Anton Sirius previews Toronto!!! Expect Coverage Soon!!!

Hey folks, Harry here - and as I do before every Toronto Film Festival for basically the last decade or so, I'm introducing Anton Sirius and his preview of the greater glory of that small Canadian film festival that just tends to whup most everyone else's asses... But I am also here to tell you that Copernicus will be back covering Toronto - as is Cartuna (our animator / but what he really wants to do is write reviews )... But also to say, even though we have 3 folks on the ground at Toronto's fest - the reason we do a pretty great job each year covering this is because of folks like you. Year after year, significantly cool films from countries all over the planet, tiny films, big films... all manners of films play and we want to hear about as many as possible. So if you have the inclination, we'd love to hear from you throughout the fest - Send your reviews to the Harry at AintItCool.Com email address and all the AICN editors will get it and we'll be able to get it posted faster. And now... here's ANTON SIRIUS... Our man toughing the frozen tundra without being mounted by mounties...

Greetings, starkinder! With the Toronto International Film Festival just a couple of days away I thought I’d give you a peek at some of the films I have on my radar. In little apparent order, here’s what coming. The Midnight Madness lineup: Opening Night features Jennifer's Body, written by Diablo Cody of Juno fame. Megan Fox is a cheerleader who is possessed by a demon and eats people. 'Nuff said. Panique au Village seems to be some sort of Belgian riff on Toy Story. Rick Jacobson, best known for directing a bunch of Xena episodes, has made what appears to be a Russ Meyer film for the 21st century, Bitch Slap. By a strange coincidence Lucy Lawless, Renee O'Connor and Kevin Sorbo all make cameos or supporting appearances. The Spierig brothers, who brought their first film Undead to Midnight a few years ago, return with Daybreakers -- a film with a much bigger cast, but a premise (vampires rule the earth!) just as silly. Romero's back again, with his latest zombie opus Survival of the Dead. We’re getting some little Aussie thing called The Loved Ones, which Colin the Midnight Madness programmer describes as "a wild mash-up of Pretty in Pink and Misery". Tony Jaa directs Ong Bak 2. If you need any more than that to sell you on the flick, you are beyond salvation. The original Spanish team behind [REC] returns for a sequel, imaginatively titled [REC] 2. Someone has the balls to try and turn Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane into a movie, and they've assembled a hell of a cast to do it: James Purefoy (Mark Antony from Rome) as Kane, Max von Sydow as his father, Alice Krige, Pete Postlethewaite, and Rachel Hurd-Wood. And the Closing Night flick is Symbol, from Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (who brought Dainipponjin to Midnight a couple of years ago). I literally have no idea what it's about. The rest: Vengeance - Johnnie To directing a reformed-hitman-revenge flick is cool enough, but the reformed hitman in question is played by... Johnny Hallyday. Sweet! Valhalla Rising – Mads “The Best Actor in Europe” Mikkelsen, re-unites with Pusher trilogy director Nicolas Winding Refn for some sort of crazy-ass Viking fantasy epic. If I'm not in the audience for the first festival screening of this it means I've up and died, and believe you me God will get an earful for yanking me off this earth before I got a chance to watch it. Life During Wartime - new Todd Solondz! Enter the Void - new Gaspar Noe! Hipsters - this looks to be some sort of Russian Dennis Potter riff and could be interesting, although I'm usually suspicious of Russian flicks. Werner Herzog has inexplicably made a sequel to (and/or re-make of... it's hard to tell) Bad Lieutenant, this one set in New Orleans and with Nic Cage instead of Harvey Keitel. There is a very good chance that this will be the funniest movie of the entire festival. Capitalism: A Love Story - Michael Moore's latest, because Moore always brings his movies to TIFF. This one's about capitalism. Boo capitalism! A Serious Man - the new film from the Coens gets its world premiere. Shockingly, it's a period comedy, which would be a radical change of pace for the Coens. Yes, that was sarcasm. Whip It - Drew Barrymore makes her directorial debut with a roller derby comedy starring Ellen Page. Micmacs - new Jeunet! Up In the Air - new Jason Reitman! The Hole - new Joe Dante? Really? Dil Bole Hadippa! - Bollywood cross-dressing cricket comedy. That’s so crazy it just might work. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - Gilliam! Ledger! Depplawfarrell! Lily “The Most Beautiful Woman on the Planet” Cole! The Road - Viggo “The Best Actor in Hollywood” Mortensen stars in the Cormac McCarthy adaptation, directed by Proposition director John Hillcoat, which strikes me as a brilliant hire to try and make a somewhat unfilmable book screen-worthy. Agora - Alejandro Amenabar returns after a five year break, and Rachel Weisz plays an Egyptian astronomer trying to save the Library at Alexandria from rampaging hordes of Christians, or something like that. I'm sure the metaphoric possibilities will be endless. The Men Who Stare At Goats - Ewan McGregor and George Clooney make fun of conspiracy theories, and/or theorists. Antichrist - new von Trier! God help us all. This one looks like his version of a horror film. Mr. Nobody - A noodly bit of French sci-fi starring Jared Leto that could be interesting. Under the Mountain - Black Sheep director Jonathan King returns with an adaptation of the Kiwi kid's classic. I’m sure there will also be a bunch of tiny unheralded flicks that catch my attention too (I didn’t even mention Chris Rock’s documentary about hair, for instance) but those 30 will do for starters.