11th Annual Not-at-TIFF Film Festival

There is a phenomenon known to cinephiles as the film festival bubble in which a person attending a film festival, like, say, the Toronto International Film Festival, its 10-day run commencing today, becomes so ensconced in watching movies and thinking about movies that the outside world ceases to exist. I don’t attend film festivals anymore, preferring to watch less and let it digest more, but I do miss that bubble, surfacing afterwards, wondering (or not) what I missed. If, however, you dip into a film festival bubble of life these days in America where the number of atrocities occurring can feel limitless, and their scale can feel infinite, it can also feel as if you’re burying your head in the sand. But then, to not occasionally stop drinking from the unrelenting firehose is unhealthy. They’ve got us right where they want us, in other words, forcing us to try and strike a nearly impossible balance, one that Not-at-TIFF, our annual counter-programmed festival to Real TIFF, did its best to strike, sort of. After all, somewhere along the line, round about 2020, say, Not-at-TIFF’s mission statement merged Here are Some Cool Movies to Watch! with a Festivus-like Airing of Grievances.

11th Annual Not-at-TIFF Film Festival

Who’s Harry Crumb? Real TIFF 2025 opens with the Colin Hanks documentary “John Candy: I Like Me,” a tribute to the late Canadian hero, so Not-at-TIFF 2025 will open with a John Candy movie. The first 100 guests will receive free philodendrons, the legend Shawnee Smith will appear, as will Bonnie Tyler for a special post-screening performance. 

Report to the Commissioner. 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Real TIFF, and good for them, but rather than screen some old 1975 warhorse like “Dog Day Afternoon” to commemorate 50 years, let’s screen this down and dirty crime thriller. Because the way New York City looks in “Report to the Commissioner” is basically the way the President of the United States imagines every (blue) American city still looks today. Not that he would know, of course, because like Jack Donaghy refusing to leave his office after being mugged on The Tuxedo Begins episode of “30 Rock,” I imagine that His Imbecility hasn’t gone outside except to play golf since the Central Park Five. 

King of Marvin Gardens. Speaking of the President, I just finished Mark Kriegel’s incisive book Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson and was reminded of the outsized role His Imbecility played in the boxer’s ascension, including hosting the mammoth 1988 Michael Spinks fight at the Atlantic City Convention Hall which was attached to T*ump Plaza Hotel and Casino. In fact, Kriegel wrote, T*ump built a walkway between the two so that “high rollers” would not have to see the riff raff and “dilapidated boardwalk” of Atlantic City like the one presented in Bob Rafelson’s 1972 New Hollywood classic “King of Marvin Gardens.” I was reminded of the Tyson/Spinks showdown during the recent P*tin/T*ump summit in Alaska. After all, His Imbecility essentially turned this meeting with an alleged war criminal into a sporting event, including a flyover and a slogan, Pursuing Peace a la Tyson v Spinks being billed as Once and For All. And so, it was only appropriate that just as Tyson KO’d Spinks in 91 seconds, the Russian President essentially laid the American political tomato can out flat in what was tantamount to a minute and a half. 

Reality. I would think Sydney Sweeney was a S1M0NE invented purely to feed the discourse if I had not already seen her immense talent on display elsewhere, like this exhilarating 2023 take on the Reality Winner story that was one of the best movies of 2023 and deserves to be seen far and wide. Sweeney spends most of the movie in cut-off jeans rather than regular jeans, so I hope that’s good enough for the pundits and thinkers. 

Brain Donors. And because I’m doing it again, by which I mean making Not-at-TIFF too big a downer, here’s a palate cleanser. As “The Naked Gun” reboot has shown, audiences are starving for otherwise extinct 80s, 90s-style rapid fire comedies, and so here’s a deep cut, a 1992 Zucker Brothers-produced Marx Brothers homage with John Turturro riffing on Groucho. Rotten Tomatoes is a little suspicious of it, but I remember watching this on HBO at my best friend’s house and laughing my keister off. 

