A stoner comedy about the persistence of paranoia, a searing drama about the sting of oppression, and a go-go-go thriller about the Sisyphean struggles of fighting the good fight, PTA's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is the finest film of the year. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/re...

Look at what ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER cinematographer Michael Bauman has next up on his CV …

Hate to admit, but Warner Bros. was right not to take ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER to festivals. It would have thoroughly crushed any other film, instantly rendering the rest of the programming null and void. Rather considerate of PTA to let everyone else breathe for a moment or two.

I appreciate the marketing effort, but feel Warner Bros. should’ve gone with ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER balaclavas

Some words on Robert Redford, who was at once a poster boy for mainstream Hollywood and the establishment-bucking maverick who built American indie cinema from the ground up. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article...

More on the wonderful, wild, terrifying, hilarious ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER soon, but first: Johnny Greenwood’s jittery, jangly, perfect score is propulsive and electric enough to power the grid of several dozen municipalities. We have several all-timers on this one, everybody.

My wrap of #TIFF50, a festival of eye-popping cinema and nerve-wracking tensions. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

Finally seeing my children on #TIFF50 Day 11

NEW*: #TIFF50 winners are HAMNET (People’s Choice), NO OTHER CHOICE (International PC), NIRVANNA THE BAND… (Midnight), ROAD BETWEEN US (Doc), WRONG HUSBAND (Cdn), BLUE HERON (Cdn Discovery) *List inadvertently sent to TIFF members @ 10 am, ~30 mins prior to awards ceremony began handing out honours

#TIFF50 award predictions ahead of tomorrow: People’s Choice: Rental Family Hamnet (2nd runner-up) Tuner (3rd) International People’s Choice: No Other Choice Midnight: Nirvanna Doc: Cover-Up Platform: The World of Love Canadian: The Cost of Heaven Cdn Discovery: Blue Heron

My Top 16 of #TIFF50 (out of 40 films watched total — 7 titles seen earlier at Cannes, 13 watched pre-festival during press screenings or via links) letterboxd.com/barry_hertz/

100 SUNSET: Along with 2023’s curious but flat TENZIN, Kunsang Kyirong’s elliptical, adventurous Tibetan drama builds burgeoning Parkdale Cinema genre. Would make fine, only occasionally confounding double bill with CONCRETE VALLEY — a shared city-of-neighbourhoods vision #TIFF50

One fun thing to note before #TIFF50 wraps: Once again, it appears Netflix vs. Cineplex beef has caught TIFF in middle, with none of streamers' seven fest features (including NOUVELLE VAGUE, which Netflix doesn't even have Cdn rights to) screened in Cineplex's Scotiabank venue.

BLUE HERON: Exceptionally potent, lyrical storytelling from Sophy Romvari that, just when you might begin to question a crucial narrative decision, immediately recognizes and rebukes any skepticism. All that, plus a cameo from Canada's reclusive House Hippo. #TIFF50

ROSE OF NEVADA: Hand-cranked kitchen-sink (or galley-bucket) cinema that leaves you gasping. Can’t imagine more singular experience than drowning in this 16mm time-travel dream alongside at-capacity Scotiabank 4, an audience of such size and patience never to be repeated. #TIFF50

The reviewer becomes the reviewed: Thrilled to share very first review of my new book WELCOME TO THE FAMILY: THE EXPLOSIVE STORY BEHIND FAST & FURIOUS via Kirkus Reviews (they liked it!). Publishing Nov. 25 via @grandcentralpub.bsky.social, and available for pre-order wherever fine books are sold.

