In a word – no. Over the weekend, the Toronto International Film Festival wrapped up and, like the end of all good things, the festival closed out with the bestowing of awards to various films. Winners included Artifact, Seven Psychopaths, Laurence Anyways, Keep a Modest Head, Antiviral, Blackbird, Call Girl, In the House, and the big winner – David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook. The Bradley Cooper- and Jennifer Lawrence-starring film won the BlackBerry People’s Choice Award, which is generally considered to be TIFF’s most important award and an indication of a film’s chances at a Best Picture nomination come Oscar time. As Wikipedia tells it, “Given that the festival lacks a jury and is non-competitive, regular awards handed out at other festivals for categories such as ‘Best Actress’ or ‘Best Film’ do not exist at the Toronto International Film Festival. The major prize, the People’s Choice Award, is given to a feature-length film with the highest ratings as voted by the festival-going populace.” Plenty of stories on the film’s win have noted that this all but guarantees that Silver Linings will end up with Oscar nominations, particularly a Best Picture nod. And why is that? Over the past five years, two People’s Choice winners have gone on to win Best Picture (The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire) and one film picked up a nomination in the same category (Precious). Good odds, right? Well, maybe not so much.

Just last week we reported that Robert Redford’s latest film, The Company You Keep, managed to score a distribution deal before it even played any festivals. Well, the film is gearing up to play Venice and Toronto regardless, so TIFF has released a trailer promoting it. Complete with typewriter sounds and vintage news footage, said trailer starts off by making The Company You Keep look like it’s going to be an authentic, journalistic look at the history of the radical anti-war group The Weather Underground, but then we’re suddenly dumped into present day, and it’s revealed that this is actually going to be a fun-looking chase movie about the last few members of the movement still being on the run from the law. The Company You Keep is full of grizzled old activists/bank robbers, plucky young reporters, plucky young F.B.I. agents, action, intrigue, murder, and a cast that features names like Redford, Susan Sarandon, Shia LaBeouf, Brendan Gleeson, Anna Kendrick, Terrence Howard, Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott, Richard Jenkins, Chris Cooper, Brit Marling, Julie Christie, Stephen Root, and Stanley Tucci.

The past decade hasn’t been too kind to Brian De Palma. The director’s past few films have been his most divisive and critically lashed efforts of his career. With disappointments like The Black Dahlia and Mission to Mars, it’s easy to see why that is. After a five year absence, De Palma is returning to the big screen with Passion, an “erotic” thriller starring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace that’s a remake of the recent French film Love Crime. The film is set to premiere  at the Venice Film Festival, which will then be followed up with screenings at both TIFF and the New York Film Festival. Check out the film’s first trailer to see Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace having…a good time, shall we say:

The lineup for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is essentially an embarrassment of riches (we’re still fanning ourselves over the sheer magnitude and quality of their first wave of programming announcement), and it’s only gotten better today with the news that the fest has added no less than sixty new films to their slate. These picks round out their Documentary, Midnight Madness, Vanguard, Kids, Cinematheque, and City to City programs, and if you weren’t drooling before, get ready to positively salivate. Stand-out picks include Matthew Cooke‘s How to Make Money Selling Drugs, Alex Gibney‘s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Janet Tobias‘ No Place on Earth, Marina Zenovich‘s Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, Benjamin Renner, Vincent Patar, and Stéphane Aubier‘s Ernest & Célestine, the world premiere of The ABCs of Death, Nicolás López‘s Aftershock, Martin McDonagh‘s Seven Psychopaths, and so, so, so many more. Check out full synopses for each newly announced film after the break, thanks to both TIFF and The Playlist. As ever, our top picks will appear in italics.

When we Rejects get let out of the cage (and it’s a literal cage, a big one under Dear Leader Miller’s desk, with a hamster wheel and everything) to journey to festivals far and wide, we tend to turn in some pretty comprehensive coverage. Along the way, we often cover some films that pop up along the festival circuit for months on end, titles that show up at Sundance and then journey west to SXSW, that premiere at Cannes before going American at LAFF, and those that parlay good buzz at one fest into showings across the globe. We’ve already drooled over today’s announcement of the Toronto International Film Festival‘s first wave of programming, but buried within those 62 just-announced films are five we’ve already checked out at other festivals (including Sundance and Cannes). Want to get a taste of what TIFF will offer (hint: tastes like poutine and makes your mouth water just as much)? Hit the break to get reacquainted with 5 TIFF-bound films that we’ve already seen (and, in many cases, already loved).

The Toronto International Film Festival has today announced (via Cinema Blend) their (assumed full, but clearly still ripe for additions) line-up of both their Galas and Special Presentations sections. Just two sections? Sounds slim, right? Wrong. Today’s announcement includes a stunning sixty-two total films, including some of the year’s most anticipated, along with a bevy of “oh, hey, that’s ready to go already?” titles sure to stir up just as much excitement as the other heavy hitters. Toronto will play host to such films as Rian Johnson‘s Looper (which will serve as the Opening Night film), Ben Affleck‘s Argo, Robert Redford‘s The Company You Keep, Mike Newell‘s Great Expectations, David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, Joe Wright‘s Anna Karenina, Neil Jordan‘s Byzantium, Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Twyker‘s Cloud Atlas, Sally Potter‘s Ginger and Rosa, Thomas Vinterberg‘s The Hunt, J.A. Bayona‘s The Impossible, Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing, Derek Cianfrance‘s The Place Beyond the Pines, Jacques Audiard‘s Rust and Bone, and – no big deal – Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder. It’s okay to be out of breath – this is easily the best festival line-up of the year. After the break, check out the full list of TIFF’s just-announced Galas and Special Presentations titles, with our own most anticipated films singled out, all the better to help plan your own TIFF-going (or TIFF-coverage-reading).

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,

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.