I’m in a slightly more aware place since posting my Toronto Film Festival priority list nine days ago. Picks have risen and fallen. Marc Abraham‘s Flash of Genius, panned yesterday by Variety‘s Todd McCarthy, has all but dropped off the list while Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, the hit of the just-wrapped Telluride Flm Festival, and Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, boosted by a recent Peter Howell rave, have risen to the very top.
The new priorities are as follows: (1) Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Burn After Reading (bad reviews be damned — l love me my Coens), (2) Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire, (3) Ed Harris ‘s Appaloosa, (4) Guillermo Arriaga‘s The Burning Plain, (5) Steven Soderbergh‘s Che, (6) Kathryn Bigelow‘s Hurt Locker, (7) Matteo Garrone‘s Gomorra, (8) Spike Lee‘s Miracle at St. Anna, (9) David Koepp‘s Ghost Town, and (10) Guy Ritchie‘s Rocknrolla.
Followed by (11) Darren Aronofsky‘s Wrestler, (12) Kevin Smith‘s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, (13) Kari Skogland‘s Fifty Dead Men Walking, (14) Michael McGowan‘s One Week, (15) Richard Eyre‘s The Other Man, (16) Jean-Francois Richet‘s Public Enemy Number One, (17) Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s Secret Life of Bees, (18) Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir, (19) Phillipe Claudet‘s I’ve Loved You So Long, and (20) Laurent Cantet‘s Entre Les Murs.
The next ten are (21) Rian Johnson‘s Brothers Bloom, (22) Barbet Schroeder‘s Inju, (23) James Stern and Adam Del Deo‘s Every Little Step, (24) strong>Stephan Elliotts Easy Virtue, (25) Bruno Barreto‘s Last Stop 174, (26) Stephen Belber‘s Management, (27) Richard Linklater‘s Me and Orson Welles, (28) Peter Sollett‘s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, (29) Matt Tyrnauer‘s Valentino, and (30) Daniel Burman‘s Empty Nest.
The final group is made up of (31) Max Farberbock‘s Woman in Berlin, (32) Jerzy Skolimowski‘s Four Nights with Anna (which I missed in Cannes), (33) Olivier Assayas‘ Heure de Ete, (34) Nigel Cole‘s $5 A Day, (35) Anthony Fabian‘s Skin, (36) Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige‘s I Want To See, (37) Scott McHehee and David Siegel‘s Uncertainty, (38) Cyrus Nowratesh‘s Stoning of Soraya M., (39) Brian Goodman‘s What Doesn’t Kill You and (40) Kevin Rafferty‘s Harvard Beats Yale….even if it played at Manhattan’s Film Forum last fall.
I probably won’t be re-viewing anything I’ve already seen here or anything I saw last May in Cannes — Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Three Monkeys, Neil Burger‘s Lucky Ones, Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth, Bill Maher and Larry Charles‘ Religulous, Jonathan Demme‘s Rachel Getting Married, Mike Leigh‘s Happy Go Lucky, Gavin O’Connor‘s Pride and Glory, etc.