2015 TOfilmfest: Chasing the Buzz

Today Peter Howell, movie-critic for the Toronto Star, published his annual Chasing the Buzz feature — a panel of critics/programmers/film-buffs name the one film they are most looking forward to at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.  We're very happy to be part of the buzz panel once again this year — our 8th! :-)
Here's our top pick:

• 2015: The hottest TIFF tickets in town
• Victoria: “With more than 150 extras across 22 locations, this 12-page script required six assistant directors to capture the story in one genuine uninterrupted shot for 134 minutes. An astonishing cinematic feat.”

Here's a look back at the buzz, along with some of our picks from past years:

• 2014: The buzz is for Bill Murray
• The Tribe: “Miroslav Slaboshpytskiy’s feature debut uses only sign language (no subtitles or voice-over) to immerse us into the violently tribal underworld of a deaf boarding school.”

• 2013: 12 Years a Slave tops our annual buzz poll
• Of Good Report: “Initially banned in South Africa, Jahmil Qubeka’s controversial feature stirred worldwide debate until it finally won approval for release, plus ‘Artistic Bravery’ prize from the Durban Film Fest.”

• 2012: To the Wonder, The Master top our Buzz poll
• Middle Of Nowhere: “Ava Duvernay became the first black woman to win best director at Sundance, with the lead-debut of the radiant Emayatzy Corinealdi.”

• 2011: Festival faceoff: Cronenberg and Polley top poll
• The Artist: “Black and white? Silent? Yes, but Cameron Bailey tweeted raves from Cannes, Michèle Maheux wrote the program note, and it got very good reviews at our website.”

• 2010: Ten bee-utiful years of great buzz
• Submarine: “Richard Ayoade, music video director, talented comedy-writer and very funny actor (‘Moss’ from the U.K.’s Channel 4 The IT Crowd) helms his first feature film.”

• 2009: Serious buzz
• Antichrist: “See the film that won the first anti-award from Cannes' ecumenical jury.”

• 2008: Must-see films
• Medicine for Melancholy (Barry Jenkins): "Being a fan of Cameron Bailey's Planet Africa program in years past, I'd pick this feature debut, which was well received at SXSW."

#PicktheBestoftheFest
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2013 TOfilmfest Top 20 (anticipated)

For the past 5 years, we've been very happy to be invited by Peter Howell, movie critic for the Toronto Star, to be a part of his annual Chasing the Buzz poll — a panel of critics/programmers/film-buffs name the films they are most looking forward to at the festival.
[This year was especially challenging as panelists were asked to provide just one film title — and just one sentence to state the reason for their choice.]

As part of the process, we narrowed our list down to 20 films that we're most looking forward to at TIFF'13; here they are, in no particular order:

1. Blue is the Warmest Color, Abdellatif Kechiche
2. Of Good Report, Jahmil X.T. Qubeka
3. 12 Years a Slave, Steve McQueen
4. Heart of a Lion, Dome Karukoski
5. The Double, Richard Ayoade
6. October November, Götz Spielmann
7. Belle, Amma Asante
8. We are the Best! Lukas Moodysson
9. Gloria, Sebastián Lelio
10. Paradise: Hope, Ulrich Seidl
11. Blue Ruin, Jeremy Saulnier
12. Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón
13. Proxy, Zack Parker
14. Brazilian Western, René Sampaio
15. Moebius, Kim Ki-duk
16. Miracle, Juraj Lehotsky
17. Abuse of Weakness, Catherine Breillat
18. I Am Yours, Iram Haq
19. Young & Beautiful, François Ozon
20. Exit Marrakech, Caroline Link

The top picks from all panelists will be published in the September 1st edition of the Sunday Toronto Star, and also appear online at TheStar.com.

#PicktheBestoftheFest!

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Peter Howell's Chasing the Buzz 2011

It's time again for Peter Howell's annual Chasing the Buzz poll — and we're very proud to be part of the buzz! This year, two dozen contributors were asked to name the 3 films they were most looking forward to — here are our top 3 picks:

• The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius

  
  

  “Black and white? Silent? Yes, but Cameron Bailey tweeted raves from Cannes, Michèle Maheux wrote the program note, and it got very good reviews at our website.”

• ALPS, Yorgos Lanthimos

  
  “Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, Oscar-nominated for Dogtooth earlier this year, promises ALPS will be ‘darker and funnier,’ so count us in!”

• Carré Blanc, Jean-Baptiste Léonetti

  
  “Jean-Baptiste Léonetti’s debut film is a stunning tale of social Darwinism where the struggle for survival under a dehumanizing system has led to a de facto form of eugenics.”

