2. Check out my brilliant brother-in-law's ginormous article in Toronto's Xtra magazine!

3. [Thanks to Famous Brother for the previous links and the following reviews from the film fest] "We only saw two fillums this year at the fest, and the first more than made up for the second. "Ballets Russes" is a documentary about the post-Diaghilev company, and it's incredible. They interviewed every single surviving dancer, and had tons of footage from the 30s and 40s and on. It's so rare to see ballet on video from any era, but that far back was a treat. Plus, we got to meet Freddie Franklin, who was a principal with the company as well as with New York City Ballet, 91 years old and running up stairs. We were ecstatic all day. Until nine o'clock, when our next film started. 

"Breakfast on Pluto" is by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) and stars Cillian Murphy, who is suddenly everywhere. Wow bad. It's a coming-of-age story set in Ireland during the Troubles. Ryan and I spent the first half of the movie trying to figure out where Cillian had cribbed the accent for his nelly young homo character, and turned to each other in a Eureka moment: "Mrs. Doubtfire!" But breathier, dearie. No, breathier. No, breathier. So you can't actually hear anything that he says. Dearie. It also has the kind of soundtrack that accompanies the protagonist's searching-for-real-birth- mother-montage with a song that goes, "You're lookin' for your momma, baby, lookin' for your momma. Can't find your momma, baby," and so on, so that when he gets an address and goes and it turns out to be a young black man who coincidentally has the same name, you're expecting to hear the singer go, "Found a black guy, not my momma, baby. Gotta keep looking, baby." Kinda like the Karate Kid, actually. Anyways, after Team America's "I Need a Hero" riff, I laugh hysterically during all montages." [Toronto-29-September-2005]