Toronto Wrap-Up

I think I forget every year that Toronto comes around that it isn't a competitive festival like Cannes or Venice. Instead, it's a showcase of films (lots of them; this year the fest screened well over 300). Some awards are given out, including the Audience Award which went to Canadian director David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (which opened on Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and will be going wider later this week), starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, and Vincent Cassel. Annoyingly, Guy Maddin's latest, My Winnipeg, won the best Canadian feature. I'm still puzzled by Maddin's appeal, which I thought diminished shortly after all the film students had their fill with The Saddest Music in the World a few years ago... but Maddin keeps on trucking. The North American film critics have stood by the opinion that the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men is probably their best since Fargo, which gives a lot of hope for its potential Oscar campaign. Could a best picture win for the Coen brothers make us forgive the Oscars for Crash? That's a wallop, so we'll keep our eyes open.