Strange Brew. John Candy is not in this 1983 Canadian American cult classic, but Rick Moranis is, and when My Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife and I were in Portland, Maine last month we encountered a mailbox with a Rick Moranis sticker plastered to it (see above). And I liked thinking of a whole host of Maine mailboxes with these same stickers. Be the change you want to see in the world, and this person wanted to manifest Rick Moranis back into the movies. And hey, it worked!

Nowhere to Hide. While I was not a fan of “Weapons,” I was a fan of “Weapons” providing a prominent role for Amy Madigan. More of that, Hollywood, please. It got me perusing Madigan’s filmography and in doing so, I discovered this action-thriller in which Madigan plays an ex-marine fending off evil military industrialists and Michael Ironside plays her survivalist brother and why was this not the biggest movie of 1987?

On the 8th day we rest, of course, and just watch some YouTube videos, like this one, which really brings back memories. This was the first George Strait song I ever knew because they played this commercial about a thousand times during college football games that year. And this occurs to me because the King of Country is receiving a Kennedy Center Honor, and why wouldn’t he be, described in that sharp-witted syntax of the Kennedy Center’s cockamamie chairman as “believed to be by millions of people to be just as good as you can get.” And though in this track Strait tells us that “you’ve got to have an ace in the hole, a secret that nobody knows,” the irony is that everybody knows Strait’s secret is remaining politically neutral. Mensch Mel Brooks nobly declined a Kennedy Center Honor that would have been presented by Dubya because he opposed the War on Terror, and though Strait could take the same tack and tell our burgeoning authoritarian to take a hike, as only an artist who would agree to be sponsored by Anheuser-Busch would know, you don’t get rich by sticking your neck out.  

Small Town Santa. I’m sorry, but upon forcibly reviewing the Not-at-TIFF schedule, the T*ump administration’s special envoys to Hollywood demanded to include one movie and this title, starring America’s favorite I*E agent, is what they gave me. After all, The War on Christmas continues apace. (Don’t hold it against the blog. You don’t have to attend, that’s fine, because no matter what, we are required to report that all seats for this screening were filled.) 

Gypsy 83. I have been dealing with living in America in 2025 by listening intensively to music of my old favorites. Bruce Springsteen, yes, but also my #1 favorite childless cat dog lady, Stevie Nicks, her solo stuff as well as her work in Fleetwood Mac but especially her contributions to “Tusk.” (This was only enhanced by reading, and loving, Andrew Porter’s SoCo-set new novel The Imagined Life in which Nicks’s music is essentially a supporting character.) And so, I felt so much shame and embarrassment that I only learned this year about the existence of this 2001 movie in which two Midwestern goths road trip to New York for an event called Night of a Thousand Stevies. Did I greenlight this in a dream? 

Stay strong, friends and faux festivalgoers.

   

10th Annual Not-at-TIFF Film Festival

Today is the first day of the 49th Toronto International Film Festival, award season’s starter pistol, and blogging tradition dictates that Cinema Romantico counterprograms a film festival to be watched at home. Of course, these faux film fests, as longtime and extremely frustrated readers can attest, are generally just an excuse for me to address trending movie topics. And 2024 was no different. But also, halfway into this year’s Not-at-TIFF slate, I suddenly realized that every movie was from the 90s. At that point, I had two choices: pivot to some other decades or lean into the bit. I leaned into the bit. Here, then, is the 10th annual Not-at-TIFF film festival, All 90s Edition. You’re welcome?

Presumed Innocent (1990). Rather than screen all eight hours of the Hulu series based on Scott Turow’s novel we will instead screen Alan J. Pakula’s adaptation to remind everyone that with a little thing called craft you can tell the same story in just a little over 120 minutes. 

Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). Look, man, I have no idea how difficult Blake Lively was or was not on the set of “It Ends with Us” (if she was that difficult then what does that say about our lord and savior T*ylor S*ift?), but no matter how difficult she was, there is no way on earth she was as difficult as the king up there on this. 

