By Jim Slotek, Linda Barnard, Thom Ernst, Karen Gordon, Kim Hughes, Liam Lacey, and Bonnie Laufer

The 46th annual Toronto International Film Festival continues! Tired yet? Our intrepid writers are screening countless films to offer best bets (and must-avoids) for your movie-watching time and money. Check back each day to catch a new crop of capsule reviews, interviews and more.

Need details on purchasing in-person tickets or streaming titles digitally? Go here.

And wondering why our content isn’t organized by date of first screening? It’s because we O-C kids are observing TIFF-imposed embargoes. Yeah, we’re good like that.

Oscar Peterson: Black + White (TIFF Docs)

Sun, Sept 12, 7:30 pm, Person, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Mon, Sept 13, 5 pm, Digital Premiere Screening, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Sat, Sept 18, 3 pm, Digital Premiere Screening, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Though clearly well-meaning and boosted by heaps of archival footage, director Barry Avrich’s documentary on late jazz legend Oscar Peterson is beset by digressions that range from tedious to ridiculous, notably a gratuitous but persistent sidebar featuring a bunch of Canuck musicians and ostensible fans, from Jackie Richardson to Measha Brueggergosman, in performance segments. Peterson’s music hardly needs supplementation. The piano great is better served by heartfelt testimonials from contemporaries Quincy Jones, Billy Joel, and Herbie Hancock. Winning biographical details (Art Tatum’s towering influence on Peterson’s technique, producer Norman Granz’s tireless cheerleading despite early skepticism) sustain the story and make it worthwhile viewing for fans despite the narrative flotsam. KH

Dune (Special Events)

Sun, Sept, 12, 7 pm, Canadian Satellite Screening, Cinéma Banque Scotia Montréal; Sun, Sept, 12, 7:30 pm. Cinesphere IMAX Theatre; Mon, Sept. 13, 8 pm, Scotiabank Theatre; Sat, Sept, 18, 8 pm, Cinesphere IMAX Theatre.

Beautifully shot, imaginatively realized, and with a narrative clarity that eluded David Lynch, Denis Villeneuve’s take on the Frank Herbert epic-doorstop novel benefits from being only half-told (this advertises itself as part one). The Star Wars inspirations are undeniable: a “chosen one” on a desert planet, a society of defenders possessed of a mind-bending power — the “Voice” instead of the “Force” and even an evil Emperor. But genre fans should be aware, this is pensive sci-fi action (the first real battle is an hour in), worth absorbing. A great cast is up to the task: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Stellan Skarsgård and Josh Brolin. JS

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Nuisance Bear (Short Cuts: YYZ Edition)

Digital screenings begin Mon, Sept 13 at 10 am.

The polar bear isn’t the nuisance in Canadian filmmakers Jack Weisman’s and Gabriela Osio Vanden’s 14-minute, day-in-the-life short Nuisance Bear. The narration-free short — which grew from five years spent filming and observing Churchill, Manitoba polar bears — opens with the snap-happy tourists who show up in Churchill each fall to get photos of the bears on their annual migration. With routes interrupted by human contact and climate change limiting the bear’s ability to hunt, how can it resist the smells from the well-locked town garbage dump? Conservation authorities must safely convince it to move on. But where to? Humans made this mess, yet the bear pays the price. LB

All My Puny Sorrows (Special Presentations)

Sun, Sept 12, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, available at 1 pm; Thurs, Sept 16, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, available at 9 pm; Fri, Sept 17, 7 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Michael McGowan (One Week) nicely translates Miriam Toews’ acclaimed novel, based on events in her own family, offering suicide as a debate of reasons to live versus reasons to die. The antagonists: Yoli (Alison Pill), a children’s writer whose life is fractured in numerous ways, and her sister Elf (Sarah Gadon), an internationally admired concert pianist. Counterintuitive or not, it’s the ultra-successful one who is on suicide watch. Pill and Gadon’s heartfelt give-and-take is the soul of the film, which drags in elements of their Mennonite upbringing and the previous suicide of their father (Donal Logue). Props also to Mare Winningham, who plays the weary mother of the existentially warring daughters. JS

Maria Chapdelaine (Contemporary World Cinema)

Thur, Sept 16, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, 5 pm.

