tiff 2008
Brad Pitt Successfuly Evacuated From Secure, Non-Burning Toronto Landmark
8:45AM STV | It wasn’t just the Lumenick/Ebert skirmish that took nearly a week to reach the states via specially trained Canadian gossip pigeons. Now we’re learning more about the fire that threatened Burn After Reading co-star Brad Pitt at his hotel in Toronto — or perhaps “threatened” is too strong a word. Maybe “damaged an adjacent complex while Pitt’s security detail freaked the fuck out” might be a little more on point, according to a report: More »
8:19AM Defamer Hollywood | TIFF Tiff Update! Via MCN, we’ve learned that Roger Ebert has posted to his blog regarding the now-notorious thwacking he received at the hands of NY Post critic Lou Lumenick. Titled “An Incident at Toronto,” Ebert confirms the NY Daily News account of the dustup, but adds that he wishes it had never been made public. “This whole matter was embarrassing, because it drew attention to me and invited pity, which makes me cringe…in one way I feel sorry for him. He had no idea who was behind him when he smacked me. Now it looked like he was picking on poor me. I have had my problems, but I promise you I am plenty hearty enough to withstand a smack, and quite happy, after the smack, to tap him again. I had to see those subtitles.” [Roger Ebert] More »
Recovering Roger Ebert Pummeled By Angry ‘NY Post’ Critic
5:00AM Defamer Hollywood | After a battle with thyroid and salivary gland cancer sidelined Roger Ebert and left him without part of his jawbone and unable to speak, he bravely returned to his post as film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times last year, an inspiring feat that could warm the hearts of anyone in the film industry. Anyone, that is, except gruff New York Post critic Lou Lumenick. According to the NY Daily News, both film critics found themselves at a Toronto Film Festival screening of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, though Lumenick wasn’t aware that he was sitting in front of Ebert, nor that he was blocking his view. Not long after the lights went down, Ebert tapped on Lumenick’s shoulder, soliciting a shouted, “Don’t touch me!” Ten minutes later, he tried again to the same response. That’s when things got ugly: More »
A Bathroom Attendant Etiquette Lesson With The Men Of ‘Che’
4:45AM STV | With his director newly flush after offloading Che during the Toronto Film Festival, did Benicio Del Toro defer to Steven Soderbergh’s tipping largesse during a shared men’s room visit? Is that the single stupidest question we’ve ever posed? Either way, there’s more, reports the National Post: More »
Today in Toronto Hell: Paris Shows, ‘Che’ Sells, Kevin Smith Wins a Crapfight
4:30AM STV | With most of the industry having seen what it came for and Jeremy Piven having released his date(s) back into the Canadian wild, the 2008 Toronto Film Festival is all but over. But, as befits the event’s stature, the whirlwind since our last Toronto Hell round-up deserves a closer look — from the Paris Hilton doc you’ll never see again to Kevin Smith literally keeping Zack and Miri’s shit together, enjoy the news others traveled thousands of miles for from the comfort of your own industrial slave galley:
Kate Beckinsale: ‘Journalists! They’re Just Like Us!’
7:40AM STV | The revisionist Judy Miller/Valerie Plame dramatization Nothing But the Truth has yet to find the traction its makers had hoped for in Toronto (”As a bitchy, comic/melodramatic woman’s picture on the order of All About Eve or The Women, Rod Lurie’s Nothing But The Truth is wildly entertaining,” wrote one critic. “Unfortunately for Lurie, I think it’s probably supposed to be a serious political parable about This Fix We Find Ourselves in Now”), but not all seems lost. Especially for journalists, a few of whom Kate Beckinsale shadowed in preparation for her role as the Miller-esque Rachel Armstrong, and with whom she drew a number of novel professional comparisons to actors Monday at Truth’s TIFF premiere. Like the one where we wait behind a barricade for 90 minutes to get 45 seconds with her? We know, we know — it’s uncanny! Learn more in the video after the jump. [AP] More »
Jeremy Piven’s Toronto Appearance Reportedly Implodes Canadian Niceness Levels
4:50AM STV | There’s only so much of the Toronto Film Festival’s flavor and clusterfucky pageantry we can deduce from our workstation deep in the Defamer Salt Mines, but until the State Department restores our passports to good standing and we get that furlough we’ve been promised since mid-2005, we’re happy to defer to our all-seeing operatives on the scene. One particularly attentive tipster writes today from the party honoring RocknRolla, Guy Ritchie’s trilogy-launching crime caper featuring Jeremy Piven as the manager of a junkie rock star/art thief/Mafia scion. Which was evidently beside the point once Piven arrived with his own drama, as our mole reports after the jump: More »
Today in Toronto Hell: Anne Hathaway’s Shoes, Michael Cera’s Backpack, Guy Ritchie’s Vision
9:05AM STV | The Toronto Film Festival is right about at its midway point — an essential milestone from which to take stock of noteworthy developments and drama that we couldn’t help but watch smolder from Defamer HQ. And while some of our principal plotlines either have yet to unwind (Paris and her doc show up tomorrow) or were resolved to our satisfaction (The Wrestler wins the fest’s distribution sweepstakes), there remains a bundle of loose ends requiring maintenance and attention from a distance. That’s Canada for you!
‘Wrestler’ Officially Headed For Oscar Push, Less Vulgar Promotional Art
3:50AM STV | After The Wrestler’s more-than-well-received premiere last week in Venice, where star Mickey Rourke was forewarned that Oscar would likely forbid his puppy onstage next February, word out of Toronto confirms that Darren Aronofsky’s drama was picked up over the weekend by the awards-season whizzes at Fox Searchlight. The sale went down for about $4 million and all but assures Rourke of a Best Actor nomination if not a win, similar to the arc following Searchlight’s push on Forest Whitaker’s behalf for The Last King of Scotland. So early congrats to him. But there’s still work to do, as we’ve discovered after the jump. More »
