Word: toronto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, marked the halfway point of the 25th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Screenings continued through midday, then were canceled to allow the public and the critics, many of them from the U.S., to mourn the deaths and digest the meaning of that day. In every year since, TIFF has commemorated 9/11 with politically pointed films - on the Iraq occupation, the Bush Administration, America's stooped standing in the world - beginning in 2002 with 11'09"01, in which 11 directors each made a film of 11 min. 9 sec. provoked by the events of the year...
...Captain Mike, which played to two packed houses of Toronto Mooreomaniacs, mixes the forms of a rock-concert movie (with reaction shots of adoring fans, including one woman holding a "Hug me, Michael" sign) and Triumph of the Will (the star lands in a city, meets the locals, attends a rally with guest speakers, then wows the crowd himself). Among the guests are Celeste Zappala, the outspoken mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, and a cadre of antiwar diplomats. At some venues, famous musicians are on hand: Eddie Vedder, Joan Baez, Steve Earle and Tom Morello, ex of Rage...
...this was a rock concert film capped by a live performance, because Moore was in the house! And he couldn't find a more receptive crowd than Toronto. The audience at the public screening I attended was every bit as rapturous as the ones in the movie; and when Harvey Weinstein, the indie mogul titan who's made a few enemies over the years, stood up, he too was greeted with all cheers, no boos. For Moore's part, he's given the love back to Canadians at least since 1995, when he made his only fiction film...
...exorcise haunted furniture; the seances held in government buildings; the homoerotic camaraderie of the all-boys' swimming pool or the hockey-rink locker room - all these gave me the giggles and the creeps. I haven't laugh so hard, or with such good reason, since seeing Borat in Toronto last year...
...think My Winnipeg is the finest, funniest, saddest film I've seen in Toronto or at any festival this year...