Like any fun but exhausting activity, you're anxious for it to be over, but then you miss it when it is. In what seemed like a blink of the eye, TIFF 2007 has wrapped. Eastern Promises nabbed the People's Choice prize, and the wonderful My Winnipeg grabbed top Canadian honors. (Rejoice!) But there was still lots of fun, great films, and some fest craziness that came before the awards were handed out.

My favorite story from TIFF came from a friend who had gone to see Starting Out in the Evening. She loved the film, and said that the end had made her teary-eyed. Impressed with Frank Langella's performance, she walked up to him as she was leaving the theater and told him so. "Are you crying?" he asked, and then wiped her tears away. That Frank is a slick, slick man.

On Wednesday, The Last Lear Q&A with Rituparno Ghosh was cut short when someone pulled the fire alarm. As is usually the case when the bell starts ringing, everyone ignored it and we continued the discussion. (How often do people actually pay attention to those things from the get-go?) Then, mid-sentence, Ghosh was cut short and we were told to exit the theater immediately, because it wasn't a drill as they initially assumed. Whoops. At least it didn't happen during the film. Pisay, on the other hand, had a few technical problems -- thankfully, it was a digital screening, so we didn't end up missing anything.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was first introduced to Allan Moyle in Squeeze Play, when he was the "Wet T-Shirt Waterboy." The flick is an old, risque adult comedy that my friend and I would sneakily watch late at night during sleepovers (when we were way too young for the buttocks-ball-catching material). But it wasn't until the '90s that Moyle hit his stride, directing two music-laden, teen cult classics -- my beloved Pump Up the Volume and the goofy yet lovable Empire Records. After that, he was teen-tuckered out and made a few forgettable movies with Baldwin brothers and the surprisingly mellow New Waterford Girl. But now he has revisited some of his previous music magic with the quirky, Canadian black comedy -- Weirdsville.

The flick is pretty much Harold and Kumar meets Bubble Boy, but take away the Fabio-freaks and add in some Satanists. Wes Bentley's Royce and Scott Speedman's Dexter are stoners who hang out with a waifish escort named Matilda (Taryn Manning -- what a surprise). They owe a drug dealer named Omar (Raoul Bhaneja) a big chunk of change, so they strike up an agreement to sell drugs to pay it off. But Royce and Matilda speed through the stash in a marathon week of drugging, and now the trio is without the money or drugs to pay Omar back. Oh, and Matilda has OD'd and died.

Here's some bits and bites for you to chew on:

• If you're like me, you've been anxious for Allan Moyle to get back to his deliciously cult Pump up the Volume roots, which it seems he has, with his Canadian film, Weirdsville. After opening the Slamdance Film Festival, the U.S. rights to the flick have been picked up by Magnolia Pictures. The movie follows two heroin addicts (Scott Speedman and Wes Bentley) who almost bury an almost-dead junkie (Taryn Manning), have a run-in with Satanists* and a mob of little people....and a drug lord. The Hollywood Reporter has more info on the deal, and the film's website has got a trailer and other goodies. And yes, that's Bentley in the picture to the right, sporting lots of fu-facial hair.
• In December, Chris brought us news of Topher Grace's upcoming movie, Kids in America. Now Venom finally has some co-stars. The pic follows Grace as a recent college who tries to nab his paramour at a crazy party while dealing with his on-coming adulthood -- as any good coming-of-age story should. Scary Movie's Anna Faris has been cast as Grace's twin sister, Dan Fogler -- that wild-haired ping ponger from the upcoming Balls of Fury -- will play the best friend and Australian actress Teresa Palmer gets to be Grace's dream girl.
• Ms. Felicity Huffman, Transamerica star and desperate housewife, is now an author. She's penned A Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend: For Every One Who Wants to Be One/For Every Girl Who Wants to Build One with Patricia Wolff, which was launched in LA on Monday. This super-short titled book gives advice on how to be a good boyfriend "while still maintaining guy-dignity." Anyone want to make bets on how long it will be before this gets adapted into a really, really bad film?

*Thanks to Kirby for the good catch! While a group of Satinists would be interesting, this mob is of the Satan variety.

After writing and directing the wildly popular Pump Up the Volume, Allan Moyle picked up his filmmaking pace (to that point he'd been averaging about a movie every decade), and enjoyed moderate indie-style success with The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag and Empire Records. Since then, however, it's been 10 years of relative silence (apart, I mean from his brilliant TV movie, Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story) from the director.

According to this morning's Variety, Moyle back, this time with an indie film with enough cute boys in it to guarantee both a release and a solid audience of teenage girls. Set to star Scott Speedman, Wes Bentley (where the hell has he been, anyway?) and Hustle & Flow's Taryn Manning, Weirdsville is about two "hapless slackers" - that's industry code for morons - who, while trying to bury the body of their buddy who (oops) just ODed, "stumble on a satanic cult performing a ritual." Oh, and it's a comedy. Of course it is. Written by Willem Wennekers, the movie is being produced by Darius Films, a small, Toronto-based company, and has already secured US and Canadian distribution - we should see it sometime next year.