Clean Slate (1994). Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night Live movie will premiere at actual TIFF, but rather than counter program with one of the SNL spinoff movies, a la “The Coneheads,” we will instead screen one of those normal movies made by an ex-SNL cast member that nobody remembers. 

Delirious (1991). Nicolas Cage is set to star in a biopic of Super Bowl-winning coach and game-changing football announcer John Madden. I am confident that Cage will acquit himself well, but honestly, I’m just sad the late John Candy never got a crack at the same role. Can you imagine John Candy with the telestrator?

La Haine (1995). It is strongly recommended, though not required, that all faux attendees binge the new season of “Emily in Paris” prior to screening. Eat your macaron; then drop acid. 

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (1992). Lots of 1999 was the best movie year ever takes flying around these days (I might have something to say about this at some point), given it’s been 25 years, and while some cinephiles might rebut with 1939, or 1967, or 1975 as the best movie years, hey, here’s a lukewarm counter take: what if 1992 was the best movie year ever? It’s not just “Last of the Mohicans” or “My Cousin Vinny,” the latter starring Marisa Tomei in what I 50% seriously, 50% cheekily consider the greatest movie performance of all time (eh, make that 75% seriously, 25% cheekily), it’s so much more. It’s “Unforgiven” and “One False Move”; it’s “There’s no crying in baseball” and “Wet out there to-night.” 1992 has got the best biopic, and the best Merchant Ivory movie, and the best SNL movie, and the best TNT movie, and, of course, the best First Week of January Movie (see above). These things matter.  

Chain Reaction (1996). Speaking of First Week of January Movies, what about August movies? In his Reveal newsletter, Scott Tobias argued that “Premium Rush” was the most August movie of the 21st Century. And while I do like “Premium Rush” a great deal, especially Michael Shannon as the Marx Brothers movie-ish villain convinced the whole rotten world is out to get him, it’s a little too good to be the most August movie. No, I would submit “Chain Reaction” as the most August in show, a pale semi-imitation of “The Fugitive” but set during a cold Chicago winter which is just what I’m dreaming about come August. 

As always, on the 8th day we rest by kicking back with nothing more than a YouTube video. And when it comes to the 90s, the two most 90s 90s things are the Villanova basketball logo of the era and this video of Natalie Merchant and Michael Stipe singing “Candy Everybody Wants.” 

The Faculty (1998). I won’t graft the last six letters of renaissance onto the end of Josh Hartnett’s name, here, and just observe I’m happy he’s back in the mainstream. I will also observe that the one-time impudent teen of “The Faculty” is now playing a dad taking his daughter to see Taylor Swift Lady Raven in “Trap” and where is that “Saving Private Ryan” meme?

Basic Analysis (1994). “One woman’s triumph over a yeast infection set against the backdrop of the tragic Buffalo Bill season of 1991.” If you know, you know. Shannen Doherty (RIP) was robbed. 

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

The Toronto International Film Festival does not so much kick off today as semi-quietly commence. Typically, the jewel in the fall film festival season, starting gun for the ultramarathon that is awards season, the 48th edition has lost much of its glow given the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike that has essentially ground Tinseltown to a halt. There will be far fewer stars on hand to promotionally walk the red carpet, and most who do will have to be granted waivers by their guild to do so, almost making TIFF feel like a USO show, running concurrent to a cold war, which is kind of what it is, labor vs the nominal shepherds of the movies who exclusively see movies through the eyes of pissant shareholders, the only people that truly count in modern society anymore, the rest of us chess pieces for maximizing profits. Still, Not-at-TIFF, our annual alternate film festival for those unable to attend the real thing, must go on, even though as the sole programmer, juror, and judge (which is why “Michael Clayton” always wins the jury prize even though it has never been screened at the festival), this programming list is mostly just an excuse for me to talk about things that have been on my mind.