Writer/director Sébastien Pilote’s is not the first adaptation of Louis Hémon’s 1913 novel (this is the fourth), but it’s the most visually stunning. Set in the early 1900s, Maria Chapdelaine — beautifully played by Sara Montpetit — lives with her family on a remote farm in northern Quebec. Their tidy home has no electricity or running water; in the winter, it’s cut off for periods of time from the outside world. This is a hard life of constant labour, with everyone except the littlest pitching in. And yet the family is close and loving. Maria, quiet and as beautiful as a Renaissance painting, is now of marrying age, and three suitors will vie for her attention during the film. Pilote aims for atmosphere here. In this gorgeous, quiet film, nothing is rushed. There isn’t a lot of dialogue. The superb cast effectively conveys their characters’ emotions in subtle ways. Pilote and cinematographer Michel La Veau have been meticulous. Every shot is beautifully set up and evocative of the era. Family dinners are eaten by lamplight, in semi-darkness. Wooden floors creak under foot. Winter has never looked so beautiful. KG

Inexorable (Special Presentations)

Thur, Sept. 16, 9 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

There’s an air of the familiar in this French dramatic thriller from writer-director Fabrice Du Welz (Alléluia) about a peculiar stranger who gradually inserts herself into a troubled family. Awkward 18-year-old Gloria (Alba Gaïa Bellugi) turns up just as celebrated novelist Marcel (Benoît Poelvoorde, Man Bites Dog) and his wife Jeanne (Mélanie Doutey) are moving into the crumbling French chateau owned by her late father and Marcel’s publisher. Daughter Lucie gets a dog but needs a friend. Jeanne needs help with “the kid” and the house. Marcel struggles with the sophomore curse following the success of his first novel, Inexorable, and his ego gets a good stroking when Gloria tells him she’s more than just a fan — his words changed her life. She seems a perfect helper for all of them, unrelenting in her mysterious campaign. The camera moves along dark hallways and secret places with gorgeous cinematography by Manu Dacosse. Du Welz builds tension and disruption in a variety of ways and Doutey is superb as the brittle and controlling Jeanne. LB

The Guilty (Special Presentations)

Sun, Sept 12, 3 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox; Mon, Sept 13, 9 pm, RBC Lakeside Drive-In at Ontario Place; Sat, Sept 18, 7 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Jake Gyllenhaal is electrifying as a hair-triggered LAPD cop demoted, ironically, to 911 duty in director Antoine Fuqua’s faithful remake of 2018 Danish thriller, Den skyldige. Then again, Gyllenhaal must be electrifying considering pretty much the whole movie rests on close-ups of his face screaming at disembodied voices on the phone. But oh, those voices. When an apparently abducted woman calls 911, Gyllenhaal’s Joe is quickly sucked into a confusing but fast-moving vortex of crime. But things are not as they appear and Joe — edgy as hell on the eve of a sensational trial that will impact his life and career — is in no condition to stage-manage a complex unfolding family crisis. Or is he? Not since Locke has a film with an actor and a phone been so gripping. KH

Listening to Kenny G (TIFF Docs)

Sun, Sept 12, 6 pm, Scotiabank Theatre.

You’ll never listen to the sultry sounds of Kenny G’s sax the same way again. The highest grossing instrumentalist in the world, Kenny Goralek is profiled in this informative and eye-opening documentary. G invented the category of smooth jazz with hits like “Songbird” and “Silhouette.” But he also became the poster boy of easy-listening music played in malls and elevators that his critics love to hate. Director Penny Lane takes us deep into G’s world by getting the musician to open up about his life while asking a much bigger question: what makes music good or bad? You can be the judge and after watching this doc, you might have an entirely different opinion. BL

The Middle Man (Special Presentations)

Sun, Sept 12, 4 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox; Mon, Sept 13, 5 pm, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Norwegian director Bent Hamer’s The Middle Man is as quirky as they come. Featuring an array of familiar Canadian talent, the dark comedy is set in Karmack, a small town in the American Midwest but actually shot in Sault Ste. Marie and Germany. The town is so economically depressed that it hires Frank Farrelli (Pål Sverre Hagen) as a middle man to deliver bad news to people because none of the residents can bear to do it themselves anymore. Based on Lars Saabye Christensen's 2012 novel Sluk, The Middle Man is so off the charts it actually works. Hamer's films are often difficult to describe and traditionally odd. However, one thing that's certain: they are full of delightful observations about people. The Middle Man does just that and it's fun to go along for the ride. BL

Are You Lonesome Tonight? (Contemporary World Cinema)

Sept. 12, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox, 9 pm; Wed. Sep 15, digital Tiff Bell Lightbox, 1 pm.

A contemporary Chinese film noir set in the province of Guangzhou, Are You Lonesome Tonight follows the guilt-ridden journey of air-conditioning repairman, Xueming (Taiwan star, Eddie Peng) after he runs over a pedestrian and dumps the body in a ditch. Later, he feels obliged to seek out the man’s widow (fellow Taiwan star, Sylvia Chang). From her, he gleans new information: His victim had already been shot, and a couple of goons are pressing the widow to pay back a missing bag of cash. Soon Xueming is chasing down leads while others — police and bad guys — are on his tail. There’s nothing especially original here, though first-time director Wen Shipei bolsters this thin narrative set-up with oodles of woozy atmosphere, using voice-over, dream sequences, time shifts, washes of light and a nerve-jangling mix of electronic and string music. LL

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