” and I whisper if to them and their eyes go wide and I put my finger to my lips, like ‘Don’t tell anyone… if you tell people, they won’t believe you.’
2003: After he was Chaplin but before he was Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr was “The Singing Detective.” As the titular character in this surreal musical crime comedy, Downey came to TIFF for a round of press. He showed up wearing a floppy hat, I wore a jacket with a subtle snakeskin patterned jacket, or at —or at least as subtle as a snakeskin patterned jacket can be. He liked the jacket, I liked the hat, so we switched and shot the interview wearing each other’s clothes.
2016: In the road trip movie “American Honey” Riley Keough plays a Fagin-like character, tough-as-nails with a glare that could peel the paint off the walls. I asked her what she learned being on the road while making the movie: “I learned not to drink too much. I really think I learned it. Legitimately.” She laughed, perhaps remembering some long nights while making this movie, then added in a more serious tone, “I learned a lot of really profound things, but I don’t know how comfortable I am talking about them.”
2009: Anyone who saw Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” at TIFF, with its pitch perfect theatre sound, will never forget the scene with the rusty scissor and Charlotte Gainsbourg privates, will never forget the snipping sound which drew a collective gasp from anyone in the theatre who wasn’t rendered completely speechless by the shocking act of self-mutilation.
2025: Celebrity Trifecta Sighting! Saw Richard E. Grant, John Slattery and Judd Apatow do a selfie in the concession line at the Royal Alex!
I appear on “CTV News at 6” with anchor Andria Case from TIFF’s Festival Street to talk about “You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (In a Canadian Kind of Way)” and more!
I’ve been covering the Toronto International Film Festival for 30 of the 50 years of its existence. I’ve dusted off some memories from those years as a personal look back at the fest’s first half century.
2015: Hosting the press conferences at TIFF is always a gamble. For every great question from the press pit, there are an equal number of inane ones that only tick the celebrities off. At the “Our Brand is Crisis” conference someone asked Sandra Bullock about her character’s grown-out roots. The Oscar winner replied as best she could and when she finished, co-star George Clooney chimed in, “Aren’t you glad you asked that question?” Later she shut down a silly query regarding how she keeps her bum as toned as it is in the film. “It’s so sad that you just want to talk about the butt,” she said, before tersely adding that leg lifts are the secret to posterior pertness.
2014: Robert Pattinson, doing press for “Maps to the Stars,” told me what Hollywood was before camera phones: “When I first started going to LA everyone was underage and if you were a famous actor the rules did not apply. You could be a sixteen-year-old and go into a club but now that there are camera phones everywhere that doesn’t exist anymore. That period was so weird. You’d see a fourteen-year-old actor wasted, doing lines of blow on the table. It was crazy. Now they just do it at their parent’s house.”
2019: David Foster’s candor. At the gala for the doc “David Foster: Off the Record” the hit-maker joked with director Barry Avrich about the artists NOT included in the film. “Where’s Boz Scaggs? Where’s NSYC? Where’s Richard Marx?” Avrich replied, “He turned us down.” With timing that Jack Benny would admire Foster paused, looked at the audience and said, “Well then, f**k Richard Marx.”
2020: During one of TIFF’s pandemic years, I hosted a reunion panel for Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” featuring actors Vincent D’Onofrio, Arliss Howard, and Katharina Kubrick. On the panel they shared anecdotes about the grueling boot camp training and Kubrick’s meticulous directing style. In a first for TIFF, the pre-taped panel was aired in drive in theatres before a screening of the restored film.
2016: During the press conference I hosted with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop about the Stooges documentary “Gimme Danger,” the rock god choked up when he spoke about the comeback of his legendary band. “I put almost eight years into the original group, and I put about 12 into the comeback. During those 12 years, the whole repertoire was covered, all three albums,” he said. “Every member of the group during the 12-year period, and our sidemen, graduated with honors. Meaning that when they passed away, they had houses, money and bad habits. These are the three things a rock star is supposed to have. They got their rock and their recognition, alright?”