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

Cliffhanger. Real TIFF concludes with “Sly,” a documentary about Sylvester Stallone, so Not-at-TIFF begins with “Cliffhanger,” a Sylvester Stallone movie. Not to honor Sly, however, no shade at Stallone, but to honor director Renny Harlin. Sam Adams recently wrote a piece for Slate asking the movie industry to bring back the hack, though hack in his formulation is akin to a journeyman, to put it less cruelly, and Harlin was among our foremost journeymen during a more journeyman-forward age. As such, Not-at-TIFF opening night will honor Harlin with the Garage Sale Chafing Dish Journeyman Award of Excellence. 

Free Solo. Sylvester Stallone serves as executive producer on “Sly,” which concerns me, sorta like how most sports documentaries these days about athletes tend to have those athletes serve as executive producers, meaning they tend to be made in the image the subject wants to project. These movies, then, become all about access and intent rather than, like, you know, aesthetic. Ah, but “Free Solo” was one of the recent exceptions. It had access to its subject, free solo climber Alex Honnold, but Honnold was not a producer, and the very ideas of access and intent became intertwined with the purpose of the movie, one that turned its breathtaking images of rock climbing into equally breathtaking portraits of isolation. As good as the genre gets. All directors currently in pre-production on sports documentaries get free admission and a free notebook to take notes. 

Return of the Secaucus 7. Too much mountaineering? Sorry. Oversight on my part. Let’s dial it back with a ground-based drama that’s just people talking. After all, it might be the 40th anniversary of “The Big Chill,” but the real ones, the Sayles-heads, know the Secaucus 7 threw the best baby boomer get together. 

The Dish & the Spoon. Given the massive success of her “Barbie,” if not the slightly more modest successes of her previous “Little Women” and “Ladybird,” I can only hope the yutes who now stan for Greta Gerwig are checking out her back catalogue. And though I do maintain that “Mistress America” is both the apex and culmination of the first act of her career, and though I feel like “Hannah Takes the Stairs” would be a good one to show people unfamiliar with her earliest, experimental work, it’s “The Dish & the Spoon” where Greta is just absolutely going for it, a figurative wire walker. So, let’s screen this one and blow some damn minds, like playing “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle” for somebody who only knows “Born in the U.S.A.” 

The Day After Tomorrow. When I read that California was under its first-ever tropical storm warning in advance of Hurricane Hilary, I thought how much it sounded like a line from Roland Emmerich’s 2004 climate disaster movie, akin to that scene in a snowy New Delhi. And though “The Day After Tomorrow” was predictably lambasted at the time by critics from the Neil deGrasse Tyson School of Film Criticism for spectacularly bad science, I thought that was a necessary byproduct, that the only way to caution a disinterested public about the perils of climate change was by preaching through speakers turned to 11. But now, even as “The Day After Tomorrow”-ish scenarios play out routinely, and we here in America, at least, seem to be grappling with the impending climate disaster the same way we grappled with one million COVID-19 deaths and a literal insurrection of the U.S. Capitol by not grappling with it at all, insisting on normalcy by putting on blinders, man, I’m starting to think that Roland Emmerich, of all people, did not go far enough.

Jackie Brown. I have been watching “Justified: City Primeval,” featuring the return of Timothy Olyphant as Marshal Raylan Givens and based on a pair of Elmore Leonard books, and so when I noticed Quentin Tarantino’s own Leonard adaptation “Jackie Brown” was streaming, I watched what I really do think has settled as my second favorite Q.T. after “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.” I also watched it for the first time since surpassing Jackie Brown’s age of 44, an age that flew over my head the first time I saw it as much as the idea of “starting over,” and watching a movie in which the climax takes place at the former epicenter of American life The Mall, boy, it was like feeling summer give way to autumn in my mind. Not that this is mere whining about how time comes for us all. No, Timothy Olyphant is 55 and have you seen his grey-streaked hair in “Justified: City Primeval?” Damn. My Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife wants to be Emma Thompson when she grows up; I want to have Timothy Olyphant’s hair.

