This is what I’m thinking:
During my extended September vacation, I attended the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for five days.
One of the more enjoyable films I watched out of a disappointing lot of 15 screened was “Eleanor the Great,” which is actress Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut.
It stars June Squibb as a 94-year-old woman who accidentally goes into a meeting of Holocaust survivors and foolishly decides to pretend to have lived the life of her deceased best friend, who was a Holocaust survivor.
It isn’t a great movie. It is a small film that is sweet and poignant, which made it much different than most of the violent foreign films I screened.
British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor co-stars as a television journalist, whose daughter (played by Erin Kellyman) is a journalism student who befriends Squibb’s character and learns a lesson about the need to have more than one source on a story.
Former WKBW-TV (Channel 7) anchor Lia Lando appears for about three seconds as a news reporter in the film.
The film recently played locally at area theaters but appears to have been booted off screens by multiple screenings of Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl.”
“Eleanor” is expected to land on Netflix in 2026 and to be available to rent or buy on Prime Video before that.
Another of my favorites at TIFF was “Tuner,” in which “White Lotus” alumnus Leo Woodall stars as a former piano prodigy who because of a medical issue becomes a piano tuner mentored by a character played by Dustin Hoffman.
You may recall that Woodall played a British tourist named Jack in the second season of “White Lotus.” Jack became involved with the assistant to Tonya (Jennifer Coolidge). He was part of the conspiracy that concluded with Tonya’s accidental death.
Woodall’s character in “Tuner” is enlisted by burglars to use his tuning skills to open safes, which he decides to do to pay his mentor’s medical bills. Of course, things – including his romance with a pianist – go horribly off-key.
If “Tuner” ever plays in a local theater or on a streaming site, don’t miss it.
The only big-budget film I saw was director Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Australian actor Jacob Elordi as the Creature and Christoph Waltz as the wealthy man who funds Victor’s experiments.
I’m not much of a “Frankenstein” expert to explain how this film differs from past versions. There are some strong performances. It also is a visually spectacular film, which you would expect from del Toro.
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However, at two and a half hours, it seemed much too long.
But I’ll concede, that may have been partly because it was the last of 15 films I screened so film exhaustion may have been responsible for my wish it had been shorter.
It is opening in theaters shortly. Because of its length, I would wait for Netflix to start streaming it on Nov. 7 so you could watch it in the comfort of your home if you have a big-screen television.
During the Bills’ 23-20 loss to the New England Patriots on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” Mike Tirico narrated a cute story about the Buffalo Bills fan whose water broke during the Bills’ 41-40 comeback victory over the Baltimore Ravens Sept. 7.
The story about the birth of the first child of Caira and Alex Eimiller was double covered by NBC, which carried it at the end of “The NBC Nightly News” on Monday. That’s typically when upbeat or unusual stories end the newscast.
The Eimillers named their daughter Josie, which they said was as close as they could to name her after Josh Allen.
Actor William Fichtner, who is known as one of the celebrity members of Bills Mafia, will soon be on television more than Josh Allen.
It has gotten to the point that I’m surprised if there is a commercial during a football game and Allen isn’t featured.
Fichtner is one of the stars in the new AMC series “Talamasca: The Secret Order,” which premieres Oct. 26. It is based on a literary series from Anne Rice. Fichtner plays Cyrus, the lead villain on the series.
He also will be co-starring on the second season of Netflix’s Emmy-winning series “Beef,” is in the upcoming Apple TV+ series “Lucky” with Annette Bening and in an upcoming untitled Onyx/Hulu series with Liza Colon-Zayas (“The Bear”) and Edgar Ramirez.
Fichtner has too many credits to list. They include Academy Award-winning “Crash,” “The Perfect Storm,” “Contact” and “Black Hawk Down.”
Most recently, he was one of the co-stars of the long-running CBS series, “Mom.”
He may be best known in Buffalo for being a huge Bills fan, who narrated the “30 for 30” documentary film, “The Four Falls of Buffalo” about the Bills’ four Super Bowl losses.
Speaking of documentaries, I highly recommend the Netflix documentary, “Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan.”
It focuses on the host’s strong support of Black musical talent during his program’s 23-year run on CBS at a time that wasn’t being done on television.
To paraphrase Sullivan’s memorable words, it isn’t a “really, really big show.” But is a really, really good show that may surprise many viewers and deserves more attention.
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Alan Pergament
TV Critic
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