Wrapping Toronto 08.

There'll be a few more entries on individual films, a dispatch or two, a collection of notable odds and ends and, eventually, an index, but I thought it was high time to start gathering overall assessments. First stop: Michael Sicinski. Take your time.

Now then: "Hirokazu Kore-Eda's Still Walking, from Japan, was selected as the best film at the Toronto International Film Festival in a poll of film critics and bloggers conducted this weekend by indieWIRE." Eugene Hernandez has the full results.

Updated through 9/21.

"For all the talk of film-world collapse, with the fear and concern trailing the shuttering of distributors and further consolidation, it is so very crucial to be reminded that filmmakers all over the world are still using the feature-film model to make sense of life, to get under the skin of human beings, to make their very best effort to communicate to the rest of us what is at stake. Miracles happen, still, even at film festivals. Especially at film festivals." B Ruby Rich introduces her roundup at SF360.

More overviews: Kathleen Murphy (MSN) and Tom Charity (CNN).

Variety's Anne Thompson writes up an acquisitions scorecard.

"Worst film festival ever." A roundup of mini-roundups from Marc Weisblott in the Eye Weekly, via Movie City News, still updating its own Toronto portal.

Rob Nelson bumps into Al Milgrom: "My chance encounter with the driving force of the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival has occasioned a chat about movies we've seen at the festival, and about the festival itself in relation to Milgrom's own, which will appear in its 27th annual edition come April."

Quick takes on lots of movies: Jesse Hawthorne Ficks (Pixel Vision), Jason Gray and Brian Owens (Film Experience).

Online listening tip #1. At Cinematical, James Rocchi and David Poland discuss, among other things, a few questions: "Which films got a boost out of Toronto? What's it like to work at the Festival as a journalist? How crazy is it to feel 'behind' in covering movies that may not open for at least another three months?"

Online listening tip #2. Karina Longworth and Kevin Kelly at the SpoutBlog.

Online viewing tip. "Eye Weekly's Jason Anderson and Adam Nayman host a salon with Variety's Robert Koehler, The Village Voice/LA Weekly's Scott Foundas and Cinema Scope's Mark Peranson and Andrew Tracy."

Updates, 9/16: For Girish Shambu, TIFF 08 "was marked by one conspicuous recurrence: films, often by reputed and challenging filmmakers, that took the viewer aback with a disarming accessibility." In Artforum, he offers his takes on "Claire Denis's lovely, lyric 35 Shots of Rum," Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Lorna's Silence, "an unabashed thriller, tense and suspenseful," Christian Petzold's Jerichow, " an icy, intelligent work that hums along satisfyingly on multiple levels," and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata: "For much of its duration, the film works in a keen and observant dramatic-realist vein - although with Kurosawa's wry sense of humor ever-present. But in the last thirty minutes, it takes an abrupt, auto-destructive turn that can either be praised as a rupturing, Surrealist gesture or bemoaned as a crazy, failed experiment."

"That phrase, though - 'a solid 7' - has stuck with me. It's a fair description, I think, of TIFF 08, in general." Darren Hughes presents "a quick breakdown of what I saw, more or less in order of preference."

Ben Kenigsberg's got a nice round up in Time Out Chicago; more on Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles in an upcoming entry.

Daniel Kasman indexes his coverage for the Auteurs' Notebook.

"Every festival goer makes his own festival and finds her own themes. Half way through this year's Toronto International Film Festival... it was clear that I'd accidentally scheduled movies about families." But Robert Davis ranks all the films he saw. Also at Daily Plastic: J Robert Parks's 9th day.

"Lingering in film festival-land during the final days is much like being the last guest at a party after the beautiful people have left, your host has passed out in the backyard, and you’re sifting through the ashtrays from smokeable butts, bleary-eyed, waiting for dawn." Josef Braun looks back on his last day.

At MSN: Kathleen Murphy on "one of the great pleasures of any film festival worth its salt: the opportunity to enjoy the amazing diversity of human appearance."

Updates, 9/17: "I took in a couple of dozen screenings," notes Girish. "Here's how the films stacked up."

"I'm far from finished writing about the films I've seen," prefaces Michael Guillén, offering a list of "my top ten favorite films and my five least favorite, both in descending order." There's a more list-making at Twitch, too.

In the Voice, Scott Foundas reviews three films that screened in the final days of the festival.

Updates, 9/18: David Walsh launches the WSWS series of reports.

"Scenes from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival": Marjorie Baumgarten in the Austin Chronicle.

Josef Braun has a wrap-up in Vue Weekly.

"There are years when, with foresight and a little luck, you could see every best-picture nominee during Toronto's 10 days. This is not likely to be one of those years." Sam Adams in the Philadelphia City Paper.

The Enzian Theater's Matthew lists his five favorites.

Update, 9/19: The SpoutBlog indexes its coverage.

Updates, 9/20: Joanne Laurier files the second report to the WSWS.

The Playlist indexes its coverage.

"After gorging on 30 films in 10 days, I've managed to write a post about 13 of them and still plan on cobbling my thoughts together on another 3," writes Bob Turnbull. "So that leaves 14 lonely films with nowhere to go... With TIFF all tucked away for 2008, I figure I'll take a stab at a few pithy comments for each one of them."

Update, 9/21: Row Three presents its "Big Ol' TIFF Round-Up."

Posted by dwhudson at September 15, 2008 2:26 PM