2011: Rumor had it that Madonna forbid TIFF volunteers from looking her in the eye during the screenings of her film “W.W.” or the press conference, which I hosted. Turns out it wasn’t true, although there was at least one “volunteer” the singer probably wanted to ignore. At the end of the press conference a woman in an orange volunteer t-shirt asked for an autograph, claiming it was for another volunteer who was too shy to ask. Turns out the woman was not a volunteer, but a shill for an autograph mill who make big bucks off of celebrity signatures.
2024 Tweet: Things I learned at #TIFF #123: If you’re nervous about public speaking, eat a banana before waking on stage. Full of B vitamins, they help calm nerves and contain tryptophan, a protein that the body converts into serotonin, the ‘happy hormone’ which will keep your mood upbeat.
2019: Stand near any press person during TIFF and you are guaranteed to hear this, “I’m so tired.” It’s a grind to cover the festival in a meaningful way, but the complaint has become a joke, most memorable made by director Ron Mann who wore a t-shirt emblazoned with “I’M TIRED” in bog bold letters.
In the early days of my festival coverage, I didn’t have an off switch. I made it a mission to see as many movies as possible and talk to anyone and everyone who would speak to me on camera. I can now tell you that’s not the best way to go about things. One year, for example, Stellan Skarsgård had several films in the fest, and me, in my fest-addled brain, formed them all into one epic film. As a result, I asked him questions that referred to all the movies as if they were one. He gamely answered the first few questions before it dawned on him what was going on. He could have gotten up and left, but instead, took control of the interview and generously molded his answers into something we could actually use
2023: The 4K “Stop Making Sense” restoration of the four-decade old movie is a joyful, high-energy revisiting of a classic concert film. A document of a band working at the top of their game, it captures the love of music and performance in a way few other have. And it’s got a good and you can dance to it, which people did in the theater I saw this in.
I’ve been covering the Toronto International Film Festival for 30 of the 50 years of its existence. I’ve dusted off some memories from those years as a personal look back at the fest’s first half century.
2024: The absolute highlight of my 2024 TIFF this year was hosting the Hazelton Hotel’s unveiling of the state-of-the-art screening room as the Norman Jewison Cinema. It was a star-studded affair, but it wasn’t about the glitz and glam, it was a touching tribute to an iconic filmmaker who was in attendance to feel the love for him and his work.
2023: Watching the debut of Atom Egoyan’s ambitious meditation on the healing power of art, “Seven Veils” at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the same theatre where most of the movie’s action takes place. It was was very cool to allow your eyes to wander away from the screen for a moment, without feeling like you were being taken out of the story.
2019: I made Bruce Springsteen. We talked at a lunch for his movie “Western Stars” and I told him about my first time using a Sony Walkman. I borrowed a Walkman, used the last of my cash to buy a “Born In The USA” cassette and walked through the Eaton Centre with the thing turned up to 11. As let the music reverberated around my head I remember thinking, “This is so much easier than lugging the stereo around.” He liked the story and said, laughing, “Thanks for telling me that.”
2001: In September of 2011 I hosted a press conference with Brad Pitt and the cast of the sports drama “Moneyball.” As we walked out on the stage dozens of flashbulbs flared repeatedly, as photographers yelled Pitt’s name. “Brad! Look over here!” I quickly stepped aside. A great picture of Pitt could pay the photographer’s mortgage for the month. A snap of Pitt with a bewildered looking me in the frame couldn’t fetch enough to buy a pack of gum. Still, even on the sidelines I was unprepared for the ferocity of the experience. Thousands of pops of light. The shouting. The intensity of the moment left me knock-kneed, disoriented and seeing spots. Pitt, however, was grace under pressure, flashing his megawatt smile and posing while helping the gaggle of photographers pay their bills that month. Backstage I said to Pitt, “That was pretty intense.” He looked baffled, as if I had just recited “The Lord’s Prayer” to him in Esperanto. “The photographers. The flashes…” I offered by way of explanation. “Oh yeah,” he said unconvincingly, “that was wild…” But for him, it wasn’t wild. It’s perfectly normal for him to be at the center of attention storms like this.
