spring fever Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Key Screenings. And away we go! The Toronto International Film Festival got underway on Thursday, as official opener Creation landed with a painful thud. Reaction was more positive for Lars von Trier's Antichrist (except for the guy who vomited on fellow attendees during the screening) and Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces, according to Eugene Hernandez at indieWIRE, who also noted that Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Willem Dafoe, and Penelope Cruz (plus the lovely Amanda Seyfried, above) appeared in support of their wide-ranging films, not to mention scantily-clad men and women at different functions.

The first full day of screenings found Anne Thompson gushing over the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man ("Utterly assured, personal, serious, sad and very funny"). George Clooney (staring, above) and Jeff Bridges received ovations for The Men Who Stare at Goats, tweeted a Twitter user; however, Karina Longworth recoiled: "Its vacuity actually seems offensive" compared to Lu Chuan's City of Life and Death, dealing with the tragedy in Nanking, China in 1937.

Our Coverage. As our writers on the ground scramble to hit all the choicest press and public screenings, and somehow find time to write in between dashing from one theater to the next, reviews have begun to filter in. Written by Diablo Cody and starring Megan Fox, Jennifer's Body "substitutes hipster credibility for emotional currency," says Todd Gilchrist. Directed by Jason Reitman and starring George Clooney, Up in the Air is "brisk, funny, and not enslaved to genre conventions," declares Eugene Novikov. And Erik Davis presented a TIFF Exclusive: the poster for indie flick Kirot, with Olga Kurylenko as a gun-toting mother / assassin.

News about a deal and more highlights from the Information Superhighway -- after the jump!

The second day of the Cannes Film Festival showcased the programmers' commitment to auteurs. Instead of helium balloons in celebration of the family-friendly, animated Up, one of the key screenings was for a very adult drama about an inflatable Air Doll.

Key Screenings: Francis Coppola's Tetro bowed with a red carpet premiere tonight to open the Directors' Fortnight section, while the Un Certain Regard section opened with Bahman Ghabadi's No One Knows About Persian Cats and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Air Doll. Screening in the main competition were Lou Ye's Spring Fever and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. Park chan-wook's Thirst screened for the press. [Thanks very much to B-Side's "festival genius" unofficial guide to Cannes, which makes it easy to get a quick sense of what's playing each day.]

Films Sold. Three deals were announced for non-Cannes titles today, and indieWIRE has the details: Jack the Ripper-themed The Red Riding Trilogy (IFC Films), Aleksandr Sokurov's The Sun (Lorber HT Digital), and Jeff Stilson's doc Good Hair, featuring Chris Rock (Roadside Attractions and Liddell Entertainment).

Blog Talk. Peter Kneght provides a good roundup at indieWIRE. Frankly, though, David Hudson at IFC's The Daily provides the best, most comprehensive overview of the fest and the individual films (e.g. Tetro). I've cherry picked of couple of quotes that David found, and added a few others from Day Two.

"Officially, it was the third film I watched here at Cannes, and besides Pixar's Up, it's the best live-action film I've seen so far." -- Alex Billington of First Showing, deeming Park Chan-wook's Thirst the "best" ... of two live-action movies he's seen so far. There's a poster pull-quote for ya!

After the jump: Even more choice review quotes!