For me, the first day of the 2012 Toronto Film Festival isn’t much to write home about because I’ve seen so many films having their first press & industry screenings today. The only major pop-outs are Joe Wright‘s Anna Karenina at 3 pm and a 3D screening of the digitally restored and cleavered (i.e., whacked down to 1.85 to 1) Dial M for Murder, which shows this evening at 9:15 pm. And I’ve got a couple of parties starting around 10 or 11 pm, but those aren’t as much fun without the drinking.

The films I’d normally be seeing with great excitement I’ve already seen, and the ones playing today that I haven’t seen I don’t want to see. And if I don’t want to see something, you can’t stop me. (Yes, that’s a Samuel Goldwynism.)

I saw Jacques Audiard‘s Rust and Bone (8:45 this morning) in Cannes — here‘s what I wrote. I also saw Abbas Kiarostami‘s brilliant Like Someone in Love (12:34 pn today) there and posted this. (This film is so mesmerizing that I’m thinking of seeing it again for the sheer pleasure factor.) I’ve seen Amy Berg‘s West of Memphis twice (at last January’s Sundance Film Festival as well as the Santa Barbara Film Festival) and praised it up and down. I saw Michael Haneke’s Amour (3:45 pm today) in Cannes and posted this. And I saw and was quite elevated in Cannes by Walter Salles On The Road (1:45 pm).