...and here are all the top-picks...

Four votes

• A Dangerous Method David Cronenberg
• Take This Waltz, Sarah Polley

Three votes

• ALPS Yorgos Lanthimos
• Albert Nobbs Rodrigo García

Two votes

• The Artist Michel Hazanavicius
• Into the Abyss Werner Herzog
• Livid Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
• Melancholia Lars von Trier
• Moneyball Bennett Miller
• Paul Williams Still Alive Stephen Kessler
• Pearl Jam Twenty Cameron Crowe
• Sarah Palin - You Betcha! Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill
• Shame Steve McQueen

See you at the fest!
www.TOfilmfest.ca

PS.
Here's a look back at previous picks in The Toronto Star...

• 10th Anniversary of Peter Howell's CHASING THE BUZZ
  
• Peter Howell's CHASING THE BUZZ '09
• Must-see films, 2008
• The Buzz, 2007

...
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10th Anniversary of Peter Howell's CHASING THE BUZZ

Once again, we're very happy to be invited by Peter Howell, Toronto Star movie critic, for his annual Chasing the Buzz poll – celebrating it's 10th anniversary!

A panel of critics, programmers, and movie-buffs, name the 3 films they are most looking forward to.

Peter Howell's "Ten bee-utiful years of great TIFF buzz" will be published as the entertainment section cover-story, for tomorrow's Toronto Star (Saturday Septmeber 4, 2010).

Here are our top 3 picks:

1. Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog
   “Colin ‘Midnight Madness’ Geddes brought the first 3-D film to the festival last year, and now doc programmer Thom Powers brings us Werner Herzog in 3-D.”
   
   
2. The Sleeping Beauty, Catherine Breillat
   “I debated with French auteur/provocateur Catherine Breillat over Anatomy of Hell in 2004, but anything she brings to the screen remains a must-see.”
   
   
3. Submarine, Richard Ayoade
   “Richard Ayoade, music video director, talented comedy-writer, and very funny actor (‘Moss’ from the U.K.’s Channel4 The IT Crowd) helms his first feature film.”
   
   

Here are the overall top picks, from the entire panel:

1. Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog (5 votes)
   
   
2. Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky (4 votes)
   
   
3. Inside Job, Charles Ferguson (3 votes)
   Miral, Julian Schnabel (3 votes)
   Trigger, Bruce McDonald (3 votes)
   
   
4. Biutiful, Alejandro González Iñárritu (2 votes)
   Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Alex Gibney (2 votes)
   Incendies, Denis Villeneuve (2 votes)
   The King’s Speech, Tom Hooper (2 votes)
   Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek (2 votes)
   Score: A Hockey Musical, Michael McGowan (2 votes)
   Three, Tom Tykwer (2 votes)

Pick the best of the fest!
TOfilmfest
#TIFF10

PS.
For a look back at previous picks, see Peter Howell's...

• TIFF '09: Serious buzz
• TIFF's must-see films from '08, and
• TIFF '07: The Buzz

PPS.
Here's a list of the 2010 contributors...

1. Steve Almond, Parabola.ca
2. Gail Anthony, film buff/executive assistant
3. Barry Avrich, filmmaker & ad executive
4. Cameron Bailey, TIFF co-director
5. Jennifer Bell, TIFF vp-communications
6. Noah Cowan, Bell Lightbox
7. TOfilmfest.ca — that's us! ;-)
8. Chaz Ebert, film buff
9. Hanna Fisher, Floating Film Festival
   
10. Gabrielle Free, CTV
11. Alex Ganetakos, TV writer/producer
12. Piers Handling, TIFF CEO & director
    
13. Eric Kohn, IndieWIRE
14. Carla MacDonald, Our Lady of Perpetual Hell
15. Michèle Maheux, TIFF managing director
16. David Poland, MovieCityNews
17. B. Ruby Rich, BRubyRich
    
18. James Rocchi, RocchiReport
19. Anne Thompson, ThompsonOnHollywood
20. Kim Voynar, MovieCityNews
    
21. Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today
22. Ray Yick, TIFFReviews

Audience buzz

Since last year, we've been working on a measurement to indicate the amount of 'buzz' a film seems to be getting. Each year some films coming to Toronto have opened at other festivals around the world, and are quite well reviewed.
For example,

• Armadillo by Janus Metz Pedersen — premiered at Cannes in May, and quietly garnered many positive reviews ()
  

But what about a film premiering at the festival?
For example,

• Score: A Hockey Musical by Michael McGowan — screening for the first time in September; no reviews available ()
  

For the past 10 years, Peter Howell at the Toronto Star has chased down the films with the most buzz — using a panel of 25 cinephiles.
We wanted to bring a similar 'buzz rating' to TOfilmfest.
For example,

• You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Woody Allen
  Great swarm of buzz! — many people wrote about it...
  but it only rated — most reviewers agreed it was just 'above average'...
  

