Seattlest at TIFF: Final Cut Pro

Well, after two full days of filmery, we made it back from Toronto in one piece, but not before seeing our last movie of the fest, Sean Penn's powerful adaptation of Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer's mega-selling non-fiction book about the insatiable wanderlust that led a young man to drop out of society, tramp around the country for two years, and ultimately die alone in middle-of-nowhere Alaska (for a more detailed summary, check out the paperback's cover).

The film is over two hours long (~140 minutes), but it's well-paced and moves along at a steady clip, so we won't begrudge it that. Emile Hirsch, as Chris McCandless, gives his all--so vital, since a great deal of the movie is just him in the wilderness, the film resting on his increasingly frail shoulders. Frail and how: by the end of the picture, Hirsch got down to 115 pounds, so he was in super-scary-cokedup-skinny starlet territory. When the film's other characters do show up, they're played by a solid ensemble cast, including Catherine Keener, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Vince Vaughn (in a typical Vaughn role, albeit more restrained), and dear old Hal Holbrook, in a supporting performance that shan't be forgotten come Oscar time. Into the Wild opens in Seattle September 28th.

A few more general thoughts about TIFF and Toronto: while we didn't love the festival the way we love Sundance (in a rabid, burning, these-are-my-people kind of way), TIFF certainly has its charm and a lot of great movies (and celebs) to boot. We're already on-board for next year's fest. As to Toronto itself, maybe we were just grossly uninformed before our trip, but we were totally impressed by the city. It's cosmopolitan, it's got great eats, its inhabitants are delightfully diverse, its drivers know how to drive and its pedestrians know how to pedester, its subway system is super-easy (and clean!) and even the buses ain't bad. In other words, it's a City. Sorry Seattle, we love you, but you're still a glorified town.