Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Toronto International Film Festival starts this week....

...and I'm getting ready.

After a bit of a bumpy ticket-purchasing ride, with a lot of my top picks off-sale due to my cheapness is buying a discounted Daytime Pack, I still have a pretty awesome schedule over the 10-day Festival. Zouheir is taking a few days off so that he can get to more of the screenings this year.

This Thursday, I'm seeing a live reading of American Beauty, to be directed by Jason Reitman. Actors are being announced by Reitman on Twitter and so far, we have  (as reported by Toronto Life):  

  • Adam Driver (Lena Dunham’s creepy boyfriend from Girls) as the neighbour’s son Ricky Fitts (played by Wes Bentley in the film)
  • Toronto’s Sarah Gadon as Angela, the teenage object of Lester Burnham’s (Kevin Spacey) lust (played by Mena Suvari in the film)
  • Nick Kroll as Buddy (played by Peter Gallagher in the film)

Gadon is probably best known in her role of Emma Jung in A Dangerous Method.

On Friday we'll see a couple of documentaries:

In an unprecedented and candid series of interviews, six former heads of the Shin Bet — Israel's intelligence and security agency — speak about their role in Israel's decades-long counterterrorism campaign, discussing their controversial methods and whether the ends ultimately justify the means.

Apparently, there will be two (former?) generals in attendance.

On Saturday, we're looking forward to screenings of Hotel Transylvania, Inch'Allah, and The Attack. The first is an animated feature with a star-studded cast. The second two examine the Palestinian question in the West Bank. There are quite a few films set in the Middle East at this years festival and we're hoping to see most of them.

More to come.