MSN pays special attention to TIFF and all the programs and films this year.  But on page 2, there's some extra special love for the Midnight Madness program and Colin Geddes, who talks about a movie he's excited about:

"I'm really excited to show an Australian film called 'The Loved Ones,' that's a directorial debut by a young man named Sean Byrne. And that's one of the joys of being a film festival programmer: being able to showcase and champion a filmmaker that no one knows anything about. I mean, that's basically what happened with Eli Roth when we showed 'Cabin Fever' [in 2002], and I would describe 'The Loved Ones' as 'Misery' meets 'Carrie' meets 'Pretty in Pink' from Australia."

And there's some sound advice:

"Geddes advises you to talk to your fellow line members as you wait for films to get a sense of what they've loved, and maybe get a surprise. "I remember back in the day, 1990 or 1991, there was this one guy I kept seeing all the time who just looked like this hung-over reporter, and I saw him line up all the time," Geddes says. "And then, lo and behold, [writer-director Quentin Tarantino] got up onstage and introduced 'Reservoir Dogs.' You never know who you're gonna be beside. When you're in an audience for a film, you could be sitting beside the director, the director's mother, the producer or just some wonderful person who loves the same films as you do."

The Loved Ones screens at TIFF on: Sunday September 11, 11:59PM - RYERSON / Tuesday September 15, 3:30PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2 / Thursday September 17, 6:30PM - VARSITY 4

Ioncinema! profiles The Loved Ones director Sean Byrne. He talks about filmmaking, his favorite films and a little more about The Loved Ones.

"[I] woke up one morning thinking what if I fused Carrie and Evil Dead, bringing the Prom to the cabin and making its very traditions – the decorations, the dress up, the dancing and, of course, the crowning of the King and Queen – the instruments of torture. I got this image of a bloodied teenager in a tuxedo tied to a chair in the middle of a balloon littered floor. So then I started asking, who is this kid, why is he here and how’s he going to get out?"

He also talks a little bit about the film's eclectic influences from the fighting spirit of Rocky to the dreamy surrealism of David Lynch's films.

"In The Loved Ones, our damaged hero is dragged from the literal world into something vividly surreal. In a way it mixes the slick Bruckheimer/Simpson hero’s journey model with the surreal and subconscious elements you might expect from a Lynch film."

 

The Loved Ones screens at TIFF on: Sunday September 11, 11:59PM - RYERSON / Tuesday September 15, 3:30PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2 / Thursday September 17, 6:30PM - VARSITY 4

 

 

If you're a fan of surreal animated humor like Robot Chicken or 2005 madness selection The District! then check out A Town Called Panic. This press kit released before it screened at Cannes earlier this year has a plethora of information. Unfortunately large parts of the kit are in French so for those of you who are still afraid of all things from France because of Martyrs here are a few tidbits from an interview with directors Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar:

Animators they're compared to or influenced by: "...there are people whose creative universes really speak to us: Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park or Matt Groening's Futurama... the animation Terry Gilliam created for Monty Python's Flying Circus stands out for its shear fearless outrageousness..."

On what Aliens would think of human's if they watched their film: "... we think they'd assume we're slightly retarded or else absolute geniuses... [though] they'd conclude that this is the stupidest question they've ever heard."

A Town Called Panic screens Friday September 18 at 11:59 pm at the Ryerson and Saturday September 19 at 3:45 pm at the AMC 3.

FEARnet has an interview up with Daybreakers directors (and twin brothers), Peter and Michael Spierig, who previously brought Undead to Midnight Madness in 2002. They talk about vampire movies, their fears and how Daybreakers isn't influenced by I am Legend, the book or the movie at all.

"[T]he fact that we're doing a vampire movie is daunting, because there's so many of them out there. How do you do something that's different? And how do you make it more than just another b-movie, which the genre is? That's the big dilemma. We worked to try and do something different, which hopefully it is."

 Daybreakers screens at TIFF on:  Friday September 11, 11:59pm - RYERSON / Sunday September 13, 12:30pm SCOTIABANKTHEATER 2.

Our friends over at Homepageofthedead.com did a great interview with George A. Romero on George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead. The full interview is here (click on Speaking of the Dead: An Interview with George A Romero.)

A few tidbits (for those who stayed up too late to read the whole thing):

George's message this time out. "It's mainly about tribalism, which I think is what is screwing the world up - tribalism, nationalism, religion -people taking sides. All of my zombie films have had a little touch of that, but this is specifically about it."

For you gorehounds out there: "It's restrained compared to Day or Dawn... It certainly has more than Diary and there's one really sort of spectacular sequence, but we're worried whether the MPAA will allow it - where they pull a guy apart..."

And a message to the fans: "Basically what I want to say is forgive me... the biggest thing that bugs me is that fans want me to do either the last movie I did or do another Dawn or do another this or do another that - and that pisses me off! That's not what I'm about! I'm gonna make a movie, look at it, if you don't like it that's fine. If you like it, then I love it. In other words don't punish me because this was not as good as Dawn. This is what I'm thinking right now..."

George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead screens at TIFF on: Saturday September 12, 11:59PM - RYERSON  & Monday September 14, 12:30PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 2