A Place in the Sun. My native state of Iowa has lost the plot for some time now, evoked in a book banning bill signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds. Deviously and intentionally vague, the law has left schools to decide what books to ban, and as if concocting a double stuffed Oreo of asininity, Mason City schools utilized ChatGPT to determine what books to ban. That ban included Buzz Bissinger’s “Friday Night Lights,” a decision so mouth-droppingly stupid it was quickly reversed. Best we can tell, the rest of the 18 books are still on the ban list, including Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy,” basis for George Stevens’ “A Place in the Sun.” Because only Woke people enjoy having carnal knowledge, I guess, these books were banned for containing descriptions or depictions of sex acts and, baby, there ain’t no depiction of a sex act like a close-up of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Our Not-at-TIFF screening will save a seat for Governor Reynolds, though we can’t say for certain the seat won’t have a whoopee cushion filled with cow manure. 

And on the 8th day of Not-at-TIFF, as always, we rest, to watch Kylie Minogue videos, in this case. Because did you hear? Kylie Jenner is trying to trademark her first name again. Listen, Kylie, Kylie Jenner, because that is your name, Kylie Jenner, the one true Kylie was dropping bombtracks a decade before you were born. Eat Kylie’s gold shorts, man. 

Picture Perfect. I was going to say I don’t want to step in it, but then half this post has been me stepping in it, so let’s plunge our foot a little further and observe that the kidz seem to be trying to Cancel Jennifer Aniston. Look, I have thoughts on Cancelation as a cultural concept (and whether cancelation should be spelled with one l or two ls), never mind thoughts on whether someone worth an estimated $300 million can even be Canceled to begin with, but no desire to get into it here. No, Not-at-TIFF is just taking a 35mm print of “Picture Perfect,” blowing that sucker up to 70mm, and locking the doors ‘til the screening finishes. Also, Texas. You can say what you want about Jennifer Aniston, but it won’t change my mind. 

Runaway Jury. The faux fest opened with a journeyman, and it will close with a journeyman, Gary Fleder, who directed the greatest modern middling thriller, of course. Indeed, it is the 20th anniversary of the greatest modern middling thriller, which is why it gets the hammer. Unfortunately, in a manner of speaking, the labor strike makes it so that none of the cast can honor our invitations to attend this screening, though to be honest, only Jennifer Beals and Leland Orser had RSVPd so far anyway. 

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

The 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival kicks off today, meaning that even though it is still 14 days until fall, and even though it is still 104 days until winter, and even though the 2023 Oscars take place all of eight days before the first day of next spring, it is the beginning of awards season. Don’t like it? Hey, neither do I, what can I tell ya, pal? Write your local Oscar blogger. Anyway, with every movie that really wants to be somebody over the course of the next four, five, six, seven months slated to screen, lists abound, of the buzziest and most highly anticipated and most critically acclaimed films to go see. If you’re in Toronto, that is. That’s why Cinema Romantico has once again curated an alternative stay-at-home film fest, a movie to watch each day of TIFF if you are not at TIFF, or if you were planning on going to TIFF and couldn’t get tickets, or if you were planning on flying to Toronto and Air Canada said nuh-uh. After all, in the future all film festivals will take place on our phones. 

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

Night Shift. Henry Winkler’s stockbroker turned morgue attendant is nothing if not the original Quiet Quitter, until things get noisy again, perfect for an opening night 40th anniversary retrospective screening. 

The Alamo. It has come to Cinema Romantico’s attention that some readers were frustrated with our previous two Not-at-TIFF film festivals, curated during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic and honoring the prevailing global mood of anger, anxiety, and depression. They want Not-at-TIFF to be a happier affair! They’re just movies, man! So, after opening with the fun-loving “Night Shift,” we will screen John Wayne’s “The Alamo” (1960), a heartwarming and historically accurate portrayal of the way the pivotal event in the Texas Revolution really was. 