So, what about Score: A Hockey Musical ? — — it's getting quite a lot of buzz (appropriate, for the opening night gala of the festival).

We hope you find the audience buzz indicator useful.

Pick the best of the fest!
#TOfilmfest

Peter Howell's CHASING THE BUZZ '09

We're very happy to be invited by Peter Howell, movie critic for the Toronto Star, to be part of his 9th annual Chasing the Buzz poll — a panel of 25 critics/programmers/film-buffs name the 3 films they are most looking forward to.

Here are our top 3 picks:

1. Antichrist: "See the film that won the first anti-award from Cannes' ecumenical jury Thursday night at 9pm, then talk to director Lars von Trier, via video conference from Denmark, Friday morning at 9am."
   
   
   
2. Enter the Void: "Gaspar Noé, the stylish and audacious director of Seul Contre Tous and Irréversible, brings a cinematic trip about a low-level drug dealer and his sister... which garnered very mixed reviews."
   
   
3. The Hole: "Kudos to Colin Geddes for bringing the festival's first 3-D presentation with Joe Dante's new work, shot in Canada using Paradise FX — the same technology used earlier this year in the remake of the Canadian slasher, My Bloody Valentine."
   

Here is the complete list of all 56 of the most anticipated movies of the festival:

1. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (4 votes)
   
2. Up in the Air (4 votes)
   
   
3. Antichrist (3 votes; our pick)
4. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (3 votes)
5. Leslie, My Name is Evil (3 votes)
6. The Road (3 votes)
   
   
7. Bright Star (2 votes)
   
8. Hadewijch (2 votes)
9. Life During Wartime (2 votes)
10. A Serious Man (2 votes)
11. Whip It (2 votes)
    
    
12. Agora
13. The Art of the Steal
14. Baarìa
15. BAND
16. Beautiful Kate
17. Bran Nue Dae
18. Broken Embraces
19. Capitalism: A Love Story
20. Chloe
21. Collapse
22. The Disappearance of Alice Creed
23. Enter the Void (our pick)
24. Excited
25. Face
26. The Hole (our pick)
27. How to Fold a Flag
28. Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
29. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
30. The Informant!
31. The Invention of Lying
32. Last Ride
33. Leaves of Grass
34. Let Each One Go Where They May
35. Mao's Last Dancer
36. The Men Who Stare at Goats
37. Moloch Tropical
38. The Most Dangerous Man in America
39. Mother and Child
40. Mr. Nobody
41. Ondine
42. Police, Adjective
43. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire
44. Road, Movie
45. Same Same but Different
46. Symbol
47. The Time That Remains
48. To Die Like a Man
49. A Town Called Panic
50. Trash Humpers
51. The Trotsky
52. Turtle: The Incredible Journey
53. Valhalla Rising
54. The Vintner's Luck
55. White Material
56. Women Without Men
    

Cheers!
#TOfilmfest

PS. btw, here are the 25 contributors:

1. Steve Almond, Parabola.ca
2. Gail Anthony, film buff/executive assistant
3. Barry Avrich, filmmaker and ad executive
4. Cameron Bailey, TIFF co-director
5. Christopher Bales, Crunchy Squirrel Goes to Toronto
6. James Berardinelli, ReelViews.net
7. Noah Cowan, Bell Lightbox
8. TOfilmfest.ca — that's us! ;-)
9. Gabrielle Free, CTV
10. Alex Ganetakos, TV writer/producer
11. Andréa Grau, TIFF media coordinator
12. Piers Handling, TIFF director and CEO
13. Charles Johnston, writer, film buff
14. Robert Koehler, Variety /CinemaScope
15. Eric Kohn, IndieWIRE /TheWrap
16. Carla MacDonald, Our Lady of Perpetual Hell
17. Michèle Maheux, TIFF managing director
18. David Poland, MCN
19. B. Ruby Rich, BRubyRich
    
20. James Rocchi, RocchiReport
21. Kristopher Tapley, In Contention
22. Anne Thompson, ThompsonOnHollywood
23. Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
24. Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today
25. Ray Yick, TIFFReviews

PPS. if you're curious about previous picks, you can also read Peter Howell's TIFF's must-see films from 2008, and TIFF '07: The Buzz from two years ago...