2011 Toronto Film Festival Updates


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It's been a little while since we've done one of these--and we do hope to bring "The Career Analyst" back one of these days, too--but we're back with another look at a movie not opening for a couple months, this one being Universal Studios' attempt to resurrect one of their popular comedy franchises with American Reunion. It's opening on April 6, Easter weekend when many people will be off from school and work either on Good Friday or Monday or both, and they hope that opening before what's going to be a busy summer will help them bring in some profits during the normally slower spring month.

It's been eight year or more since we've seen the original kids from American Pie, an R-rated coming-of-age comedy that introduced Hollywood to a lot of new talent back in 1999, including directors Paul and Chris Weitz, who have both gone onto bigger things. At the time, few people knew who Jason Biggs or Seann William Scott or Shannon Elizabeth or Chris Klein or Tara Reid, so it opened with a modest $18.7 million a week after the 4th of July 1999.

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the U.S. distribution rights for another potential entry in the Best Foreign Language Film Category for the 2012 Academy Awards, as they announced today they will be releasing Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now?, which won the Cadillac People's Choice Award at the recent 2011 Toronto International Film Festival as well as Best Europe Film at the 2011 San Sebastian Film Festival.

Millennium Entertainment CEO Bill Lee announced today that the company has acquired U.S. rights to Oren Moverman's critical smash Rampart, which had its world premiere at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. Millennium Entertainment will release the film theatrically this year with newly appointed Millenium Films' Mark Gill consulting on the project.

The Toronto International Film Festival has officially been over for a couple days now and we wanted to give a quick look back at some of our favorite movies we saw there for those who haven't been following our daily coverage.

It was an interesting year for the festival because there seemed to be a lot more frontloading than usual with many of the big movies playing on Friday through Monday and then very little of note after that, which is a shame, but it also felt a bit more down-key than previous years with no movies really jumping out as a potential "Best Picture" winner. That wasn't the case in previous years when The Hurt Locker, No Country for Old Men, Crash and The King's Speech all had their North American premieres at TIFF, so there certainly is presence.

Music Box Films announced today the company has made its first English-language acquisition - Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea.

ComingSoon.net has exclusive interviews with actors Clive Owen and Jason Statham, talking about their parts in Gary McKendry's Killer Elite, which opens nationwide on Friday, September 23.

Deadline is confirming their earlier report that Lionsgate have picked up the distribution rights for Jennifer Westfeldt's hot Toronto Film Festival title Friends with Kids, a romantic comedy that teams the Kissing Jessica Stein star with Adam Scott, playing best friends who decide to have a baby together while dating other people.

Finally, our last two reviews from the Toronto International Film Festival (other than movies we'll be reviewing with their theatrical release). We'll end things with two movies from New York City auteurs, one of them who is trying to reclaim the glory of his 1995 debut, the other who hasn't had a movie released since 1998. Todd Solontz has made a lot of movies in recent years I found to be unwatchable, so his latest Dark Horse is a surprisingly pleasurable experience, while Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress is an extremely clever twist on college comedy stereotypes.

The Toronto International Film Festival is officially over today, and they've announced the awards winners with the Cadillac's People Choice Award going to Where Do We Go Now?, the new war drama from Nadine Labaki (director of Caramel). Gareth Evan's Indonesian martial arts thriller The Raid received the People's Choice Midnight Madness Award, while Jon Shenk's The Island President received the Cadillac People's Choice Award in the doc category.

While lots of major studios regularly bring their movies to TIFF, Paramount has taken a different approach with their two festival offerings, as they're both movies with links to the Sundance Film Festival and produced by Steven Rales' production company Indian Paintbrush.

A former Toronto native, Jason Reitman is a regular fixture at TIFF, but this time, he wasn't there to show off his latest movie (Young Adult, written by Diablo Cody), as much as to offer support to other filmmakers. In this case, he co-produced the Duplass Brothers' fourth film Jeff, Who Lives at Home , which moves them further into studio filmmaking. ("Jeff" isn't being release until next March, so it's somewhat of an odd choice for Paramount to premiere it at TIFF over Reitman's new film.) Meanwhile, Drake Doremus' Like Crazy was picked up at this year's Sundance and is being released in October through the resuscitated Paramount Vantage imprint.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is the fourth film by Sundance regulars the Duplass Brothers as they move further into studio filmmaking, while Drake Doremus' Like Crazy was picked up at this year's Sundance and is being released in October through the resuscitated Paramount Vantage imprint. Oddly, "Jeff" isn't being release until next March, so it's somewhat of an odd choice for Paramount to premiere it at TIFF over Reitman's new film.

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