Jolie's Wanted poster not wanted in Old Blighty.

I'm second to none in my love of England - hell, we even publish Cinema Retro there. However, the nation's rapid decline into a nanny state continues. It's bad enough that local governments now regulate how you dispose your trash with the same tenacity one might extend to the handling of nuclear weapons. (There's actually bills pending that would install miniature cameras in neighborhoods to spy on folks who might be tempted to commit civil disobedience by putting out their trash cans before the designated hour!) Now comes word that two posters for Angelina Jolie's hit action film Wanted are being banned because -sit down- she's depicted holding a pistol! That's right -there's fear that if the British public were to glimpse this horrendous sight they might be inspired to take up arms themselves and run wildly through the streets in a frenzy of mass killings. Yes, the same country that defeated Hitler and withstood the Blitz is about to fall to hell over a movie poster depicting Angelina Jolie. They'd better start clamping down on the works of old Bill Shakespeare...who knows how many criminals are inspired every year by the gratuitous violence in MacBeth. - Lee Pfeiffer For more click here

But a poor craftsman blames his tools, right?

The Unexpected has become a theme for the festival. The expected films have been mostly mediocre or disappointing. But the little gems are beginning to sparkle. The hard part for you is that the media is understaffed and overmanned during this year's fest. If I had $1000 for the number of times I have heard about budget cuts having an effect on the coverage - from the journos themselves - I would have more than is being spent by any of the mainstream media outlets on the fest... perhaps combined. It's not pretty. And people who have jobs are appreciated.

That said, there is also a lot of whining at this fest. The local papers are complaining about everything from access to plus-ones to street closures. Bruce Kirkland took out the sledgehammer in the paper today.

Without smacking the festival around any more, I will say that the timing on becoming a facility owner at the same time as the North American indie movement is in the toilet and every festival in the country - including Sundance and other big ones - is suffering with money issues by way of decreased cash sponsorship, is unfortunate at best.

When I am asked to give advise to growing festivals, the first thing I always say is that they need to stay within their concept and not try to become "the next Sundance or Toronto." Festivals are, in the vast majority, not for profit. Many run with deficits. And of course, the bigger the machine, the more green coal is needed to keep the fires burning. But the financial possibilities of a film festival are finite. And it seems that TIFF - which is also on its second co-director in two years and its third press office topper in three, both after years of prior stability - forgot this. What makes this festival special is the support of the local community. It's timing also helped build it into one of the key fests in the world. But it was those hundreds of thousands of tickets sold that no one else had. But even huge ticket numbers are not enough to pay for any festival. Sponsorship closes the gap. But not so much in a recession.

Anyway... movies...

Fox Searchlight's The Secret Lives Of Bees actually plays... and not just for girls. It's in the spirit of Sounder and the Toomer story in The Great Santini and To Kill a Mockingbird. It's clearly Dakota Fanning's coming out party as a young woman, a stark contrast from Hounddog, which smelled of her exploitation by a well-intended by overreaching writer/director. Not so here. Gina Prince-Bythewood takes good care of Dakota and the entire cast.

It's the story of a young teen white girl in the deep south who is in the poor care of her father, her mother killed in an accident - in which she was involved - as a child before memories. She escapes, along with a black woman whose life is threatened for standing up for herself, to her mother's childhood hometown. They fall in with a family of three sisters who take the duo in like their own. The story, about love, redemption, and race (though I would not call it a film about race), continues from there.

Not Quite Hollywood may be my favorite talking-heads-and-clips movie ever. (That's Entertainment is not really a doc, but just a series of great clips from great musicals... different animal.) It is complete, and informative. Bur mostly, it's very, very entertaining, From the very beginnings of the Aussie film business to the sexual exploitation and self-mockery to the early car chase films to the uber-violent horror stuff to the combinations of both that changed worldwide cinema from Mad Max on... it's a party for your eyes and memory banks.

Magnolia is planning on a first quarter 2009 release for the film... we'll see what the theatrical life is like. But it is going to be one of those films you can turn on and watch over and over and over again, starting at any random point and walking away at any other point, knowing that you'll watch more of it later... and then some more...

On the flip side, I saw a pretty worthless midnight movie last night... Dead Girl... which aches to be a social satire a la Heathers while using the repeated rape of a dead/alive girl - who "looks like a porn chick" - as the central action conceit. Uhhhh... no. It's not as offensive as Hostel 2 because it is so much less professional and not nearly as smug. But it is pleased with itself and so was much of the audience last night... festival fever. If you stopped at any moment, like when the funny stoner dude who you like so much as a character happily grinds his hips, etc, into "dead girl," and think, "That young man is RAPING a living corpse that would kill him if she could," it just isn't that amusing. And the satire part is just not sharp enough to be worth the effort.

That's all for now... running... in the ran... ah, TIFF...