Back in the Real World ...

For those of you who aren't in Toronto -- and those of you who are, but don't give a fig about the film festival -- here are my reviews of "The Covenant" and "The Protector", which opened commercially last Friday.

I also reviewed "Hollywoodland", but for whatever reason it didn't appear on the Metro website ... which sort of sums up the way I feel about the movie, actually. Affleck's performance aside, it's one big shrug.

What else? I don't have any neat festival stories yet, short of almost having my hand broken by the mighty squeeze of Billy Connolly ... oh, and Forest Whitaker is much, much taller than I'd have expected.

And I caught the premiere public screening of "Death of a President" last night, which naturally enough was packed solid with critics (my row included Harlan Jacobson, Jim Hoberman and Brian D. Johnson, which would have made for one hell of a cranky bridge game) and buyers for the various boutiques; if there were any civilian ticket holders, they'd been trampled by the crush at the door. There was talk that tickets were going on Ebay for as much as $200, which has to be nothing more than a rumor.

As of this afternoon, though, no one had bitten, and I can understand why.

"Death of a President" isn't a bad movie -- it's actually a pretty decent one, sort of like an alternate-universe version of "CSI". But it's got the same downsides as any faux documentary with a political bent: The audience is self-limiting, and the right-wing echo chamber will dedicate itself to the evisceration of anyone ballsy enough to put his or her studio behind it.

It'll make a bundle on DVD, though, so my money's on ThinkFilm picking it up before the festival wraps, once the asking price settles back down.

Technorati tags: Movies, The Protector, The Covenant, Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF, Death of a President