![]() Hopkins is especially terrific in the intensely moving final act of James Hawes’s film, in which Winton is reunited with some of the children he helped save, now grown and living peacefully in the U.K. distributor pick up the film and release it this year. Anthony Hopkins plays Winton in his older years, and will almost certainly be in the Oscar conversation should a U.S. Toronto audiences this year could, instead, opt for the inspiring, tear-jerking true story of One Life, about a London stockbroker, Nicholas Winton, who organized the rescue of nearly 700 children trapped in 1930s Prague as the Nazis approached. Maybe it’s a shoo-in to win the festival.īut it’s not as substantial a film as Jojo Rabbit, and it doesn’t have much dramatic heft to act as ballast to the comedy. The audience at Sunday night’s premiere was enthusiastic-it helped that Waititi was present in the room, a rarity in this year’s mostly star-less festival-and they seemed quite invested in the team’s triumphant highs and comic lows, gasping and cheering throughout. He’s returned to the festival this year with Next Goal Wins, a quirky sports comedy about American Samoa’s soccer team that seems almost tailor made to capture the favor of the Toronto voting public. (Every People’s Choice winner since 2012 has been a best picture nominee.) Four years ago, Taika Waititi won People’s Choice for Jojo Rabbit, setting him on a course to win a best screenplay trophy. The People’s Choice Award is the Toronto International Film Festival’s version of the Palme d’Or, a coveted and democratically selected prize that has been given to many a future best picture winner. It’s a reminder that a movie doesn’t have to be especially big, innovative, or candy-colored to be a total thrill when you’ve got the right crowd. Hit Man arrived at TIFF without a buyer but now seems destined to be snapped up we can all hope that it’s a buyer with a proper theatrical release in mind. One bravura two-hander scene between Powell and Adria Arjona, as his femme fatale-ish love interest, was such an effective blend of intrigue and farce that it got a spontaneous round of applause at its conclusion. ![]() ![]() But as the complex plot unfolds surrounding Powell’s Gary Johnson and his career as a fake hit man for the New Orleans Police, the stakes of the film get higher as the laughs get bigger. Like most Linklater comedies, it’s more amiable than broad, the kind of comedy that might just provoke some smiles were you watching at home. It might just have found that audience in Toronto, where Hit Man premiered to a raucous crowd on Monday night. Richard Lawson has already reviewed Hit Man from its Venice premiere, suggesting this relaxed comedy was an odd fit for a tony film festival like Venice, but also with the right audience it could make Glen Powell a true movie story. “This is different from watching it on my laptop.” You didn’t have to be in Toronto to experience, though David Byrne likely won’t be dancing the aisles again the restored Stop Making Sense heads to IMAX theaters nationwide on September 22, and all theaters a week later. “When I was watching this just now, I was thinking, This is why we come to the movie theaters,” Byrne said. The post-screening Q&A, moderated by an enthusiastic Spike Lee, found the members of the band marveling at what they had just seen. ![]() During “Burning Down the House,” as Esther Zuckerman witnessed in her report from the event, Byrne got up to dance in the aisles along with the rest of the crowd. At the IMAX screening of the restored Stop Making Sense, the living members of the Talking Heads ( David Byrne, Chriz Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison) reunited to watch their younger selves onscreen, performing at the center of the late Jonathan Demme’s landmark 1984 concert documentary. Nomber_key:000122There were plenty of parties to be had at TIFF this year, but the dance part of the festival was undeniably inside a movie theater.
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