Groundswell. Don’t let that photoshop fool you! Lacey Chabert really did walk in the sands of the Waikiki because this Hallmark Channel romance really was filmed in Hawaii! Yay! Nothing says happy affair like a Hallmark Channel synopsis! “On the heels of a personal and professional setback, Chef Emma travels to Hawaii where she meets Ben, a handsome, reclusive surf instructor whose lessons help her to regain her footing.”

The Rosebud Beach Hotel. The most recent season of Karina Longworth’s indispensable film podcast You Must Remember This focused on what she deemed the Erotic 80s, including Mickey Rourke’s “Wild Orchid,” one of those movies I never saw but knew about because it screened late at night on Cinemax, the forbidden time zone on a channel we did not have. Somehow, though, what sticks in my mind from the forbidden time zone of that era is not “Wild Orchid” but “The Rosebud Beach Hotel,” which I only just learned at this very moment starred Fran Drescher and Christopher Lee. This will be screened on a vintage 1980s RCA wood paneled television set. Get your seats early!

Outbreak. Wolfgang Petersen, master of the (often more than) middling thriller, died in August at the age of 81. “Outbreak” was not his best movie, not even close, but it is the one I watched in my Roman COVID hotel last December. And if that sounds insane, like why would I watch a movie about a Pandemic when I’m trapped in a 10x13 room because of a real Pandemic, the professional middling pizzazz of it all soothed me like no other. When I rediscovered Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo played a bickering divorced couple hashing out their relationship while trying to save the world...ooooh, it felt so good. 

Night Falls on Manhattan. These are the good days for those of us who have always ridden for Andy Garcia as a charismatic A-list leading man. So, let’s screen a 25-year old Andy Garcia movie as an excuse to invite him to appear at Not-at-TIFF. (All Not-at-TIFF appearances will take place on a red carpet from Carpet Warehouse Outlet rolled out in the alley behind my house.)

Tape. Uma Thurman was enlisted along with her “Pulp Fiction” co-stars John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson to present at the most recent Oscars. This excited me if only because Uma has been made to wander in the movie-making wilderness for the last 20 years because of the sexist dipshits in charge of everything after Travolta has been afforded, like, 17 career comebacks and I wondered if maybe, just maybe, this appearance would make one of the producer morons in the audience decide to stop being a moron and cast her in a real role. Alas, as it turned out she was presenting, ahem, the award for Best Actor, meaning she presented to Will Smith after he slapped Chris Rock. Nobody will ever remember she was even there. JFC almighty. So, let’s screen Richard Linklater’s digital slice of sweaty three-hander intimacy to show all these fools what Uma can do. 

 

Kate McKinnon as Ann Romney. And on the 8th day of Not-at-TIFF, as always, we rest, eschewing a movie for something shorter and stupider instead. Kate McKinnon, guiding light of latter day Saturday Night Live, finally stepped away after 11 seasons. And while her Olya Povlatsky might honestly be my favorite SNL character ever, when McKinnon left the show, for some reason I found myself thinking most about her Ann Romney. (“Everybody’s a Beyoncé fan, Seth.”) 

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. In addition to shelving “Batgirl,” the corporate buzzkills at Warner Bros. have also put their finished remake of “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh” starring the G.O.A.T., Candace Parker of the Chicago Sky on ice. Luckily, Cinema Romantico’s elite squad of film print retrieval artists extricated a cut of the film from the Warner Bros. vault in a daring nighttime raid and we will screen it on Day 9 at an undisclosed location. 

