12:00 AM, 15-SEPTEMBER-08
10 SF&F Films That Wowed Toronto
A lot of science fiction and fantasy films made their names at the Toronto International Film Festival, whose 2008 incarnation just wrapped.
This year, the festival screened 312 movies from 64 countries, with 249 first-time showings and more than 350,000 people attending. It's often considered the place where Oscar buzz begins, and it's where movies get incredibly good buzz, or fail miserably.
For SF fans, the festival is often the place genre movies first catch the attention of the general audience. It's where Darren Aronofsky offset a bit of negative buzz about his movie The Fountain. It's where Ang Lee first got serious Oscar buzz for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it's where Wes Craven's New Nightmare debuted and Clive Barker brought his Candyman, following that movie's opening with a wild party in an abandoned church.
Guillermo del Toro credits Toronto with discovering him in 1993 when he brought his vampire film Cronos to the festival. He later brought The Devils' Backbone, The Orphanage and his Oscar-winning Pan's Labyrinth to the festival. "I credit a lot of my career success to the notice I have received at the festival," del Toro said.
When Italian horror master Dario Argento brought his Stendhal Syndrome to Toronto in 1996, he was fascinated by the pure black squirrels in the park and later put them in his movies. "If I could, I would premiere every movie in Toronto," he said. "The people there know and appreciate all kinds of movies."
Animated hits such as Spirited Away, Persepolis, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit and other award winners first got shown in Toronto.
This year, more than two dozen films are genre-related, including Ghost Town, Deadgirl, Eden Log, Martyrs and Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms.
Based on my coverage of the festival since 1989, as well as chats with critics and film programmers, here are the top 10 science fiction/horror movies that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and why they were so significant, in chronological order.
1. Delicatessen (1991). This French cannibalism comedy that takes place in an apocalyptic world of the future. It was co-directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who went on to direct Alien: Resurrection, and Marc Caro, who did the SF thriller Dante 01.
2. Candyman (1992). Clive Barker wrote it, and Bernard Rose directed it, and it kept a lot of people from saying "candyman" in front of a mirror. The movie launched Tony Todd as the creepy guy in a host of scary movies, and it was a first big movie for Virginia Madsen, who would return to Toronto later with Sideways, which won her an Oscar nomination.
3. The Addiction (1995). Abel Ferrara shocked audiences with this gaggle of vampires, which included Lili Taylor and Christopher Walken, who said this role was more like him than anything he ever played.
4. Gamera 2: Region shurai (1996). No one, certainly not a mainstream film festival, takes these Godzilla knockoffs seriously, but when this made it into Toronto, distributors took another look. Director Shusuke Kaneko also directed Gamera and Mothra.
5. Gattaca (1997). This was the first movie by Danny DeVito's new production company, and it introduced co-stars Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, who were married for a while, and introduced the world to co-star Jude Law. It was also the debut film for Andrew Niccol, who's now scripting Brave New World.
6. Princess Mononoke (1999). This feature was America's first introduction to the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, who later brought Spirited Away to the festival and won the second best-animated-feature Academy Award ever given out.
7. Shadow of the Vampire (2000). Rarely does a vampire movie get an Oscar nod for acting, but after the buzz set up about Willem Dafoe as Schreck in this vampire drama, he got a best-supporting nomination.
8. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). Director and writer Don Coscarelli told SCI FI Wire that the interest and press he received for this horror comedy--about an elderly Elvis and JFK fighting monsters--generated more interest in reviving his successful Phantasm franchise. He brought Bruce Campbell to the festival, and fans chased them like rock stars.
9. Cabin Fever (2002). Audiences first shrieked at Eli Roth's fatal virus horror film in Toronto, and he became a hot director.
10. Gozu (2003). One of the most shocking series of visual images ever put in one movie, this Japanese cult film put director Takashi Miike on the map. He brought Sukiyaki Western Django to Toronto last year. There's a cow head, a rebirth and a yakuza attack dog in this Japanese film, which may never get remade into an American version, thankfully. --Mike Szymanski
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index...ory=3&id=59974
10 SF&F Films That Wowed Toronto