In the early years of covering the festival all the television outlets would set up studios in rooms at the Intercontinental Hotel on Bloor Street. For ten days actors, directors and other talent would go room to room shooting interviews. On TV the set ups looked good, but in reality, they were cramped spaces that smelled of anxiety and expensive perfume. One year instead of paying to have all the furniture moved out, we pushed it to the side, just out of shot, with the mattress propped up against the wall. When Frances Ford Coppola came in to talk about his restored version of “One from the Heart” he looked around and congratulated us for using the mattress as a sound barrier between us and the bustling hallway. “It’s so noisy in the other rooms,” he said.
2021THE PANDEMIC FESTIVAL: The sound of an audience laughing, applauding, crying, or whatever. Just being an audience. The big venues were socially distanced, and often looked empty to the eye, but when the lights went down and folks reacted to the opening speeches or the films, it didn’t matter. Roy Thomson Hall, with its 2600-person capacity, may have only had 1000 or so people in the seats, but for ninety minutes or two hours they formed a community, kindred souls brought together after a long break, and it was uplifting to hear their reactions.
TWEET: There’s a guy in my neighborhood who thinks my name is TIFF as in, “Hey TIFF! Why aren’t you at the film festival?” #everydamnday #TIFF17
2024: The most idiosyncratic movie I saw that year, “Megalopolis,” the forty-years-in-the-making passion project from Francis Ford Coppola, is equal parts hammy and hopeful, dense and dazzling. It’s the work of a filmmaker with nothing left to prove, and brims with imagination, ambition and, unfortunately, self-indulgence. Most memorable part? A fourth-wall-breaking moment where a live person in the audience interacted with Adam Driver’s character on screen.
2016: Queen of Katwe star David Oyelowo on working with nonactors on the film: “I actually took a bunch of the kids to see Jurassic World while we were doing the film and Madina (Nalwanga), who plays Phiona, sat next to me and was clutching me the whole time, terrified by the movie. She turned to me and said, ‘Is this what we are doing?’ I asked her if she had ever seen a film before and she said no. We were halfway through shooting a film in which she is playing the lead.”
2023: I haven’t spent much time on the TIFF red carpets, but I was beyond tickled to see the iconic “tickle trunk” from kid show M<r. Dressup” on the carpet for “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe.”
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the demonic drama “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” the non rom com “The Threesome” and what’s happening at TIFF!
I’ve been covering the Toronto International Film Festival for 30 of the 50 years of its existence. I’ve dusted off some memories from those years as a personal look back at the fest’s first half century.
2011: After a long interview with John Lydon, who was at TIFF with punk rock coming of age story “Sons of Norway.” The interview went swimmingly. Lydon was affable, and despite my very unpunk rock suit and tie, we got on quite well. Afterwards I excitedly ducked out to the hotel hallway to call my girlfriend about the interview. As I babbled into th3 phone about meeting one of my heroes, Willem Dafoe—Mr. Bobby Peru himself—walked by and, I guess sensing my excitement, gave me a thumbs up and mouthed the words, “That’s so cool.” That was a cool day.
2006: The audience reaction to “Pan’s Labyrinth” at a 2006 TIFF press screening. Guillermo del Toro’s horrifying fairy tale held the audience in rapt attention from its opening moments, but the reveal of the Pale Man, the child-eating demon with eyes in the palms of his hands, caused a collective “Holy shit,” moment I’ll never forget.
