It’s technically day two of the festival, but seeing as I didn’t get to Toronto until midnight on Thursday (and seeing as I’m endlessly narcissistic), I’m going to start counting with Friday instead. In between tracking down my lost luggage and re-learning my way around Toronto’s downtown core, I did manage to check out five movies. There’s no easing your way in here – for TIFF, you’ve just got to jump right in.

BURN AFTER READING (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

    The poster for this one just displays the names of the heavy-hitter cast, and wisely so. With George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and Coen muse Frances McDormand, things like plot and setting are easy to ignore. The Coens wrote the script with the specific actors in mind, and cater to their individual strengths so much that the actors could’ve done these roles in their sleep. Make no mistake, though – the performances are universally excellent in this tale of morons blackmailing a canned CIA agent.

    Fortunately, it being a Coen bros. movie and all, the script is also loaded with surprises, darkly comic twists, and a concluding punch-line that’s perfectly bitter and entirely appropriate. It’s a little light after the masterwork of No Country for Old Men, but it’s none the worse for it.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (dir. Ji-woon Kim)

    A thorough mess of a film, but a wonderful mess. This Korean flick tries to be a Western, a gangster flick, a heist movie and an epic chase (at one point, the hero is chased by a bounty hunter, a vicious gang, a Mongol-style horde and the entire Japanese army), and though the result can’t be called coherent, it’s damned entertaining. Ji-woon Kim infuses the film with spastic energy and immaculate comic timing, but his occasional stabs at pathos fall flat. Still, the wire-heavy battle scenes are an amazing mix of eastern and western influences, and the film’s ridiculousness is sure to delight fans of Video Vulture weirdness.

OCEAN FLAME (dir. Fendou Liu)

    This Hong Kong-based sort-of-romance left me a little flat. After an introduction that’s nearly incoherent, it reveals itself as the story of an abusive relationship between a somewhat naïve, somewhat masochistic waitress and con artist/pseudo-pimp Wang Yao who loves and hates her. The waitress’ decent into Wang Yao’s criminal world is undeniably harrowing, and the performances are strong, but the story takes far too long to make its point.

WITCH HUNT (dir. Don Hardy Jr. and Dana Nachman)

    Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the story from the filmmaking. Witch Hunt documents the overzealous prosecution of alleged child molesters in Bakersfield, California, which led to nearly three dozen arrests, nearly all of which have been overturned. It’s a deeply troubling story, particularly when the prosecution starts making up tales of satanic rituals and vast conspiracies – all of which makes the documentary’s title entirely appropriate. The trouble comes from Dana Nachman’s writing, which is heavy-handed and overly saccharine – and sounds doubly so coming from Sean Penn. Still, interviews with the victims of the accusations, one of whom spent over 20 years in jail, are consistently captivating.

EDISON AND LEO (dir. Neil Burns)

    Be warned – despite its kids-movie trappings and stop-motion animation, Edison and Leo contains more decapitations, brutal murders and visible erections than most parents will likely be comfortable with. George T. Edison is an inventor more concerned with personal glory than bettering mankind. After a bizarre set of circumstances leads to his wife’s death and the electrification of his son, Leo, you’d think he’d learn his lesson. Nope – he’s entirely irredeemable, and his self-centredness leads to resentment and multiple attempts on his life. The difference in tone between the opening narration and the remainder of the film is stark, but once you accept the movie’s darkness, it becomes something of a fascination.

    Tomorrow: The new Danny Boyle and some extremely dry British humour.