You can feel the warmth…it’s there. And I love Alexandre Desplat‘s score, and the voice of Ewan McGregor giving life and spirit to Jiminy Cricket.

In a 7.28 q & a with Variety‘s Brent Lang, TIFF honcho Cameron Bailey says that Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans “is different from a typical Spielberg blockbuster, but it is just as easily impactful in terms of the emotional effect it’s going to have on people. If you love movies, this is going to be a very powerful film for you to watch.”

Which is almost precisely what a research-screening tipster told me yesterday afternoon: “Anyone who grew up watching movies will be a sure bet to love this. I think [even] Millennials will love it. It’s a film-critic-friendly movie. It’s made for people of the film faith. I enjoyed it tremendously, and this is so rare.”

The teenaged Spielberg (i.e., “Sammy Fabelman”) is played by Gabriel LaBelle. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano plays Sammy’s parents. Seth Rogen plays “Uncle Benny,” who, I’m told, isn’t precisely blood-related but we’ll let that slide. Jeannie Berlin plays Williams’ mom. Julia Butters is Sammy’s sister, Anne.

There’s a vague physical resemblance between the glistening, shimmering Marilyn Monroe of 60 and 70 years ago and the exquisitely coiffed, gowned and made-up Ana de Armas, even though the latter doesn’t really “look” like Norma Jean Baker, an unloved and abused daughter of average Midwestern Anglo-Saxon parents. Ana looks like a beautiful Cuban-born actress trying to do her best and mostly pulling it off, which is fine as far as it goes. Here’s hoping that Blonde, directed by Andrew Dominik and expected to be a difficult sit in some respects, shows up at Telluride after debuting in Venice.

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As World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy pointed out this morning, several hot titles are missing from the just-announced Toronto Film Festival slate — Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s Bardo, Todd Field’s TAR, Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All, Paul Schrader’s The Master Gardener and Noah Baumbach’s White Noise.

The media chorus is saying “TIFF is back!” and that’s fine if they want to adopt that attitude, but these six films represent major auteur-level måterial. It’s possible they’ll be announced as TIFF titles down the road, but to me it’s a sign that TIFF has come down two or three notches, esteem-wise.

Non-Attributable Insider: “I think Hollywood has realized it can skip TIFF by doing Venice and Telluride. European/world audience with one, Oscar voters with the other. TIFF is still great for a commercial release like Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. But these are increasingly moving online, right?”

I’m also feeling twinges of concern about Maria Schrader‘s She Said. The trailer, released a couple of weeks ago, convinced me that She Said is a #MeToo-stamped Spotlight, and yet the ’22 Venice Film Festival has blown it off and it’s not in the TIFF rundown either. Something feels “off.”

Do you believe that Olivia Wilde‘s Don’t Worry, Darling, which stars Harry Styles, isn’t playing TIFF because another, modestly scaled Styles film, My Policeman, is also playing TIFF and certain parties don’t want the media’s attention split in two directions? Seems like a weird call.

The following 2022 Toronto Film Festival titles seem more intriguing than most, according to HE standards:

Steven Spielberg‘s The Fabelmans, Peter Farrelly‘s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Rian Johnson‘s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Nicholas Stoller‘s Bros, Florian Zeller‘s The Son, Sam Mendes‘ Empire of Light, Ruben Östlund‘s Triangle of Sadness (saw it in Cannes), Darren Aronofsky‘s The Whale, Jafar Panahi‘s No Bears, Mia Hansen-Love‘s One Fine Morning and that’s about it — ten films.

I’m also cautiously intrigued by the prospect of seeing Gabe Polsky‘s Butcher’s Crossing, Alice Winocour‘s Paris Memories, Catherine Hardwicke‘s Prisoner’s Daughter, Joanna Hogg‘s The Eternal Daughter, Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking and Sebastián Lelio‘s The Wonder.

Anthony and Joe Russo‘s The Gray Man wants a little love from the HE community. Open your hearts and show that you care, and if you can’t do that at least be kind in your dismissals.

“Corporations are getting away with price gouging because they face little or not competition, and they’re using the spectre of inflation as a cover. Last year corporations raked in their highest profits in over 70 years.” — excerpted from below video, written and spoken by Robert Reich.

11 years ago Steven Spielberg took part in a promotional taping for Cowboys & Aliens, which he exec produced. Sitting with director Jon Favreau and producers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, Spielberg recalled his 1965 meeting with legendary director John Ford, when Spielberg was only 18 years old.

It’s a great little story, and the dialogue sounds so much like cranky, crotchety Ford of legend…the ornery cuss with a cigar and a black eyepatch.

The Ford meeting is reenacted near the end of Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, which will have its big premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. A person who caught last night’s research screening of The Fabelmans says it’s a great scene, and that it leads to a great ending (which I won’t divulge). David Lynch plays Ford, and Gabriel LaBelle plays young Spielberg, called “Sammy Fabelman” in the film.

Another discussion stirred by Ethan Hawke‘s The Last Movie Stars…, and especially by Paul Schrader‘s observations about Hud…

HE to Schrader: “Your observation is 100% spot-on, but the kicker in Hud is the ending — when Newman, the last one in the house, pops open a beer, strolls over to the kitchen door, gazes at the departing Brandon de Wilde, reflects for seven or eight seconds, and then delivers that cynical ‘fuck it and to hell with it’ gesture…that‘s what sunk in, what altered the American male identity from 1963 onward, at least as far as movies were concerned.”

Newman: “‘We thought [the] last thing people would do was accept Hud as a heroic character. His amorality just went over [the audience’s] head — all they saw was this western, heroic individual.’”

HE to Newman: “They saw the amorality, of course, but they still liked Hud’s irreverence, rogue swagger and cocksure fuck-all attitude…his general disdain for old conservative values. And they liked that all those women, married and single, went to bed with him.”