Midnight Madness Blog

Bloody Disgusting reported today that JT Petty, director of The Burrowers is going to be working very soon on a film for Dark Sky Films and Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix entitled, There's No Place Like Home.  I'm glad JT's getting back behind the camera so quickly.  I'll see anything he makes at this point. Check out the full story (more...)
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Tonight's the last night of TIFF, which means the final night of Midnight Madness.  The closing night film is often the one that packs the most punch.  It's the ticket you should buy without even knowing what it is.  Just trusting that it'll blow you away.  Last year's closing film was A l'interieur.  This year it's Chocolate, the new film from the director of Ong-Bak.  If that doesn't excite you, there's a free screening of the People's Choice Award winner at the Elgin tonight that I'm sure you're bound to love. Chocolate is sold... (more...)

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I'm risking missing Acolytes' last screening in order to write this quickly, but I'm stunned that nobody's chimed in yet about how stunning Franck (sic) Vestiel's Eden Log is. Screening last night for the first time in North America, but having played a bit around the rest of the world during 2008, the think I kept hearing was how slow, cold, and uninvolving it was.  Prepared for the worst, I made sure I was well rested and ready for a slow film.  From the film's first image until  its last, I was completely riveted. ... (more...)

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This just in from Jon Hewitt (director of Acolytes)!   The leads of ACOLYTES are teenagers - Hanna 16, Seb 17 and Josh 18 - but it was a shock for me when I said we were gonna shoot some scenes in a drive-in and they said "wha?" They didn't know what I was talking about! For someone who grew up in the 60s and 70s in Australia, the drive-in was a regular place of worship and transcendence much better than church. At least once a fortnight we'd load up the FC Holden station wagon with pillows and blankets and Mum, Dad and... (more...)

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The North American premiere of JCVD (the opening night film of Midnight Madness) has now happened and I'm willing to bet there's a lot of people out in the city right now, still talking about it.   The things you've read are true.  Jean-Claude displays some impressive acting chops, it's one heck of a gooooooooood lookin' movie, and has a handful of scenes that are going to stick with audiences for a long time.  Not just the well documented by now monologue scene where Jean-Claude lays it all out.  The opening action sequence was the... (more...)

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The director of 2006 Midnight Madness’ S&Man, JT Petty returns to Toronto this year and to Midnight to screen his latest film; the horror-western, The Burrowers.  JT agreed to let me ask him some questions for the blog.  Here they are with his answers.   JW = Jeff Wright (that’s me)JTP = JT Petty   JW- The Burrowers is as much a western as it is a horror film.  At any point while writing or editing, did you consider making it seem like they actually were after Indians until the... (more...)

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It’s always exciting when a director returns to Midnight Madness with his new film.  Takashi Miike’s premiered so many of his films in the program since Fudoh in ’97 that I’ve lost count, Christopher Smith returned in ’06 with Severance after Creep played just two years before, Dario Argento returned last year for a fourth time with Mother of Tears, and the list of returned directors goes on and on including Shinya Tsukamoto, Johnnie To, Peter Jackson, Tsui Hark, Wilson Yip, and Scott Reynolds.   This year’s... (more...)

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The Midnight Madness program was started and programed by Noah Cowan in 1988.  Cowan programed Midnight Madness until 1997 when he brought aboard current MM programmer Colin Geddes to co-program and then take over the program the next year.  Cowan climbed the TIFF ladder to the position of co-director, and as of this year is now the artistic director of the Bell Lightbox.   I excitedly asked Noah some questions about the origins of Midnight Madness, its growth, his favourite MM memories, AND MORE.  Check out the interview below.   JW = Jeff Wright NC = Noah Cowan ... (more...)

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For my money, the best Midnight Madness screening happened in the Uptown 1 on September 16th, 2000.  Note: Any date that I write in my blog posts will have been researched.  I’m not the rain man of Midnight Madness.  I didn’t know much about the film in advance.  I knew that it was a Japanese film by a first time director with a background in music videos.  I knew it featured a rock band called Guitar... (more...)

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JEAN-CLAUDE...VAN DAMME!! The star of Double Impact has a film at TIFF this year.  Colin’s already written about it but I’m sure some people are still in disbelief.  Click on this link (note the tiff08.ca domain to authenticate it as real information), read it, and come back to this page. www.tiff08.ca/filmsandschedules/films/jcvd Now say to yourself or to the person nearest you, 'The star of Lionheart has a film at TIFF this year.' In JCVD, Van Damme stars as himself in a story that’s loosely based on his recent years out of the spotlight and the personal and financial troubles...

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