DAY ONE
THURSDAY, SEPT 6
THE BRAVE ONE
[ WORLD PREMIERE ]
Ryerson [ capacity 1200 with balcony ]
9 p.m.
Welcome to opening night! And so pronounced Mr Cowan - and without further ado save thanks to the sponsors and a melodramatic description of The Brave One he introduced Joel Silver - one year to the day last year when the mighty one introduced his cast of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the film noir/pink comedy highlight of last year's TIFF : Kevin Bacon, and Val Kilmer.
Out on the red carpet the camera lights were at full blast as Jodie Foster in shimmy black was holding court with the press while the humongous line filed past into Ryerson theatre
The world premiere of The Brave One was no less auspicious with Neil Jordan himself back at TIFF again and one person who launched his career at TIFF with Crash - Terence Howard - and actor and director from 1991's TFF with Little Man Tate [ before it was TIFF ] Jodie Foster!
She pronounced Toronto the Toronto lovefest and the evening was on.
The Brave One is a stylishly lush yet gritty character piece about vigilante justice and its attendant questions - and moreover the persona Jodie Foster becomes - someone outside herself as she seeks retribution for the death of her husband to be. Neil Jordan develops characters against a brutal background - New York City which changes before her eyes after her savage beating at the hands of hoodlums. New York is a character with its own musical background - in the beginning it is Sarah McLachlan setting the tone - but the world changes before her eyes - she never recovers who she was and she can only return to the character she has become. The proof is in a couple of black hoodlums on the train she is riding hassling a white stoner dude out of his iPod. They think they see an easy mark. Wrong. Dead wrong. As the detectives come upon the crime scene and check out the iPod on the bodies of the dead - Radiohead, U2, Dixie Chicks - I don't think this was his. Terence Howard is a obsessed cop who has been unable to bring a particularly nasty criminal mind to justice - the difference between Terence and Jodie - one stays within the law, the other does his job for him. The Brave One is very taut and strangely enough the audience was laughing at key moments - perhaps in the disbelief of some of the scenes, and mostly out of comedic relief and one-liners provided by Nicky Katt, Terence Howard's partner. The Brave One builds to a classic Neil Jordan climax. And Sarah McLachlan music leads out.
The Toronto International Film Festival is truly underway.
1 film down - 45 to go, and somewhere in Toronto Paris Hilton is partying away at Ultra [ and shooting a movie - who let her across the border ? ]
Weather at the moment: really muggy 30 Canadian degrees - it's not all snowshoes and igloos yet
All night parties indubitably - and Matt's black and white charity fund raising party here and George and Brad somewhere in town too
Next on Day Two:
Eric Rohmer's Les Amours d'Astree et de Cela
The Mourning Forest
Joy Division [ o joy ! our favest band ]
The Man From London
September or Thomas McCarthy's The Visitor
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