Krush Groove. You know, fellow Gen Xers, when you see the kidz walking around in those Nirvana t-shirts from Target or Old Navy and how much it freaks you out? Well, I was in an Old Navy this summer and noticed they are now selling Run-D.M.C t-shirts too. And while you might think this would freak me out like the Kurt Cobain-inspired wearables, I found myself smiling instead, thinking that perhaps the true kings of rock have become cool again in circles where I am not closing to running, that kidz are listening to the Run-D.M.C. Spotify channel and discovering EPMD too, and Eric B. and Rakim and Kool Moe Dee. So, let’s close Not-at-TIFF 2022 with the Run-D.M.C. starring “Krush Groove” (1985). Cuz sucker Marvel Big Cheese don’t make no movies like these. 

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

The Academy Awards, the it-goes-without-saying finishing line of movie awards season, were only four months ago and now, today, the 47th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), generally viewed as the starting line for movie awards season, kicks off. It is nothing if not evocative of how time has become virtually nebulous in the last year-and-a-half, seeming to both stand still, as if awards season never began and never ended, and moved at warp speed. It is why even with some measure of progress in the battle against the Pandemic, I feel even more disillusioned with the state of the world and exhausted than I did last year. And even if TIFF is, like the recent Telluride and Venice Film Festivals, requiring proof of vaccination, suggesting a film festival as a carrot stick, reports of breakthrough COVID cases at Telluride nonetheless just go to show that everything is not Back to Normal. And that is why even if, as the artistic director, director of programming, and chief financial officer (budget: 0$) of Not-at-TIFF, our annual alternate TIFF program for those unable to make the trek to Toronto, I had hoped to curate a more festive slate than last year’s, reality intervened. This is simply our world now. Live in it. 

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

A Time to Kill. We will kick off Not-at-TIFF with a 25th anniversary screening of the late Joel Shumacher’s gothic sweat-soaked pseudo-masterpiece. Seriously, where are all the commemorative think pieces about this one? [Taps pencil against lips.] Hmmmmmmm.

Quiz Show. Given the Jeopardy scandal, it’s time to go back to the sordid game show roots. 

Zero Dark Thirty. This screening will include my lecture about how the CIA’s involvement in filming does not negate the movie’s ultimate framing of the fabled War on Terror as a road to nowhere.

A Life Less Ordinary. A few weeks back there was tension in the Film Twitter universe when somebody asked for people’s green flag films as opposed to their red flag films which, rather than prompting people to simply cite a movie they liked yielded a social media ethics and morals debate about red flag films because, again, everything is awful. Anyway. A green flag film for me is “A Life Less Ordinary” because if you, too, theoretical person, can groove on that ostensible bomb’s vibes than undoubtedly we could have a few beers together. (A red flag film? Hmmmmm. Probably “Another Stakeout.” I mean, if you think “Another Stakeout” deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as “Stakeout”…) 

Quantum Hoops. The recent Bishop Sycamore scandal is the only latest example of America’s unique predilection for marrying academics and sports utterly backfiring. So, let’s screen this 2007 documentary of the woebegone Caltech Basketball Team’s quest to end a 21-year streak of literally never winning a game. 

Chasing Waterfalls. I have had this Hallmark movie, which is literally about chasing mythical waterfalls and not an ode to T-Boz, Chilli, and the immortal Left Eye, saved on my DVR since March. And so now Not-at-TIFF will subject you all to it. I wonder if they can send me a 35mm print?

And then on the 7th day we will just watch Rolling Stones videos to mourn the titanic loss of Charlie Watts.

The Ice Pirates. As the American West remains mired in a megadrought, inching us ever closer to a frightfully dry future, the go-to reference for fatalists will become “Mad Max: Fury Road” of course. But let us not forget that the forgotten “Ice Pirates” saw all this clear as day back in 1984. Better start searching for that mystical Seventh World now.   

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Need to re-watch the source material for “The Green Knight” before I write my review. 

