Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words, a tartly ascerbic spelling-bee comedy aimed at the diminishing ranks of non-moronic moviegoers, went over extremely well at the Ryerson last night. It’s a kind of Rushmore-meets-Bad Santa piece about a pissed-off, close-cropped 40something guy (Bateman) who takes advantage of a loophole to compete against kids in the National Quill Spelling Bee competition, and in so doing bonds/warms up to/gets down with a reporter (Kathryn Hahn) and a 10 year-old Indian kid (Rohan Chand) as he seeks a kind of satisfaction that has nothing to do with winning the $50,000 first prize. Dry, subdued, bordering-on-perverse performances + Andrew Dodge‘s witty-ass, occasionally scatalogical screenplay resulted in much laughter with some in the audience wondering if the film goes “too far,” as one questioner inquired. Trust me, the “too far” stuff is one of the main reasons the film went over so well.

At Toronto’s Ryerson theatre last night following screening of Bad Words (l. ro r.) director-star Jason Bateman, costars Rohan Chand, Kathryn Hand.

I’ve just been watching (i.e., have just escaped from) Jonathan Taplitzky‘s The Railway Man at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. I felt lost in the ether, but it costars Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine and Stellan Skarsgard. By far the most interesting portion is an extended World War II flashback sequence showing British POWs working on the Thai-Burma Railway under Japanese troops. It’s interesting because another camp of soldiers are doing the exact same thing under the command of Lt. Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness) down near the River Kwai, and because there’s also a certain British POW named Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers), later to become a Group Captain and serve at Burpleson Air Force Base under General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who’s also laying track. They’re all starving and suffering and sweating buckets and planning escapes and dying from malaria and bumming butts.

“The campy guilty pleasure suggested by the Diana trailer proves a marketing mirage thanks to Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s sensitive direction of an overly earnest drama,” writes Variety‘s Charles Gant. “While mostly swerving past the pitfall of tastelessness, this sincerely intended account of the last two years of Princess Diana’s life risks an even more perilous roadblock: dullness. Still, the tony credentials, including lead thesp Naomi Watts’ two Oscar nods, provide a handy alibi for upscale audiences eager to have their fill of royal rumpus, but anxious that Diana might merely be trash TV on a bigger budget.

“While Hirschbiegel’s direction and a crack technical team class up the production, the same can’t always be said of Stephen Jeffreys’ script, which is belabored by clunky exposition and struggles to convincingly depict two real people actually in love. Watts’ at times deft impersonation of the doe-eyed beauty similarly never coheres into a full-fledged performance, or offers much insight into the enigma that lurks within.

“The decision to keep the rest of the royal family offscreen — only sons William (Laurence Belcher) and Harry (Harry Holland) are briefly glimpsed — may have intended to set the film apart from TV fare such as 1992’s Charles & Diana: A Palace Divided, or simply to keep the focus on the central relationship. But their conspicuous absence further undermines any sense of Diana as a rounded human being.”

I missed the first five minutes of the 11:30 am screening of Roger Michell‘s Le Week-End, and I’m sorry but I bailed after an hour. I found it slow, meandering, uninvolving. Then I ducked into Ralph Fiennes‘ The Invisible Woman just to get a feel for Felicity Jones‘ performance as Kelly Ternan, the young woman who was Charles Dickens‘ secret (or certainly unacknowledged) lover for several years. She handles herself well enough — her performance is earnest and grounded — but despite Variety‘s Scott Foundas calling it “revelatory” I didn’t see any reason to do cartwheels in the foyer. I bailed after 30 minutes — sorry. Then I attended a public screening of Teller‘s Tim’s Vermeer, which I saw start to finish. It’s a delightful, fascinating, highly intelligent, inventive and spirit-lifting film for everyone — the Telluride praise was well earned. Then I slipped into Iram Haq‘s not-bad I Am Yours but I couldn’t stay — sorry. It’s now 5:30 pm. At 6pm I’ll be seeing Jonathan Teplitzsky‘s The Railway Man at Roy Thomson Hall, and then it’s a toss-up between a 9:30 pm screening of Peter Landesman‘s Parkland and Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words, a spelling-bee movie, at the Ryerson at 9:30 pm. I don’t know what to do. I’m leaning toward seeing the Bateman tomorrow instead…sorry, no offense.

