It’s definitely a different Toronto International Film Festival than usual, with a couch and a Keurig taking the place of theater seats and a coffeehouse stop.
In a year when everything in the movie industry has had to scramble amid COVID-19, Toronto (running through Sept. 19) is the biggest of the A-list film festivals to go virtual, with a reduced slate of movies for an event that’s considered one of the biggest kickoffs for Oscar season. Still, you can’t ignore its cache, even in a very strange 2020: The last five best-picture winners all played Toronto, so it might be the place that (at least virtually) launches, say, Chloe Zhao’s road drama “Nomadland” (starring Frances McDormand) or Francis Lee’s lesbian romance “Ammonite” (with Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan) into Academy Awards consideration.
Never been to a film festival before? Thanks to COVID, they’re more accessible than ever
First ‘Ammonite’ trailer: Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet kiss, fall in love in Francis Lee’s drama
Like last year but with way more WiFi involved, we’re going to be keeping readers up to date with reaction to all the major films and hidden gems we’re seeing. (And, yep, because we love to rank things, we’re doing that, too.)
Jude Law stars as a Londoner who finds himself on an English island where the townsfolk have some serious strange customs in HBO’s psychological-thriller miniseries “The Third Day.”
10. ‘The Third Day’
Watching only the first and fourth parts of a six-hour HBO horror/mystery miniseries is indeed a puzzling endeavor. What “The Third Day,” premiering at the fest before dropping on HBO Sept. 14, does do well is tease creepy atmospherics and an island that plays like the British version of that “Midsommar” nightmare locale. Sam (Jude Law) saves a suicidal girl and takes her back to her island home, where a weird summer festival is going on, while Helen (Naomie Harris) takes a trip there with her daughters but has come for other reasons than a vacation. With an online theatrical element planned as well, “Third Day” at least offers a decent start to a high-concept fright fest.
Jessica Barden plays a teen in a working-class Ohio town weighing plans for the future in the drama “Holler.”
9. ‘Holler’
Executive produced by Paul Feig and written and directed by former Marine Nicole Riegel, the bleak working-class narrative showcases elements of crime thriller and coming-of-age drama. Jessica Barden impresses as Ruth, a smart teen girl who tries to raise enough money to go to college – and escape her Southern Ohio hometown – by joining a sketchy scrapyard crew with her older brother (Gus Halper). With their mom (Pamela Adlon) in jail, they steal metal from shut-down factories and plants by night. and when the situation becomes dangerous, Ruth has to weigh a potentially bright future vs. staying put with her family.
A scrappy group has to fight their way out of a zombie-infested government building in the Taiwanese horror comedy “Get the Hell Out.”
8. ‘Get the Hell Out’
Do you appreciate pro wrestling, oddball romances, zombie apocalypses, “Three Stooges” slapstick, kung fu flicks, and just buckets and buckets of blood? Well, throw that all in a blender and hit the “wacky” button for this Taiwanese horror comedy. Kicked out of parliament because of her two-fisted political style, Hsiung (Megan Lai) wants to stop a toxic plant from overrunning her home and enlists lovesick security guard Wang (Bruce Ho) to be her dude on the inside. A rabies virus gets loose in the government building, turning victims into the red-eyed undead, so our heroes have to fight their way out in a situation that proudly grows exponentially more ridiculous by the minute.
Naomi Watts stars as a paralyzed woman who mothers a magpie back to health as she recovers as well in “Penguin Bloom.”
7. ‘Penguin Bloom’
Down Under melodrama is in store for this film that, if nothing else, will have you fully and emotionally invested in a magpie. Naomi Watts stars as athletic Australian mom Sam who suffers a freak-accident fall off a roof and is left paralyzed from the chest down after a broken back. Her way back from a depressive state begins when one of her three boys takes in an injured bird. Named Penguin, the family’s new feathered friend wins over the whole family (including Andrew Lincoln as a doting dad). Sam takes a key role in nursing the bird, and both Penguin and Sam navigate a shared journey of taking wing again in their own ways.
Alma Pöysti stars as Tove Jansson in “Tove,” a biopic about the Finnish artist’s work and love life.