Melancholia. Someone, I forget who, my apologies, near the beginning of the Pandemic (that is not over) said something like, welp, now you find out if you’re Charlotte Gainsbourg in “Melancholia” or Kirsten Dunst. And I guess it should come as no surprise, Kiki stan as I am, that it turns out I’m Kirsten Dunst. I am totally Kirsten Dunst. The Earth is evil. We don’t need to grieve for it. 

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

This is normally the moment in the blogging calendar when Cinema Romantico proffers an alternate festival program to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the epicenter of the film festival circuit. TIFF is still happening, if an altered format, and we still want to provide our loyal frustrated followers with 10 Not at TIFF movies to see. However, while our Not-at-TIFF slate is typically festive, eclectic, irreverent, this, of course, is 2020. And here in America, where COVID-19 is either just going to magically go away at some indeterminate point in the future, not that bad despite nearly 190,000 dead so stop wearing a mask and go sit indoors, you pansy, or a hoax perpetrated by The Media, the Radical Left Democrats, ANTIFA, and some new group of violent agitators that just emerged from the shadows of the alley behind a furniture outlet store that the President, King Big Brain I, only just learned about but is looking at very strongly, things are on an express elevator to hell, going down. And we want to honor that bleakness in our Not-at-TIFF slate. It wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t. We do not apologize. Ask His Imbecility for an apology (ha!) instead.

10 Not-at-TIFF Movies to Watch

The Towering Inferno (1974). Not a great movie, not even a good movie, but Not-at-TIFF 2020 is a theoretical program. And a movie about cost-cutting and magical thinking yielding disaster feels like the perfect curtain-raiser.

Last Night (1998). This is 2020. Enough with those End of the World movies where the world doesn’t actually end, okay?

Light Sleeper (1992). I have never really had trouble sleeping but in 2020...I’m having all kinds of trouble. In fact, it was the preeminent political pundit Sebastian Bach, who in talking with Esquire about His Imbecility’s imbecilic moniker for his challenger, said “And then he says Sleepy Joe. I can’t think of something I’d rather do more than get a good night’s fucking sleep. If Joe Biden will bring us a good night’s sleep after four fucking years, who won’t vote for that? Bring on the sleep, man.”

He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not (2002). My Beautiful, Perspicacious Wife has spent most of 2020’s Never Ending Quarantine Because America Can Do Anything Except Get Its Shit Together When People Ask Them To Wear Masks curating a rom com film festival. And I get it. Rom coms go down easy. But this is Not-at-TIFF 2020. Our vibe is different. And Audrey Tatou’s ’02 rom com only begins as a rom com before pulling the rug out from under us.

The Stepford Wives (1975). You’re frightened the Radical Left is going to abolish the suburbs through decree by way of waving a leftist magic wand? This is why they should abolish the suburbs, you bunch of cowering country club freedom fries.

Rollerball (1975). That phrase you keep using, that one about how sports are a distraction that we need right now, might not, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, mean what you think it means.

Saturday Night Fever (1977). Eventually every kid who’s been taught by the oblivious brainwashed masses that Disco Sucks! and thinks “Saturday Night Fever” is some So Bad It’s Good slice of processed cheese finally watches it and is forced to confront the fact that it’s dark and depressing and all about how dreams don’t come true and that disco, beautiful disco, was the only escape.



Some Girls: Live In Texas ’78. Live music does not appear to be coming back any time soon. So let’s watch The Rolling Stones at the height of their powers. Because I don’t want sunshine or spirit; I want the Stones at their sleaziest.

Night Train to Paris (1964). Sorry, pal, but this isn’t the festival for wacky Leslie Nielsen comedies; this is the festival for early, serious Leslie Nielsen movies you didn’t even know existed.

Mars Attacks! Don’t worry, if you think Not-at-TIFF 2020 has been too much of a downer, we’ll end here, with the US Capitol burnt to a crisp, yes, but a mariachi band playing The Star Spangled Banner, All Time Top 5 President Taffy Dale (Natalie Portman) and Tom Jones, heroically emerging into the light, a renewal, a rebirth. I can’t wait.