Ten or even five years ago a movie directed by Roger Michell (Changing Lanes, The Mother, Enduring Love, Venus) with a script by Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid) and costarring Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Lesley Warren and Jeff Goldblum would be a must-see with journalists buzzing about it with at least a certain level of excitement. But the energy levels couldn’t be lower about this morning’s (11:30 am, or 27 minutes from now) screening at the Scotiabank 14. What am I doing here in my place, writing about Le Week-End instead of seeing it? I think it’s the hyphen that’s giving people pause. It’s spelled “weekend”, not “week-end.”

Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips is a riveting, bucks-up, first-rate verite thriller about a real-world hijacking/hostage drama that happened four years ago. It’s unquestionably well made and an obvious uptick compared to the usual brand of high-seas action flick (i.e., some generic, dumb-ass Bruce Willis or Jason Statham or 1980s Steven Seagal concoction, say). And it does an interesting thing by inserting a slight vein of sympathy or measured compassion (or at the very least avoids a simplistic reading of what happened) by depicting the Somali hijackers as desperate, dirt-poor losers who are entirely outflanked and out of their league when they attempt a takeover of this scale. It’s basically about a team of well-funded, corporate-backed cargo-ship guys supported by the might of the U.S. military vs. four jerkoffs in a motorboat carrying guns.

If you’re even slightly intrigued about the late J.D. Salinger, Shane Salerno‘s Salinger, which I saw this evening, will hold your interest and then some. I didn’t know zip about his World War II experiences (i.e., D-Day to Dachau). Or his early 1940s romance with Oona O’Neil. Or what his Cornish, New Hampshire home looked like. It supplies dozens of assertions and anecdotes that added to my understanding of the legendary author. And it feels good knowing a bit more. But the tone of this two-hour film is tawdry and tabloidy. It feels reaching and intemperate, like some Sci-Fi Channel doc about the Sasquatch or Loch Ness monster. It lacks the courage and the character to be modest and plain. It’s over-cranked and certainly over-scored. It sells rather than tells. Salinger himself would hate it — it embodies everything about coarse, phony America that he tried to stay away from by living in rural New Hampshire. If Salerno had toned it down and attempted a more thoughtful or literary air…but he hasn’t. Salinger is what it is. I was interested and attentive, but I was exhaling loudly and rolling my eyes almost from the get-go.

I’ll tell you right now that I’ve got a feeling that Joel Kinnaman might be the weak link in Jose Padilha‘s Robocop (MGM, 2.7.14). I can just sense it on some level — he’s not quite delivering that cyborg schwing. And I’m not sure if that Robocop outfit is sufficiently clompy and clanky and metallic and rock-studly enough. But the rest of it looks okay. Good cast — Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Jay Baruchel, Jackie Earle Haley, Miguel Ferrer, Jennifer Ehle.

This is the first year that there’s been an iTunes app for the Toronto Film Festival, and it’s really great. (I’ve been challenged on this but I’m under the impression that a TIFF app was only available to Blackberry users in years past.) There’s even a press and industry screening section that you can access with a user name and password. No more relying on dead-tree materials. During previous festivals I’ve always managed to lose the p & i screening schedule so this is a load off.

Hollywood Elsewhere’s first Toronto Film Festival day includes an 11:30 am p & i screening of Bill Condon‘s The Fifth Estate…wait, cancelled! Okay, Child’s Pose instead. A possible revisiting of the great Blue Is The Warmest Color at 3 pm, Ragnar Bragason‘s Metalhead at 6 pm and, finally, an 8 pm screening of Shane Salerno‘s Salinger.

Like 99.7% of the world’s population I’m repulsed by the history and the metaphor of Adolf Hitler, but today — this morning — I feel a kinship. The subtitled rage about incorrect aspect ratios is right out of my own mouth. I’m assuming that the editor (i.e., Mirekhenry) was thinking of my innumerable 1.66 aspect ratio rants…thank you. (There’s even a brief mention of a grain “problem.”) It concerns the 8.26 Bluray of The Brides of Dracula, which, being a British 1960 release, was naturally released at 1.66 and not 2-point-fucking-oh. (Thanks to Joe Dante for the heads-up. Tip of the hat to Mirekhenry.)

Despite the obvious implications of this trailer, I need to catch David Frankel‘s One Chance when it screens at the Toronto Film Festival early next week. It’s one of those “I finally got my big break and everything was glorious after that” films, but people go for this kind of thing. James Corden as real-life opera singer Paul Potts, a seemingly average bloke who became “an overnight singing sensation,” etc. Billy Elliott re-jiggered with saga of a hapless, chubby opera singer. Costarring Julie Walters, Colm Meaney, Alexandra Roach, Mackenzie Crook. Pic opens in UK on 10.25, but when will The Weinstein Co. open it stateside?