2011: In 2011 I spoke with Ralph Fiennes about his adaptation of the Shakespearean play “Coriolanus.” We talked about the relationship between the two main characters, Coriolanus (Fiennes), the proud Roman general, and his bitter rival, the Volscian general Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler) and how they are essentially the same person, just split by ideology. To illustrate his point, Fiennes recited a long passage from Shakespeare’s text. He has the rare gift to recite that language in such a way, that even if you don’t understand exactly what the passage means, the words still connect emotionally. I was almost speechless, but managed to say, “You know what that does to people, don’t you?” He smiled and we wrapped the interview. There was nothing left to say.
2015: Sometimes hosting the press conference felt more like traffic control than interviewing. At “The Martian” presser, there was an unwieldy 13 people on the stage, everyone from Michael Pena to Matt Damon, Ridely Scott, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jessica Chastain, and in the shuffle I made the horrifying mistake of forgetting to ask the great Sean Bean, who was sitting directly behind me in my blind spot, a question and didn’t realize it until we were out of time. Who doesn’t acknowledge Lord Eddard Stark? Me, idiotically.
2001: David Lynch came to our interview suite to talk about his movie “Mulholland Drive.” Wearing his signature buttoned up white shirt and black suit, he smoked American Spirit cigarettes, one after the other, as he told me about the film, and his notions about where ideas come from. “Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re beautiful.” I realized as he spoke that he used his cigarette as a baton, like a conductor to punctuate his sentences. By the end of the interview, I was covered in the airborne ash from his wildly gesticulated smokes, but I didn’t care. Nothing a quick trip to the dry cleaners couldn’t fix in return for a few minutes with the maestro.
2008: I hosted the press conference for the gritty Boston-set crime drama “What Doesn’t Kill You,” based on the troubled youth of director Brian Goodman. Questions from the press were slow in coming, and at one point I looked over and Ruffalo, who plays the Goodman character in the film, had his head in his hands. At first, I wasn’t sure what was happening. Was he tired? Taking a break from the conversation? Asleep? Turns out the conversation and questions had made him emotional, and he was crying. Ethan Hawke jumped in and spoke for him about how Ruffalo is a committed actor who completely throws himself into his roles. “There was huge responsibility that Mark felt,” Hawke said, “when you love somebody and you respect them, and they have invested their faith in you.” Eventually, after some prodding Ruffalo spoke up, but the tears continued. “To know Brian like I do underneath all of this, to tell that story today when it’s even more difficult than it was then,” he said, “is just a huge responsibility. AP called the press conference, “a rare treat for both journos and actors because of the heartfelt questions.”
2015: I spoke to Christopher Plummer about the making of the film “Remember.” My favorite line from any interview? Christopher Plummer talking about the dog in the film: “We had two dogs on set. One to do the stunts and the other just making money.”
2008: The best party was Bruce MacDonald’s “Ponypool” bash at the delightfully downscale Imperial Pub and Library on Dundas Street. Leave it to Bruce to opt for a place with a sticky carpet and broken urinals instead of one of the usual TIFF haunts like the Hazelton Hotel. The best part was watching the TIFF types trying to order Grey Goose and champagne and other higher end libations at the beer-and-a-shot bar.
2024: You never know how an audience will react. A very unusual thing happened when I saw Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” at 2024s TIFF. After the movie’s best and funniest scene, one that shows the comedic chops and chemistry of leads Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, the audience burst into applause. It was a spontaneous, organic moment, the kind usually reserved for comedy clubs, not sold-out festival screenings. The spur-of-the-moment joyfulness of the moment is the kind of thing when an audience of strangers becomes a community for the duration of a film.
September 11, 2001: When I mentioned to New York actress Adrienne Shelly that I couldn’t reach my girlfriend, who was living in Manhattan, she loaned me her cellphone. “For some reason it seems to get through,” she said. It did, and after a quick call to make sure she was safe, the full impact of what had just happened sunk in. Sometimes the small stuff, the personal things — like the anxious voice at the other end of the line — help you understand the magnitude of a grim situation.
