Best bets for the opening day of the festival.

By John Semley

Wake up, time to TIFF! The 36th annual Toronto International Film Festival opens today. This very Thursday the 8th of September, in the year of our Lord, 2011! Can you smell it in the air? Smells like… celluloid. Anyways the public screenings kick off today, albeit not in full force (all the press folks are still trying to stay one step ahead of you, moviegoer). And there’s some good stuff screening today, like Aki Kaurismäki’s wonderfully droll Le Havre ( ). There’s also Gus Van Sant’s groaningly twee cancer drama, Restless (), which is, well, something else.

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