Here we go: The 2009 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival is underway, and I’m scurrying out the door for the first day of interviews (Woody Harrelson! The other Philip Hoffman!) and screenings.

Susan had the lion’s share of work in this week’s edition, but I’m in there plenty, with about a dozen new capsules — I filed numbers 36 and 37 last night — as well as a piece on the music of TIFF and a related interview with “Suck” writer-director-star Rob Stefaniuk. I also had a Q&A with Udo Kier about his roles in a couple of TIFF movies, but apparently that hasn’t made it online yet.

I’d really rather just be listening to The Beatles in Mono all day, but I guess that’ll have to wait another week. But hey, at least I snagged one.

“The Final Destination” held the top box-office spot for a second week, easily trouncing the trio of newcomers with its $15.4 million gross. “Inglourious Basterds” was a close second with $15 million.

Seriously, though — what’s the appeal? I don’t remember the previous “Final Destination” sequels doing quite this well, fond as I am of Part Two. Is it the 3D that’s packing in the crowds? Is it the spectacle of a NASCAR crash flying right at you? Or just the promise of another string of elaborate Rube Goldbergian death traps?

Is it just that people want to end their summer with the total escapism of a horror movie? Because I could totally get that. A dead-teenager flick would go down a treat right now, as I’m in the middle of a pre-TIFF wave of documentaries and Latin American art films.

Pity no one’s figured out how to combine the disciplines, huh? Well, someone tried, but it didn’t quite take. Maybe it was the European disconnect.

Okay, so “Gamer” isn’t exactly a movie about virtual reality — the whole point of the film is that Gerard Butler’s character is a real person, being cybernetically controlled by a kid in a gaming room — but from the kid’s perspective, it’s totally a virtual experience, right?

That thin conceptual thread was good enough for this week’s MSN Movies gallery, which examines earlier attempts by dopey studio suits to bring the bleeding-edge awesomeness of Virtual Reality to the screen. And yes, I know I left “Brainscan” out; you can’t really get into that one without blowing the twist.

My life is hard.

Labor Day weekend is, historically, the year’s slowest weekend for movies. Which is fine by me, since the film festival is taking up all the space in my brain, and if there were six or eight new openings to be dealt with today, my head would explode.

Instead, there are just three, and we’ll run through them quickly.

“All About Steve”: Sandra Bullock stalks Bradley Cooper across America in this romantic comedy, which was pushed back from its original March release date and now arrives as Bullock and Cooper come off their respective summer hits “The Proposal” and “The Hangover”. Andrew kinda liked it, but I’m content to wait for the DVD.

“Extract“: Mike Judge’s flat new comedy takes a strong comic cast — Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, J.K. Simmons, David Koechner, Ben Affleck — and wastes every last one of them in a shabby, relentlessly unfunny workplace farce. My review’s in the current issue of NOW, but for some reason it hasn’t made it to the website. I’ll see what I can do about that. UPDATE: There is is!

“Gamer”: In a world where people are turned into human puppets, to be remote-controlled by anyone with the right PlayStation, a prisoner (Gerard Butler) must fight his way to freedom, or something. This is the new film from Neveldine/Taylor, who made the glorious “Crank” … but also made the decidedly glory-free “Crank 2: High Voltage”. I want to believe, but I’m worried.

Welp, I’m off to another day of screenings. Catch you on the weekend …

The first TIFF issue of NOW hits the stands today, and I’m all over that mother — here’s my cover story, an interview with the lovely and talented Jessica Pare; here’s a piece about the short-film programs, and here’s a more condensed look at the experimental Wavelengths series.

Also, there are capsules. Twenty-one of them are mine, which is a decent number … but if I’d gone to Cannes this spring, I’d have logged at least twice that. My head would be caved in on one side from my brain collapsing, but no matter. It’s all about domination.

More screenings today. We’ll catch up later.

There’s another epic conversation going on at The House Next Door, with Jason Bellamy and Ed Howard trying to get to the heart of the Quentin Tarantino thing — brilliant pop-culture collage artist, egomaniacal plagiarist, both or neither? And how has his early success affected his creativity and his personal style in the seventeen years since the arrival of “Reservoir Dogs”?

Part One, which went up Monday, finds Bellamy and Howard batting Tarantino’s output back-and-forth in depth, considering the strengths and weaknesses of every one of his films. (They do overlook his marvelous grindhouse-inspired script for “From Dusk Till Dawn”, which the rest of the world seems to have forgotten, as well.)

Part Two, posted today, tackles “Inglourious Basterds” in exhausting detail dissecting references and plot points in depth. Spoilers abound, so don’t read it if you haven’t seen the movie … but if you have, it’s an excellent read.

The news broke over the weekend that Bell and Microsoft were shuttering Sympatico/MSN and preparing their own separate sites — but don’t worry, I’m fine.

As of today, I’m over at the shiny new MSN.ca. I’ll be doing my usual thing, covering movies and video and even doing the occasional television story, like this morning’s interview with James Kyson Lee from “Heroes”. (The new season? Expect twists!)

Oh, and MSN’s massive Fall Movie Preview? That’s mine, too.

The master link at the right of the page has been updated to reflect our new reality. Click away!

“The Final Destination” beat “Halloween II” by a considerable margin over the weekend, with New Line’s fourth kick at the deathtrap franchise grossing $28.3 million to the $17.4 million taken in by Rob Zombie’s slasher sequel. Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” dropped to second place with $20 million.

Curiously, after headlining the worldwide “Basterds” gross last week, Variety goes back to using domestic numbers for this weekend’s report. Which is weird, really, because “The Final Destination” also opened internationally, pulling in another $10.1 million from foreign screens. Variety doesn’t mention that number until about a third of the way down the page.

You know how I was half-kidding about the Weinsteins using their pernicious influence to get Variety to run with the larger number, just so they could wave the page around and impress people with the great big opening weekend they needed so badly? Now I’m just weirded out.