More TIFF Lineups: Midnight Madness and Platform

Another day another festival announcement. TIFF keeps adding to the festival. Even though they've reduced the number of films this year it's still SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM IN EACH SECTION. Herewith the Midnight Madness and Platform choices. Let us know which ones you're most curious about!

Gael García Bernal in the French film "If You Saw His Heart"

PLATFORM
This section of 12 films, which tends to focus on directors in early stages of their careers, is actually juried (though TIFF isn't known for awards really outside of "People's Choice" which tends to have a strong correlation to eventual Best Picture nominations at the Oscars).

“Platform is the place to look for the distinct stamp of today's most interesting directors as they establish their reputations.
- -Cameron Bailey, TIFF's artistic director

The three-person jjury for 2017's Platform are directors Chen Kaige (China), Malgorzata Szumowska (Poland) and Wim Wenders (Germany)

• Beast (UK) A troubled woman becomes involved with a suspected killer in this debut from Michael Pearce [WORLD PREMIERE]
• Brad's Status (US) Screenwriter Mike White returns to the director's chair for this story about a man (Ben Stiller) comparing himself unfavorably to friends while touring colleges with his teenage son [WORLD PREMIERE]...

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Venice Lineup 2017: mother!, Bardem & Cruz, and more...

Fall Film Festival season is rapidly approaching. TIFF let us know their "special presentations" with many more announcements to come and now Venice (which actually starts sooner at the tail end of August) has announced its whole lineup. The films, including out of competition reunions of two iconic screen couples (Javier Bardem & Penélope Cruz / Jane Fonda & Robert Redford), are after the jump...

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New Oscar Chart ~ Foreign Hopefuls Part 1

We won't start hearing about "official submissions" for Oscar's Foreign Language Film race until September but until then, it's speculation time! The first chart is up looking at countries from Afghanistan through Ethiopia.

The most high profile film from this batch, other than possibly another Austrian submission from Michael Haneke (Happy End), is Chile's A Fantastic Woman. It's a trans drama that took three prizes at Berlinale. If it's as good as director Sebastian Lelio's previous Oscar submission (Gloria) we'll have to riot if he's passed over again. 

Other intriguing prospects include the well reviewed black and white fairy tale November from Estonia and possibly another submission from Oscar winner Jan Sverak of the Czech Republic. Sverak won the foreign film Oscar for his art house sleeper hit Kolya  (1996) about a stepfather and his little boy and his latest called Barefoot is another childhood tale set in the countryside during World War II.

Check out the chart and report back

TIFF Lineup! The Special Presentations & Galas

by Nathaniel R

Elle Fanning as author Mary Shelley

The annual Toronto International Film Festival, our personal favorite, is just two months away. Today they held a press conference to announce the first batch of films from their special presentations and gala sections (i.e. the premieres of multiple kinds, be it world premiere, international premiere, canadian premiere or whatnot).

A ton of films after the jump...

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The Link Where It Happens

Link love time.

• Vulture Michelle Pfeiffer's ten essential roles
• Prizeo Lin-Manuel Miranda offers up the chance to win VIP tickets and a meet and greet at the opening night of Hamilton in Los Angeles with a donation to "Immigrants Get the Job Done Coalition". (And FYI two former Tony nominees Joshua Henry as Aaron Burr and Rory O'Malley as King George are in the company) 
• Vanity Fair on how difficult it is to get a gay film made in today's Hollywood. The headline to this is a bit misleading since it's like "in a post-Moonlight world" but let's be reasonable. Moonlight only made its dent a handful of months back. So most of the films cited didn't have Moonlight to point to when seeking financing

• THR More dirt on what happened behind the scenes on the troubled Han Solo movie
• Nerdist Why Megara is the MVP of Disney's Hercules
• Playbill The glorious Audra McDonald finally makes her West End debut, no big deal after 6 Tony Awards, reprising her Tony winning / Emmy nominated  Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill Billie Holiday role
• Buzzfeed the hardest game of 'would you rather' with hot cartoon dudes. I don't know. Most of these were easy for me but your mileage may vary.
• Variety offers up a franchise report card on the various series that are taking up so much of Hollywood's time and capital. But shouldn't Bond and Tarzan have been included in this roundup?
• Decider lists the '20 best foreign films on Netflix'... though the list would have been more exciting had they editorialized rather than just pulling the RT scores to determine which 20 to feature
• MNPP pic of the day with Edgar Wright at a Baby Driver screening

Exit Video
Check out this glorious montage of NYC (hat tip to Gothamist) as seen through the movies.

New York in Cinema - Supercut from Sergio Rojo on Vimeo.

God, I love living here. And one of my fav things in movies is city street scenes where the main character is just part of a huge walking crowd (the most classic visual example being Tootsie I think). How many movies did you instantly recognize?