Three or four years ago I got bounced from Peter Howell‘s annual “Chasing the Buzz” Toronto Film Festival poll for the Toronto Star. (I had criticized what struck me as lame choices by some of the other respondents.) But this year Pete found it in his heart to forgive and invited me back. “This was the first year since ‘Chasing the Buzz’ began in 2001 that no movie tallied more than two votes,” Howell notes. “Four films took two votes apiece: Sydney Pollack’s Aretha Franklin song doc Amazing Grace, Tom Hooper’s transgender biopic The Danish Girl, Denis Villeneuve’s drug-war thriller Sicario and Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth.”

We were told to choose only one film and to very briefly explain why we’re particularly interested in seeing it. I chose The Danish Girl and here’s why: “The months-long buzz has been that Eddie Redmayne may snag another Best Actor Oscar for playing transgender pioneer Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, the Caitlin Jenner of his/her day. I want to be among the first on the North American continent to publicly agree or disagree with that notion.”