Movies featuring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Kate Beckinsale, Edward Norton and Colin Farrell and a documentary about Paris Hilton have joined the lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival.
North America’s largest cinema showcase announced Tuesday that the schedule will include Joel and Ethan Coen’s CIA comedy “Burn After Reading,” with Pitt, Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and John Malkovich.
Among other additions were Gavin O’Connor’s cop drama “Pride and Glory,” starring Norton and Farrell; Rod Lurie’s Washington journalism tale “Nothing But the Truth,” with Beckinsale, David Schwimmer and Angela Bassett; and Adria Petty’s nonfiction Hilton chronicle “Paris, Not France.”
Also, Neil Burger’s Iraq War homecoming saga “The Lucky Ones,” with Tim Robbins, Rachel McAdams and Michael Pena; Toa Fraser’s British historical tale “Dean Spanley,” starring Peter O’Toole, Sam Neill and Jeremy Northam; and Jodie Markell’s “The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond,” based on a Tennessee Williams screenplay and featuring Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Evans, Ellen Burstyn and Ann-Margret.
The festival also will feature “New York, I Love You,” a collection of 12 short films about New York City directed by such talents as Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner and Mira Nair.
Previously announced movies among Toronto’s slate of 249 feature films include Spike Lee’s World War II tale “Miracle at St. Anna,” featuring Derek Luke; Saul Dibb’s historical pageant “The Duchess,” starring Keira Knightley; David Koepp’s supernatural romance “Ghost Town,” with Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear; Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Southern drama “The Secret Life of Bees,” with Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo; the Western “Appaloosa,” in which director Ed Harris stars with Viggo Mortensen and Renee Zellweger; and Kevin Smith’s comedy “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks.
Opening the festival Sept. 4 will be the World War I drama “Passchendaele,” directed by and starring Canadian actor-filmmaker Paul Gross. The festival closes Sept. 13 with Charles Martin Smith’s “Stone of Destiny,” a Scottish drama with Robert Carlyle, Brenda Fricker and Billy Boyd.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More