Marching into TIFF Day Nine, it's the best (Tuner!), worst (Ticketmaster!) and weirdest (too many!) moments of #TIFF50 www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

THE FURIOUS: Natural heir to THE NIGHT COMES FOR US arrives complete with a five-way melee so intensely ludicrous that I felt eagerly, personally pummelled by Joe Taslim. Certainly the first time that I’ve ever seen a fight with bicycles — not *on* bikes, but *with* them. #TIFF50

On the good fortune of LUCKY LU director Lloyd Lee Choi, back home in Toronto for his #TIFF50 premiere this week following a stellar debut in Cannes: www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

TRAIN DREAMS: Goddammit, that destroyed me. Beautiful, lyrical throat-lump cinema. Most I’ve ever felt connected to a Joel Edgerton performance, with Kerry Condon and Bill H. Macy simply superb. And still, it’s Will Patton’s narration that brings it home. “It’s a living.” #TIFF50

Exclusive: TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey details, for the first time, the festival’s back-and-forth programming of the Oct. 7 doc THE ROAD BETWEEN US: “Any time the CEO overrides a programming decision, that's not an easy thing, and that's certainly the case here." #TIFF50

TIFF photo studio ideas for next year: -No puppies, only scorpions -All talent must consume at least three (3) litres of poutine on-camera -Press cannot ask personal questions, but instead must be *asked* personal questions by talent -All coverage embargoed forever

THE SMASHING MACHINE: Further evidence, if needed, that we'll all soon be living under the United States of Dwayne Johnson. If PAIN & GAIN was The Rock's PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE, this is his UNCUT GEMS (which I guess makes FAST FIVE his BILLY MADISON). Endorse the Safdie schism. #TIFF50

FRANKENSTEIN: Del Toro’s decision to turn creature into half Terminator, half Wolverine crystallizes his adaption’s weakness: it cannot let a good who’s-the-real-monster theme die, regurgitating it over and over to diminishing results. Gorgeously gory, but exhausting. #TIFF50

The rush line for FRANKENSTEIN premiere at Princess of Wales is longest I’ve seen in ages, stretching north on John from King to beyond Richmond. (Can’t help but shake the feeling that Del Toro’s film should be playing the no-longer-used-by-TIFF Elgin, though.) #TIFF50

TUNER: Snappy and toe-tappingly slick as hell, Roher’s narrative debut is Toronto-bred love child of GOOD WILL HUNTING and (much gentler) THIEF. Hoffman is fun, but this is real moment for Leo Woodall, who Canada should claim as Ryan Gosling 2.0, no matter what UK says. #TIFF50

#TIFF50 Day 5

So what’s the state of #TIFF50 post opening weekend? Some hits, lots of misses (at this point, People’s Choice seems destined to go to the middling RENTAL FAMILY), and inevitable protests both outside and within the Lightbox. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

SACRIFICE: Second-best movie, by long shot, with Chris Evans playing a lunkhead movie star (and fourth-best movie with Evans as a human torch). Whatever your thoughts on ATHENA’s politics and style, hard to believe Gavras went from that to something so oppressively dull. #TIFF50

HAMNET: Bless Mescal and (especially, deeply) Jessie Buckley, who confirms her generational power. Yet when Zhao’s sorrows come, they come not in single spies but battalions. Where’s line between effective and manipulative filmmaking? Ay, there's the [dragged off stage] #TIFF50

GOOD FORTUNE: Editing choices hint at whiff of film that sat on shelf – and this is one of most generous "festival" selections in some time – but Ansari & Rogen kill every line. Yet it's Keanu who upstages both as TRADING PLACES vibes give way to dirtbag WINGS OF DESIRE. #TIFF50

RENTAL FAMILY: Not even Brendan Fraser’s perfect puppy-dog visage (which at one point is costumed to resemble an actual puppy) can save this soft, easy, swelling-score tearjerker. But given state of Toronto world premieres so far, I’m still not ruling out People’s Choice. #TIFF50

WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY: Christ, what a disappointment. Too long, too self-satisfied, far too clever by half. Its biggest twist: precious little Daniel Craig. (Real star is Josh O’Connor.) I admit getting small thrill out of hearing Mila Kunis say Yiddish. #TIFF50

BAD APPLES: One of most tonally janky films I’ve had displeasure of wincing through. Ridiculous in worst possible way and pockmarked by plot holes that should’ve raised Saoirse Ronan’s many red flags. I also believe it’s one of three #TIFF50 films featuring kidnapping victims held in basements?

