Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Barker and Tom Bernard hosted their annual TIFF dinner last night in Yorkville. You’d never know it from the lack of a jump-page indication, but I’ve run five photos from last night’s festivities so click on the headline and view the whole thing.

Take Shelter star Michael Shannon, director Jeff Nichols at last night’s Sony Classics’ dinner at Michele’s Brassierie (or whatever it’s now called).

Take Shelter costar Jessica Chastain.

I’ve been saying to journalist pals that “if you don’t put your foot down and show some discipline in the face of all the Toronto Film Festival temptations” — junket interviews, dinners, parties, panels, lunches, pretty girls — “you can easily fill your days without seeing any films.” And they’ve all agreed to a man/woman…of course, easily!

I have my five or six stories per day quota to fill plus my usual evening social-political shenanigans (i.e., a couple of parties per night or a dinner and a party), and with that daily load I’ve been fitting in only two and 1/2 films per day. I used to be able to fit in at least three.

Earlier today I saw Sarah Polley‘s Take This Waltz (at 9:30 am) and Whit Stillman‘s Damsels in Distress (at 12:30 pm). I then retired to a Starbucks to bang out some stories before catching The Oranges at 4:30 or whenever. But I couldn’t get going right away and piddled around and eventually decided to blow off The Oranges. It’s now 5:05 pm and I have the Albert Nobbs dinner from 6 pm to 8:30 pm. I’ll try to post the Waltz/Damsel reviews later tonight. Maybe. No, definitely…if I’m not too whipped. I can work solid for about 12 hours but then I need to eat, drink and recharge.

I haven’t seen Nick Broomfield‘s Sarah Palin, You Betcha! or Roland Emmerich ‘s Anonymous or Fernando Meirelles‘ 360 or Michael Winterbottom‘s Trishna. Four full viewing days left after tonight, and then back to NYC.

I saw The Raid yesterday afternoon and it was a total bum steer — a murky, grainy, blue-tinted bullshit Asian shoot-em-up macho chopsocky cheese-whiz movie. Me to critic friend: “Why would you, a bright sophisticated film guy, recommend this thing to me? Why?” Critic friend to me: “Because the action is crazy.” I hate hate HATE Asian action films. Whump….hah! Whuh-pah! Whoof-hoof-whunh! Choppy-kick, slap, thunk, chest punch, neck punch, groin punch, finger-snap….whuh! Whah! Hahh!

You don’t beat this festival. It beats you, every time.

Jonathan Levine‘s 50/50 (Summit, 9.30) is an exceptionally honest, no-punches-pulled, very honorably acted adult drama about a young guy (Joseph Gordon Levitt) grappling with The Big C. It’s seasoned with occasional laughs, for sure, but there’s no way this is a light mood comedy, as the 50/50 trailers have implied. And I mean that with the utmost respect.

Based on screenwriter Will Reiser‘s brush with cancer a few years ago, 50/50 is about an

obviously “difficult” subject, markeing-wise. A significant portion of the public (i.e., people over 40 or 45 or 50 who think of films solely as recreational entertainments that are going to make them feel good and giddy in the same way that a Quaalude or a tab of Ecstasy is going to make them feel that way) is going to presume that this will be a downish, difficult or unpleasant thing to sit through and avoid it like the plague.

A bright, fairly-with-it 40ish woman with whom I discussed 50/50 a couple of weeks ago was instantly repelled, I could tell.

The irony is that 50/50 is a straight-dealing, occasionally amusing drama about real human beings dealing with a real-deal issue — the kind of movie that I live for. Cheers to Levine and Reiser for making something very unusual and in fact exceptional. The writing is true and honest and clear. And Levine’s hand is straight and to the point and unfettered and not in the least pretentious. He serves the material well, as any good director should.

Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston, Phillip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer — every last performer (including the guy who plays the doctor who delivers the bad news) delivers like a champ.

This is obviously Joseph Gordon Levitt’s most complete and wholehearted performance since 500 Days of Summer. I’ll never forgive Rogen for The Green Hornet but what a relief to see him in a really good film again. Howard’s unsympathetic character is well written and totally believable — not an admirable person, but that’s what a lot of people are like (i.e., scared of cancer, unable to cope in a supportive way). Kendrick gives her best performance ever, I feel. Huston’s best acting since…what, Prizzi’s Honor? The Grifters? (Her role isn’t big enough to really be compared to her ’80s work, but you know what I mean.)

The ending doesn’t tell you everything’s totally okay again, but it feels positive and right and optimistic, given what’s happened and given that Levitt’s hair has begun to grow back, and that’s how it should be.

The theme, I think, is something along the lines of “when the chips are down, you’ll find out who people really are.” There’s a line is Undefeated, the football doc that I saw a month ago, about how “football doesn’t build character, it reveals character.” That’s clearly what cancer does also, if this film is any kind of honest representation of what the experience is like, and I believe it almost certainly is that.

But is it a kind of “comedy”, as the press notes say and the trailers have more or less suggested? Despite Rogen’s best efforts (and they are considerable and highly appealing) and despite the very welcome humor that pops through when it needs to or ought to if the film is going to be at all natural and real, the answer is an emphatic NO. The answer to the Summit marketers is, due respect, “bless your hearts and souls but take the needle out of your arm.”

All mature art is mixture of drama and comedy. Any film that insists on being a drama-drama or a comedy-comedy doesn’t get this. Life is always a mixture of the two, so naturally 50/50 is flecked or flavored with guy and gallows humor here and there plus one or two anxious-mom jokes and/or chemo jokes and/or jokes about being in denial,etc., but there’s no way in hell anyone could honestly call it a “funny” movie, or a “comedic” or even half-comedic one, really.

The most you could say is that it’s amusingly jaunty at times. It’s good humored and good natured when the material calls for that…when it feels right and true. And any critic who knows quality-level filmmaking when he/she sees it is going to recognize that humor is definitely a part of the package, definitely an element. But the Summit marketers are in a major denial mode if they think they can get away with calling this a kind of comedy. They should put a lid on that here and now…just put it to bed.

Asked by TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey about his tendency to make movies about flawed characters facing tough times, The Descendants director Alexander Payne bristled and snapped, “I don’t mean to pick on you, but what movie doesn’t have characters who are flawed and are facing tough times in their lives? I’m sorry, but I was asked the same question at the press conference this afternoon, and I don’t get it.” — reported last night by TheWrap‘s Steve Pond.

Come to think of it, even if a character isn’t flawed — even if he’s Mr. Perfect — Jesus Christ, for example — all dramas are about struggles, woes and facing tough times. So whaddaya whaddaya, Bailey?

Unlike most I don’t immediately default to Charly when I think of Cliff Robertson, who died yesterday at age 88. I think instead of his performance as Higgins, the cynical CIA official in Three Days of the Condor (’75). Or his hammer-like performance as Joe Cantwell, the sanctimonious, Richard Nixon-esque presidential candidate in The Best Man (’64).

Charly is an agreeable, sweetly touching drama, and Robertson played a mentally challenged man with care and sensitivity. But gentle sentiment never ages well. For me something more interesting came out when Robertson played shits.