Here are the films we've seen in our last set of TIFF reviews.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

A Prophet
This film won the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and had no trouble winning over audiences at the Visa Screening Room last night who gave director Jacques Audiard and a couple of cast members a standing ovation. The film is set in a French prison and chronicles the six years spent there by a young, illiterate North African inmate who is forced to navigate the rival Corsican and Arab gangs. (Tim)

The movies at TIFF this year might be the best selection in a long, long time. What to do? Guest podcast host Matt Price and I take a timeout during a recent meal to browse the Toronto International Film Festival programme bible and weed out what to see, movies to desperately avoid, and two flicks starring George Clooney. Click the big grey play button below to listen to the podcast.


Want more TIFF? Check out our preview of TIFF 2009 and stay tuned for more of our picks of what to see.

The Canadian government isn't the only organization doing a major unexpected reshuffle right now: the Burrito Boyz (formerly of three locations, two of which are downtown) also recently broke up.

This, as a friend of mine put it, is why rock bands spend millions of dollars a year on group therapy: you don't mess with success. Having topped blogTO's list of the best burritos in Toronto (and to die-hards like myself, the fondness remains as unquenchable as the craving for their food), the Boyz now face the unenviable task of competing with themselves.

Finding the best eggs benedict in the city of Toronto has been something of a five-year obsession of mine. Cradled in my first post-grad years, when I started ordering benny after benny at dives and premier eating establishments across town, my quest has subsequently spawned a year-end list, a whole blog about it, and more than a few angry conversations with my mother who is, naturally, quite convinced that I am on a one-way road to a coronary.

There is an escalating game of one-upsmanship that Midnight Madness plays with itself every year. Renowned for bringing the nasty back to Toronto screens again and again, each year's programme is set the task of finding a flick that out-ickies last year's most upsetting feature film. When 2007's closing show, Inside, proved to be one of the most gruesome films ever shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, finding a topper for 2008 was always going to be a challenge.

Martyrs has been brought in to fit the bill, a neo-horror picture so extreme, Midnight programmer Colin Geddes described it as "a suckerpunch." And if you can suckerpunch that guy, you've certainly earned a place in the program. After disappointing with Deadgirl and The Burrowers but hitting the nail on the head with Acolytes, how did Martyrs fare?

TIFF '08 is off to a rocky start with rescheduled screenings, finicky projectors, and at least one pissed off Toronto Sun writer. Midnight Madness, however, continues apace after last night's ear-throbbingly awesome screening of Detroit Metal City.

Programmer Colin Geddes has been calling Wednesday night's Martyrs "one of the most controversial titles in the history of Midnight Madness," but it was this evening's Deadgirl that had the most on-the-ground buzz for its queasy, I-don't-know-if-I-want-to-see-that subject matter. Hardly surprising: the film's potentially awesome, potentially awful, definitely troubling premise concerns two teenage boys who discover the body of a dead, naked girl... and proceed to "take advantage of the situation."