I say this every year before the Toronto and Sundance film festivals, and nobody ever listens. I’ve just listed roughly 60 films that I’d really like to see in Toronto next month, and I’ll be very impressed with myself if I wind up seeing half of them. One obvious remedy is to catch some of these in New York or Los Angeles before Telluride/Toronto begins. I’m therefore begging all L.A.-based publicists representing these films to please screen some of them for select L.A. critics and columnists. Doing so will obviously provide time to tap out reviews that will be a little more thoughtful and won’t be adversely influenced by furious, gut-instinct, teeth-chattering deadlines.

With the the major U.S. studios doubling down on bullshit CG comic-book fantasy destruction porn, it’s a glorious thing to be facing a Toronto Film Festival that will be showing roughly 62 intelligent, quality-calibre films aimed at people like myself. I’m not exaggerating — I’ve scanned the final list and that’s how many films I’d like to see up there. As usual I won’t be able to fit in much more than 30, and more likely 25 or so. I will have seen at least a few of these at Telluride when Toronto begins, but if I wasn’t doing Telluride the following would be my early picks with unmissable powershot films in bold italic:

Gala Presentations (9): The Art of the Steal (d: Jonathan Sobol); August: Osage County (d: John Wells); The Fifth Estate (d: Bill Condon), Life of Crime (d: Daniel Schecter); Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom (d: Peter Chadwick); Parkland (d: Peter Landesman); The Railway Man (d: Jonathan Teplitzky); Rush (d: Ron Howard); Words and Pictures (d: Fred Schepisi).

Today’s announcement of the full 2013 Toronto Film Festival slate confirms what I was told and reported on 8.5, which is that three presumed Telluride Film Festival headliners — J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost, Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis and Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska — will not make the trek to Toronto. No one will know for sure if these three will play Telluride until 8.28, but if confirmed it’ll certainly be a huge feather in Tom Luddy and Gary Meyer‘s cap. It will also launch a relatively new fall-festival phenomenon — the Oscar-contending, Telluride-only, Toronto-blowoff movie. I presume this has happened before, but have three Telluride heavy-hitters ever skipped Toronto en masse?

I ran a rave review of Lucy Mulloy‘s Una Noche 16 months ago, after catching it at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. It’s opening in New York on 8.23 and on iTunes on 8.26. Una Noche “is a little raggedy at times, but always straight, fast, urgent and honed down,” I wrote. “It’s not quite on the level of Fernando Meirelles‘ brilliant City of God but is a contender in that urban realm, for sure. It’s a fine first film, and Mulloy is definitely a director with passion, intelligence and promise.

Ryan White‘s Good Ol’ Freda is said to be a likable enough portrait of a nice lady by way of some Beatles nostalgia. The two video reviews after the jump indicate that. I shouldn’t say anything more, but…okay, here it is. I don’t like the idea of young and attractive girls turning into older, heavy-set women. I’m obviously not addressing the spirit, personality and heart that are almost certainly evident in present-day Freda. I know this sounds lame. I just don’t like the weight metaphor, and because of this I’ll probably skip the film. I would feel the same way about Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr if they had put on 20 or 30 pounds, but they haven’t. I’m sure other people feel this way but they keep it to themselves. It’s just my cross to bear to get ripped to shreds for being honest.

Universal Home Video is releasing a Bluray of Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life on 10.8. I have a vague recollection of a testy and barking John Cleese performing sex with his wife in front of a class of young lads, but there’s only one big standout scene in this film and everyone knows what I mean. I remember to this day the reactions to Mr. Croesote waddling into that super-posh restaurant with all that mushroom-colored slop shooting out of his mouth. I saw it at a Manhattan all-media screening in the spring of ’83, and I can still hear that mixture of laughter, moans and groans.

I’m not saying there won’t be some August films worth catching in a week or two, but it sure feels flat now. I’ve been feeling like a flat tire all day. I’m basically sitting by the side of a pond and skimming stones across the water and waiting for Telluride/Toronto. I know Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (8.16) is exceptional because I saw it at Sundance. Good things have been (and will be) said about Drinking Buddies and Short Term 12 on 8.23. I’ve yet to see Closed Circuit (8.28) and The World’s End (8.23). (Never trust early geek raves!) There’s a JOBS premiere and after-party tomorrow night, a World’s End screening at 4 pm, an unveiling of Closed Circuit on Thursday night and The Grand Return of the French Lesbians (i.e., a screening of Blue Is The Warmest Color) on Friday night. I’ve been assured that this long-lead L.A. screening will have nothing to do with Blue showing at Telluride or not. I’ve been here before — you just have to ride it out.

Lindsay Lohan apparently made a decision to act sober and contrite for her Oprah sit-down, which will air next Sunday. She’ll probably do a decent job at playing this role, but it’s still acting. As Lyndon Johnson once said to George Wallace, “George, don’t you shit me.” If anything she would be more interesting if she continues with her alcoholic shenanigans than if she cleans up. Any way you slice it she’s…I was going to say she’s Tallulah Bankhead but at least Tallulah had that great performance in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Lifeboat to point to. What has Lohan done on that level?

With the Ishtar Bluray finally out, it’s permissible to re-post a 33-month-old riff on the oppressively dull jacket art:

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment design guy: “So what about the Ishtar Bluray jacket art? I’ve roughed out some ideas.”

SPHE marketing director: “No ideas. Boilerplate. Use the art from the VHS. Tweak it or re-do the titles, but we’re not spending nickel one on re-design.”

Design guy: “The VHS art…? But we’ve got all this material.”

Marketing director: “We don’t care. It’s a loss leader. Just re-do the lettering. Fuck it.”

32 year-old Woody Allen was ten years away from Annie Hall when this was shot. The San Francisco TV news guy interviewing Allen is a clod. [Thanks to Joe McBride for passing this along.]

On 8.4 Scott Brown‘s Vulture interview with screenwriter Damon Lindelof appeared. The gist was obvious — robot-zombie Hollywood is bingeing on destruction porn, and in so doing is eating its own tail. I read Brown’s article and went “yeah….so?” I’ve been saying this for years. Strafe the ComicCon faithful in an F4 Phantom jet. The more CG apes and comic-book geeks you can eliminate, the better. The 80-minute finale of Man of Steel was, I suspect, the straw that broke the camel’s back for many of us. It’s gone too far. It’s moderately interesting to hear Lindelof, one of the leading whore-architects of this trend, admit that self-destruction is inevitable but…aahh, I wasn’t excited enough to link to it. But I came back to it today and decided that Lindelof’s quotes are so well-phrased that they deserve a re-reading.