Merantau was an astonishing achievement in martial arts storytelling. It displayed incredible hand-to-hand combat work while managing to have a compelling story with solid acting. Go figure. Essentially, it made a lot of other action filmmakers look like amateurs, and it looks like Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais are returning with a stripped down flick to repeat the feat. The Raid is currently enjoying praise coming out of TIFF with hyperbole and review titles featuring exclamation points aplenty. Does it earn the hype? The trailer offers one clue, and you can check it out for yourself (if you’re old enough):

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth is decidedly divisive cinema. The film played on the festival circuit back in 2010 (I took it in at SXSW in a tiny screening library room, via DVD on a tiny television) and ended up garnering a surprise Best Foreign Film nomination at the Oscars, but all that certainly doesn’t mean that the film is fit to be enjoyed (or possibly even consumed) by everyone. The film focused on a Greek family with three adult children who had been isolated from the world by their parents (namely their father) and taught to fear not only other people, but nearly everything else, especially cats. To further their isolation, the kids were taught incorrect meanings for words, leaving them essentially unable to express themselves to others, should they ever encounter them. There was also an incest storyline. Sound heavy? It was – and wasn’t. Dogtooth is wonderfully unsettling cinema, littered with humor darker than coal, and more messages about family and society than you could count on your fingers and toes. I loved it, but I also absolutely understand why other people don’t. Now Lanthimos is back with a new film, Alps, which will premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Much like Dogtooth, the film looks to imagine an alternate sense of reality within the regular world. In the world of Alps, members of the titular group perform a service – they “stand in” for deceased people for their grieving loved ones. And, like Dogtooth, [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

With the Toronto International Film Festival mere weeks away, cinephiles everywhere are prepping to ship off to America’s hat for ten days of films and fun, all fueled by bagged milk and and trademark Canadian politeness. TIFF has already established itself as North America’s premiere film festival (duking it out with Sundance for top billing), but this year, the festival’s programmers have truly outdone themselves when it comes to putting together a drool-worthy schedule. This year’s TIFF has already announced the bulk of their lineup, including The Ides of March and Moneyball and their documentary and genre picks, but they now round out their programming with some final and spectacular picks.

If the only music that will play in the post-apocalyptic world will be Explosions in the Sky, someone hit a big red button on an atomic bomb so I can strap on some leather and guns and go cavorting around a disseminated landscape, because that sounds like an excellent time. And Shawn Ashmore is there? Blow this damned planet sky-high! The Toronto International Film Festival has recently released the titles that will form its Midnight Madness program this year, and that includes a film with all those elements, and more – Douglas Aarniokoski’s The Day.

Last week the programmers for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival introduced the main course of this year’s festival lineup, fifty-three films from all over the world, big and small, about any number of subjects. The list was so impressive I ran out and booked a hotel room. So, now that I’m financially locked in to heading up to the city of David Cronenberg and that rapper who called himself SNOW, I’ll be following future announcements by the festival pretty closely. Today brought a big one. Adding to their initial lineup of films, TIFF has added a bunch of documentary works by fairly large documentary filmmakers and a bunch of genre works from fairly deranged genre filmmakers. First let’s take a look at some of the docs. Thom Powers is the lead programmer for documentaries, and about this year’s lineup he said, “I’m thrilled at the large number of veteran filmmakers who have brought us new works this year. The line-up contains a wide range of memorable characters – crusaders, convicts, artists, athletes, nude dancers, comic book fans, dog lovers and more. Not to mention the epic 15-hour Story of Film. These documentaries will have audiences discussing and debating for months to come.” I don’t think I’ll have time for that fifteen hour one, I’ve only got five days in the city, but the one about nude dancers is definitely on my docket.

If you’re like me, then you probably don’t pay much attention to what goes on in towns outside your own. As far as I knew, the only thing Toronto had going on was gripes about Maple Leaf hockey and reminiscing about when The Kids in the Hall used to play that tiny theater down the street. But what do I know? I haven’t been there since The Ultimate Warrior pinned Hulk Hogan at Wrestlemania 6. Turns out they have a really awesome film festival every year. This year the events go down between September eighth and the eighteenth, and the first fifty or so films announced for the lineup have me wanting to take a trip. There are too many to discuss, but just to give you an idea of what we’re working with, let’s look at a few.

With movie websites getting clogged with stories and reviews about movies that will never reach the public, are film festivals more ado about nothing than we’d like to admit?

He’s been called The Chosen One, King James and the best baller since Michael Jordan. Now LeBron James wants to have a Space Jam of his own on the big screen.

Management, an indie comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn, made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival over the weekend, and we just so happen to have a clip to share.

A few days ago, the only thing I really knew about Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler was that Mickey Rourke was in it and looked like Dog The Bounty Hunter had lit his hair on fire, put it out with baby oil and then shaved his beard off. Today is very, very different.

Even though we weren’t allowed to make the trip across the border into Canada, we would still like to bring you some of the Toronto Film Fest updates from our friends and neighbors around the web.

Apparently in the world of a hotel heiress, cooperating in the making of a documentary about your life and actually showing it to the public are two different things.