Jeff's 15 Most Anticipated Films of TIFF 2010

The final titles of the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2010 lineup were announced today. Here are the fifteen films that I’m most eager to see:

22nd of May
The new film by Koen Mortier looks to be kinder and gentler than his first film, Ex-Drummer, which was a brilliantly dark comedy. Either way, I can’t wait to see it!

A Horrible Way to Die
The new film from Pop Skull director, Adam Wingard is about an escaped convict in search of his ex-girlfriend who has run away to try and start a new life. Like with 22nd of May, the strength of Wingard’s last film would be enough to have me excited about this, but more reasons to be excited are that it stars Joe Swanberg and AJ Bowen, and is written by Simon Barrett.

Boxing Gym
Probably the best documentary filmmaker in the biz, Frederick Wiseman is back at TIFF for a second consecutive year, with a documentary about a boxing gym (did you guess that?) in Austin, Texas.

Burke and Hare
A new John Landis film?! A new John Landis film about grave robbers, starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Isla Fisher, Christopher Lee, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry, and Jenny Agutter!?!?! GIMME!! EDIT: Burke and Hare is no longer appearing on the TIFF website.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Werner Herzog has made a 3D film. It’s a documentary about cave drawings.

Cold Fish
Sion Sono’s epic, Love Exposure, was one of the best films of last year, so I’ve got high expectations for his new serial killer flic. High expectations which I’m pretty confident will be met.

Confessions
When a middle-school teacher’s four year-old daughter is killed, becomes convinced that two students in her class are responsible and decides to take her revenge. This total 180 from the director of Memories of Matsuko, Tetsuya Nakashima, was a huge hit in Japan, and that it’s playing TIFF after already having its North American/International Premiere at the NYAFF is a sign of quality.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
New Tsui Hark! Starring Andy Lau! That’s all I need to know.

I Saw the Devil
Kim Ji-Woon, the director of The Good, The Bad, The Weird returns to horror with a film starring Oldboy’s Choi Min-sik and TGTBTW’s Lee Byung-hun.

Jack Goes Boating
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a guy who’s setup on a date by friends. The first date goes well enough to warrant a second. Hoffman then makes plans to make that date the best date ever. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?! This is also Hoffman’s directorial debut.

The Last Circus
Set in the Spanish civil war, two clowns feud over the same woman in this dark comedy directed by Alex de la Iglesia. Sounds good to me.

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
Donnie Yen, Anthony Wong, and Shu Qi! Watch the teaser.

Norwegian Wood
I really like the Murakami book this is based on, so let’s see if the film does it justice.

Super
Finally, James Gunn! It’s been way too long since Slither came out. Rainn Wilson stars as a man whose wife (Liv Tyler) leaves him for a drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), so he takes up crime fighting. Also starring Ellen Page as a young fan of Wilson’s crime fighting work who wants to team up and be his sidekick. With Gunn’s dark sense of humour, I predict great times.

Vanishing on 7th Street
I’m keeping myself in the dark about this one after having watched the excellent teaser trailer. Brad Anderson’s Session 9 is one of the best horror films of the last decade, and this looks like an excellent addition to his filmography.

So yeah… Blah, blah, blah. Those are the fifteen films I’m most excited for. It was hard to narrow it down to just fifteen. It could easily have been twice as long.