Day 2 of the Toronto International Film Festival I see The Artist which seems to be getting a lot of buzz right now. I also saw The Hunter starring Willem Dafoe, the North American Premiere of Melancholia which Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress at Cannes. Lastly, I went to a Special presentation screening of Drive. Here are my first impressions and mini reviews of the films.

People are going to love this film. People who love film are going to LOVE this film. An ode to Hollywood of the yester years. Terrific performances, amazing black and white cinematography, laughter aplenty. This film is a blast. Telling the story of a silent film actor in Hollywood at the genesis of talkies. The main character George is full of too much pride to realize the change in technology. He soon begins to suffer as his love interest’s fame starts to sky rocket. Together him and his very well trained pooch try to figure out a way to stay in the pictures. It all comes together in a dazzling final 20 minutes. Audiences will chew this one up.

A slow burning Australian film about an American Mercenary (Willem Dafoe) hired by a mysterious European Bio Tech corporation to find the last of the Tasmanian Tigers. A brooding thriller that becomes more about protecting a widow and her children than the hunt itself. Dafoe turns in a good performance as always, the movie itself didn’t really speak to me. It was a little slow in parts and the plot of the film wasn’t that interesting to me. Of course I had Melancholia and Drive to follow, so my mind was kind of elsewhere.

I have only seen one Lars Von Trier film prior to this, his extremely tough to sit through Antichrist (which I actually quite liked). The opening sequence of Melancholia is utterly spectacular. Shots of Kirsten Dunst with electricity coming out of her hands and being stuck in tangled black webs coming from the earth are all shot in a very arty way by Trier. He finishes off the opening sequence with the planet Melancholia crushing Earth and it is as beautiful a shot from any science fiction film I’ve ever seen. If you can see this in a theater I would highly recommend it. The sound system of the Ryerson theater was spectacular. The movie concerns a woman just newly wed at her reception with her absolutely insane family. The second half the film is concentrated on her sister and how she deals with the depression and despair the planet Melancholia brings. The final 20 minutes are brilliant, scary and beautiful all at once. One of the best films I’ve seen so far.

I was looking forward to Drive probably the second most out of any film at TIFF this year. Nicolas Windig Refn got up before the movie and introduced the cast and talked a little about the movie. The dude is seriously funny as hell. Drive disappointed me. It’s a good movie, but it’s not a great one. It has so much going for it. An incredible style courtesy of Refn, a soundtrack that works very well with the material. Some terrific turns from Bryan Cranston and Albert Brooks. Also, the violence is extremely grisly and well executed. I’m not one to LOVE violence in movie, but when a movie has a good mean streak I to appreciate it. My problems with Drive are these. For starters, the movie starts out with a great story between a lonely shy man and his neighbor who he confides in while her husband is in prison. All of that is built well and all, but once the movie kicks into gear, it feels like the film ditches all those great emotions it created and just goes with pure brutality. And I like said earlier I don’t mind extreme violence but you gotta back that up with some feelings. I felt like Drive didn’t earn them. The second thing I didn’t like about the film was that it kinda wrapped itself up early. The movie could’ve easily added another 15 minutes and would’ve been perfect. Drive was going pretty well until it hit autopilot. It was like the movie realized it was ending soon and just wrapped up it’s plot. Terrific style, terrific score and performances. Just wish it didn’t ditch the heart it was building in the first half and ditch out on what could’ve been a great ending.

The 2011 Toronto International Film Festival is about to begin and I will representing Way Too Indie there. We previously posted the films we are most excited for but here is the list of films I will be seeing (some of which were on that list). Expect mini-reviews to follow as well as my general experience of the atmosphere in the city of Toronto.

Synopsis: Idiosyncratic, cheeky and uncategorizable, the films of Guy Maddin are testaments to the singular vision of a great contemporary cinema artist, and Keyhole may be his boldest film yet. A surreal indoor odyssey of one man, Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric) struggling to reach his wife (Isabella Rosellini) in her bedroom upstairs, this hypnotic dreamlike journey bewilders and captivates.
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Synopsis: A look at what happens when partners from different social backgrounds engage in in physical relationships.
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Why excited: Not only is it black and white but it is a silent film.
Synopsis: Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

Synopsis: Intimate interviews and life stories of several inmates condemned to death in a Texas prison.
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Synopsis: Martin, a mercenary, is sent from Europe by an mysterious biotech company to the Tasmanian wilderness on a hunt for the last Tasmanian tiger.

Synopsis: Two sisters find their relationship challenged as a nearby planet threatens to collide into the Earth.

Synopsis: A Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman discovers that a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong.

Synopsis: A land baron tries to re-connect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident.

Synopsis: Haunted by painful memories and increasing paranoia, a damaged woman struggles to re-assimilate with her family after fleeing an abusive cult.

Synopsis: Everyone knows what to do if one morning the sky would be absolutely full of UFOs: run as fast as you can. However, what would happen if the invasion started while you are in the flat of the girl of your dreams, the one you have just met?
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Synopsis: A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas and spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released because DNA evidence proved their innocence.
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Synopsis: Follows veteran police officer Dave Brown, the last of the renegade cops, as he struggles to take care of his family, and fights for his own survival.
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Synopsis: The story of a young woman clinging on to her dream to become a beauty contest queen in a Mexico dominated by organized crime.

Synopsis: A suicide survivor works for a nameless corporation, where he puts other employees through series of bizarre performance tests in this dystopian, Tarkovsky-esque sci-fi and surreal dark fantasy, with flashes of dark humour and deep emotion.

Synopsis: A group of cooks at an asylum for the criminally insane get locked in with the inmates during a massive thunderstorm.
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Synopsis: The team behind “Baraka” reunites for another journey around the world, exploring themes of birth, death and rebirth through stunning visuals and music.
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Synopsis: A drama centered on 30-something Brandon, his myriad sexual escapades, and what happens when his wayward younger sister moves in with him.
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Synopsis: A mysterious underground outfit, going by the name of ALPS, offers bereaved individuals a very unusual service: they stand in for their dearly departed.