On Thursday night, film execs, stars and media will pack the red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall for the opening night gala of the Toronto International Film Festival. As is tradition, TIFF has picked one film to start the festivities. Last year, Creation, the yawn-inducing Charles Darwin biopic, was given the honour. This year’s choice is the oh-so Canadian Score: A Hockey Musical, starring none other than Olivia Newton-John. In Saturday’s Globe, Rick Groen pondered whether Score is the worst movie to ever open the film festival. His answer? Probably.
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Score: A Hockey Musical is probably the worst film to ever open TIFF
The Big Chill, Water, Fly Away Home and more: we rate TIFF’s best and worst opening night films
Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany at the premiere of Creation in 2009 (Image: James Helmer)
This year, the Toronto International Film Festival will open with the homegrown Score: A Hockey Musical, which stars Olivia Newton-John and boasts a bunch of cameos from our countrymen (Nelly Furtado, George Stroumboulopoulos). We’re waiting to see if the film will be corny-awesome or corny-awful. In the meantime, we’ve gathered the most spectacular opening night failures and successes in TIFF history to see how they fared after the festival. Begin the slide show now >>
TIFF opening night film to feature jazz hands and hockey pucks
Three people you'd never thought you'd see together: Noah Reid, Margaret Atwood and Olivia Newton-John are all in Score: A Hockey Musical
The Toronto International Film Festival’s opening act has been announced: Score: A Hockey Musical. The selection is a welcome change from last year’s decision to open with something not Canadian and not interesting (Creation, the Charles Darwin biopic-snoozefest). Score features a whack of unusual homegrown stars, such as this list of non-actors: Nelly Furtado, Hawksley Workman, George Stroumboulopoulos, Dave Bidini (from the Rheostatics), Evan Solomon and—wait for it— Margaret Atwood, who plays herself. Noah Reid, currently hard at work on the Soulpepper stage in Jitters, plays the 17-year old protagonist catapulted to hockey celebrity by his decidedly non-athletic parents Olivia Newton-John and Marc Jordan.
The Star‘s Martin Knelman also leaked that on September 12—the Sunday after the opening—there will be a premiere of the highly anticipated film adaptation of Mordecai Richler‘s Barney’s Version.
• Knelman: TIFF chooses hockey musical for opening night [Toronto Star]
(Images: Newton-John, Alan Light; Atwood, Q TV; Reid, Gary Goddard Agency)
Julie Christie plays the Cheshire cat at the Glorious 39 press conference
Julie Christie at the press conference for Glorious 39 (Photo by Karon Liu)
We couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Dynasty‘s Alexis Colby when veteran actor Julie Christie (Cheshire cat grin, ’80s earrings) spoke about Glorious 39, Stephen Poliakoff’s World War II thriller, at the press conference for the film.
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RED CARPET INTERVIEW: We talk to Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany on the red carpet
We talk to Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany and other figures as they make their way to TIFF’s opening gala, Creation.•
See our photo gallery of the Creation premiere>>
See all our exclusive interviews on the TIFF.TO video page>>
Jennifer Connelly is torn apart by bigwig exec but exacts her revenge flawlessly
Connelly at the Creation premiere last night (Photo by Karon Liu)
Jennifer Connelly was literally ripped apart by Astral Media bigwig John Riley for failing to show at his gala yesterday—when announcing her non-presence, he held up a picture of her and tore it in two—but she had excuses to make this morning. Or was it revenge to take? And after her heart-wrenching explanation, we imagine he’s feeling like a rather outsized asshole.
At this morning’s Creation press conference, Connelly interrupted the film talk to deliver a personal message to Riley: “I just have to say, we did go to to your party, and I would have loved to stay longer, but it was,” a fragile, struggling pause here, “the first anniversary of my father’s death.” She eked out a few more words, but then sprang the tears. With obvious difficulty, she blinked them away. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “I’m sorry.”
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Jennifer Connelly hits the Rosewater Supper Club, where no one cares about the movies
We get it, she’s thin (Photo by Attit Patel)
Lesson learned on festival Day One: stop trying to make film discussion happen. It’s not going to happen! Shut up and down your sauvignon, you silly thing.