6. ‘Tove’
Think “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” with comic-strip characters and you get this immersive biopic about Finnish artist Tove Jansson (Alma Pöysti). At the end of World War II in Helsinki, dance-happy Tove works to be a painter and carries on an affair with a married politician (Shanti Roney) but falls for hard for well-to-do theater director Vivica Bandler (Krista Kosonen). Tove’s passion for Vivica remains strong even though her love is fleetingly requited in the ensuing years, as the artist’s side project “The Moomins” – inspired by cartoons she drew for children in bunkers during the wars – becomes an international hit.
Aris Servetalis stars as an amnesiac on a path of self-discovery in the Greek dramedy “Apples.”
5. ‘Apples’
Greek director Christos Nikou’s feature debut is an allegorical dramedy with a timely bent. During a global pandemic causing sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) wakes up on a bus not knowing who he is. He enters a strange “New Identity” program that puts him through various challenges – go to a strip club, wreck a car – so Aris can create new life moments and take a Polaroid to capture them. He meets a woman (Sofia Georgovassili) also in “recovery,” though the truth of Aris’ past is gradually revealed in a thoughtful story about self-discovery and selective memory.
David Byrne (center) is host, frontman and ringmaster of “American Utopia,” a filmed version of the Broadway show directed by Spike Lee.
4. David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’
Spike Lee masterfully directs this filmed version of the former Talking Heads frontman’s Broadway show, an abstract and happy-go-lucky paean to empathy, love and human connection backed by a multicultural marching band of instrumentalists and dancers wearing his signature look (gray suit, bare feet). Byrne performs new wave tunes, funky jams and even a Janelle Monae protest song, gives a science lesson on brains and name-drops Brian Eno before launching into a number “using nonsense to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense.” It’s a feel-good hour and 45 minutes that shows Byrne, 68, still strong of voice and possessing the physical dexterity of a yoga instructor.
President Barack Obama (left) walks along the West Colonnade of the White House with chief White House photographer Pete Souza, the subject of the documentary “The Way I See It.”
3. ‘The Way I See It’
You can’t throw a ball without hitting a new political documentary these days, but the new film about former White House photographer Pete Souza, who took breathtaking and candid shots of ex-presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, is one of the more emotional. While it looks at a wowing portfolio, the film also tackles Souza as an accidental social-media star who earned the nickname “king of shade” when he started Instagramming his pictures of Obama to troll President Trump’s tweets. “This is a serious job being the president,” Souza says in the doc. “I’m going to do what I can to make sure people remember that.”
Frances McDormand stars as a woman who lives the RV life on the road after the loss of her husband and town in “Nomadland.”
2. ‘Nomadland’
Zhao’s drama focuses on Baby Boomers who hit the road for an unconventional life in vans and RVs after the Great Recession of the 2000s. Turning in a reserved but splendid performance, McDormand stars as Fern, a 61-year-old who, after her husband died and their Nevada town went belly up, now goes where the work is – be it an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Nebraska or a food-service gig at South Dakota’s tourist-friendly Wall Drug Store – and forms a mobile family with fellow nomads. They take care of each other and give tips on stealth parking as well as the best buckets to double as portable toilets, and because she’s also cast real-life people who embrace this existence, Zhao’s film oozes authenticity.
Leslie Odom Jr. (far left) stars as Sam Cooke, Eli Goree plays Cassius Clay, Kingsley Ben-Adir is Malcolm X and Aldis Hodge is Jim Brown in Regina King’s feature directorial debut “One Night in Miami.”
1. ‘One Night in Miami’
Regina King’s amazing feature directorial debut is simply one of the best movies of the year. “One Night,” Kemp Powers’ adaptation of his stage play, imagines the conversations had by four Black icons (and friends) – boxer Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), football superstar Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), civil-rights activist Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and soul singer Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.) – the night a 22-year-old Clay won the heavyweight title in 1964. The acting is outstanding across the board, and King’s greatest feat is showing these larger-than-life figures as wholly human, talking, laughing and arguing about race, religion, power and their own insecurities.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Nomadland’: The best movies we saw at Toronto Film Festival