#TIFF50 pre-roll ranking -Rogers Midnight Madness -Varda Cafe (only if people clap to beat) -RBC: Couldn’t afford to make new ad? -Rogers People’s Choice (very funny to make fun of the Xmas movie industry that keeps half of Canadian film/TV alive) -Roz & Mocha, all is forgiven!

THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE: Early-morn P&I audience seemed largely confounded, but I felt possessed during musical moments, with Seyfried and Pullman dug in deep as soil. (Maybe that line proves I’m partially confounded, too.) But I come to praise this epic, not bury it. #TIFF50

OBSESSION: The codependency gross-out horror-comedy that out-TOGETHERs TOGETHER (and I quite liked TOGETHER). In keeping with Midnight Madness tradition, features one perfectly telegraphed "gah!" moment so extreme that I yelped like a baby. #TIFF50

NO OTHER CHOICE, or SYMPATHY FOR MR. SEVERANCE: If I were, say, the leadership of the Writers Guild of America and saw a Park Chan-wook film about what happens when righteous men are unjustly axed, I'd be pretty damn nervous right about now. Any way, it's a masterful riot #TIFF50

How Igloolik's Kunuk and Montreal's Cohn-Cousineau families powered a unique Canadian filmmaking dynasty now several decades, and generations, strong. #TIFF50 www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

"Whoa, whoa, hang on, bud. We shook hands a long time ago and agreed, cynicism is one of the worst diseases a man can choose in life": Just a snippet of my exclusive interview with Matthew McConaughey ahead of tonight's #TIFF50 premiere of THE LOST BUS. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

TIFF’s historically curious indifference to opening-night Canadiana was flipped on its head Thursday, with triple hit of homegrown heroes representing generational passing of the CanCon comedy baton: from John Candy to Chandler Levack and Matt Johnson #TIFF50 www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

Standing ovation for NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE, which absolutely killed. Toronto screening of the year. Or years?? Decade(s)??? #TIFF50

Quick (and quiet) climate-change-related protest interrupts TIFF’s opening night premiere of JOHN CANDY: I LIKE ME (or at least the 6 pm version at Princess of Wales, before the big 8 pm gala at Roy Thomson Hall). Also here: Ryan Reynolds. #TIFF50

THE FENCE: “Will the lights come back on?” “I don’t know.” Claire Denis at her pitch-blackest, making us shift and squirm (even if, to erase the play’s staginess, she doubles down on “aha” symbolism). Dillon plays to rafters (complimentary), but De Bankolé ties the bow on it. #TIFF50

[Stefon voice] TIFF’s hottest spot is the mobile @Criterion Closet. It’s got everything: insanely long lines, anxiety-wracked 4K fetishists, and some ancient technology called a “Polaroid.” #TIFF50

IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU: Confident that Rose Byrne has two of year's best performances under her belt (don't forget PLATONIC S2). Cinematic equivalent of screaming/crying/throwing up, w/death scene that made me feel ashamed for laughing so hard. Conan O'Brien, you asshole. #TIFF50

Try ag(AI)n, Hollywood Reporter

The state of TIFF on its 50th? There are positive financial signs: After '23 strikes contributed to $6.6M deficit, TIFF ended '24 fiscal with $3.3M surplus. And year-round Lightbox box office was up 22%. But TIFF has a far larger problem: programming. #TIFF50 www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...

It's almost time for #TIFF50 Bingo!

Scarlett the Great: It was a pleasure to have an extended, exclusive conversation with Scarlett Johansson the other week about ELEANOR THE GREAT, her deeply personal feature directorial debut about Jewish forgiveness, ahead of the film’s #TIFF50 premiere. www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/ti...