At the Rosewater Supper Club’s annual TIFF-off—a welcome cocktail for stars and suits (5 per cent former, 95 per cent latter)—the chatter is about how tiny, twiggy even, Jennifer Connelly looks in real life. Really? We haven’t learned this about actresses by now?
After Connelly’s in-and-out, we’re drawn to the next most photogenic face in the room. It happens to be possessed by a soap starlet, one Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, or Steffy Fraser on The Bold and the Beautiful. We’ve never seen the show, but her type of preternatural, pouty symmetry is snap-recognizable. Jacquie tells us she’s here to “enjoy everything the festival has going on, and maybe see some movies, too.” Like? “Well, I wanted to see this one”—this one being the night’s gala premiere, Creation—“but then…” She trails off, lifting a glass of wine.
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Missing links at Creation premiere
Crowds at Roy Thomson Hall muster up some curiosity about Paul Bettany (Photo by Karon Liu)
The opening night gala of TIFF comes with a disproportionate amount of giddy journos and fans, all bending over the metal barricades at Roy Thomson Hall in loopy anticipation. Last night, however, the buildup to the stars’ arrival was more amusing than the two minutes Creation stars (and real-life husband and wife) Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly spent on the red carpet.
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PHOTO GALLERY: Creation opening night gala at Roy Thomson Hall with Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany
Jennifer Connelly greets fans at the world premiere of Creation, the opening gala of the Toronto International Film Festival 2009, at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo by Karon Liu)
The Toronto International Film Festival 2009 kicked off last night with the evening premiere of John Amiel‘s Creation, a British (and notably not Canadian) biopic about Charles Darwin. The stars of the film—real-life husband and wife Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany—took a glitzy stroll down the red carpet at Roy Thomson Hall and we were there.
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- Jennifer Connelly greets fans at the world premiere of Creation, the opening gala of the Toronto International Film Festival 2009, at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo by Karon Liu)
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- Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany pose for photographers at the world premiere of Creation, the opening gala of the Toronto International Film Festival 2009, at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo by Karon Liu)
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- Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany pose for photographers at the world premiere of Creation, the opening gala of the Toronto International Film Festival 2009, at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo by Karon Liu)
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- Paul Bettany greets fans at the world premiere of Creation, the opening gala of the Toronto International Film Festival 2009, at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo by Karon Liu)
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- Paul Bettany greets fans at the world premiere of Creation, the opening gala of the Toronto International Film Festival 2009, at Roy Thomson Hall (Photo by Karon Liu)
Me and you and nobody else we know: How to score 96 hours alone with Danny Boyle
Tilda offers her star power to the TIFF Talent Lab (Photo by Attit Patel)
What’s a film freak gotta do to get locked in a room with Danny Boyle for four days? Win a spot in TIFF’s Talent Lab, that’s what. The Lab is a six-year old festival program, wherein 25 aspiring filmmakers are hand-picked and then guided through four intensive days of workshops, networking and good, old-fashioned gabbing with as many hot-shit industry insiders as TIFF execs wrangle. Yesterday we attended the 2009 Talent Lab launch, where this year’s picks gathered to find out exactly who TIFF execs could lay their hands on.
The answer: pretty much anyone they want. Besides drop-in guests like Tilda Swinton and Jane Campion, Labbers will benefit from the tutelage of four main “governors,” who volunteer for the entire 96-hour stint: Mr. Slumdog himself, hipster jack-of-all-trades Miranda July, Blindness writer/star Don McKellar and John Collee, the Aussie screenwriter who penned Creation, this year’s opening film.
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Celeb-spotting warm-up: let the speculation begin
TIFF bound? Tina Fey stars in The Invention of Lying (Photo by George Arriola)
No celebrity’s attendance at TIFF has been officially confirmed, but yesterday’s announcement of opening galas and special presentations gives us a good idea of who’s expected to venture to Toronto in September. Here’s a quick breakdown of which movies are being screened and which stars we expect to see milling about Yorkville 50 days hence.
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