Douches Froides is one of the most clumsily-made films I've ever seen at the Toronto International Film Festival. Usually, when a fest film is bad, it's at least bad in an interesting way; Froides is anything but. It's so unbelievably bland that one becomes mystified upon contemplating why anyone would have made this movie in the first place. It's drab, boring, and ultimately pointless. It's an after-school special with the goofy charm taken out, and moderate nudity put in. No, on second thought, it's not even that good.

Of course, it had to be raining in Toronto friday, as we braced ourselves for The Toronto International Film Festival's final weekend, and a return to our normal lives we've been so successfully avoiding.

This is absolutely depressing

Among the volunteer's who have been working hard every night during the gala screenings, mid-week brought upon the realization that in all the velcro backing and popcorn sweeping, many of us had wallets full of pink slips we'd yet to use to get in to actual MOVIES at the various theatres around the city. Realizing you have extra and giving them away to friends with time on their hands may not be as good as actually going to screenings, but hey, it's good to help out your friends. This is all about community.

Now less than 48 hours from the close of this year's 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, it's about that time to look back and marvel at the breadth of media coverage gained by this year's TIFF. If you've been reading blogTO you might even wonder if anything else was happening in and around the city last week.

We haven't been alone in devoting overwhelming page real estate to the festival. All the usual suspects - the Globe, the Star, the Post, Now, Eye, Dose - have all been in on the act, as have a number of perhaps lesser well known blogs and other online media outfits.

Of course, what separates the big media players from the blogs, or shall we say citizen journalism is not only money and resources (people, equipment etcetera) but perhaps most importantly access. We here at blogTO applied for media accreditation to this year's TIFF and were denied. Upon appeal, we even made note that the White House - a conservative bastion some might say - have granted bloggers media access, so why not a supposedly forward thinking and culture-friendly organization like the Toronto International Film Festival? Upon further review, our application was again refused. A terse form letter played the role of explanation.

The opening credits of In Her Shoes play over "Stupid Girl" (which is still stuck in my head). Garbage is an unusual choice for a film like this, and one that captures the strength of this film: it's an average story made notable by consistently excellent choices.

As noted during the introduction of the film, In Her Shoes is not the project that springs to mind when one thinks of Curtis Hansen (who made the fantastic L.A. Confidential). Because Hansen found relevance and importance in the questions presented in the script, his engagement with the characters brought a level of sincerity and attention not often found in works in this genre (which I would describe as a comedic family drama).

There's a startlingly beautiful moment in The Notorious Bettie Page, where Bettie is alone in the woods with a photographer for one of her frequent bikini modelling shoots, and mentions that she's been thinking that there's no real reason why she should be keeping the bathing suit on at all. With typical carefree immodesty, Bettie doffs her top and then her bottom and stands up out of the foliage, facing the photographer head-on, resplendent in her natural beauty looking for all the world like a goddess of feminine empowerment. The photographer blushes and gently reprimands her. He directs her to turn away from the camera. "We can't show... that," he admonishes. He can't even bring himself to say the word "vagina," let alone photograph one.

Little Athens is a film that has seemed to slip underneath the radar of most critics and subsequently most festival goers. When I saw this film on Monday afternoon the theatre was half empty. Shameful. This is an absolutely brilliant film - one that needs to be seen by as many people as possible. Toronto, you have a chance to redeem yourself as Little Athens screens tonight at 9 PM at Varsity Cinema.

After I saw Little Athens I quickly logged on to IMDB.com to see what others were saying about it. Not a single vote was posted. Three days later, there are 31 votes...and Little Athens holds a user rating of 8.5 out of 10! It is easily the best film I have seen at the festival thus far; and I am hoping that some distributor has enough sense to get this puppy into theatres as soon as possible.