With just 44 days until the start of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival (oft considered the unofficial kick-off to Oscar season) the lineup has finally been announced. There's no doubt aboot it, either: there are some high-profile films and major Oscar contenders at this year's festival.
Kicking things off with the
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and
Bruce Willis' mind and time-bending
action thriller
Looper, the 2012 fest will feature films heavy on the star power, including
Tom Hanks in
Cloud Atlas;
Bill Murray in
Hyde Park on Hudson;
Marion Cottilard in
Rust and Bone;
Keira Knightley in
Anna Karenina;
Jake Gyllenhaal in
End of Watch; native Canuck
Ryan Gosling in
The Place Beyond the Pines; Jennifer Lawrence and
Bradley Cooper featured in
Silver Linings Playbook; and
Gwyneth Paltrow and
Mark Ruffalo in
Thanks for Sharing, to name just a few of the big names.
While there are quite a few anticipated projects being screened at TIFF (including
The Perks of Being a Wallflower,
Imogene,
The Iceman,
A Late Quartet, and
Love, Marilyn) perhaps none more than the latest efforts from filmmakers
Terrence Malick,
Ben Affleck,
David O. Russell,
Mira Nair,
Noah Baumbach, and
Robert Redford.
Redford, who knows a thing or two about the festival circuit, stars and directs
Company You Keep, a political thriller about a young journalist (
Shia LaBeouf) following the story of a wanted ex-radical activist (
Redford).
Malick is following up his Oscar-nominated 2011 masterpiece The Tree of Life with To The Wonder, a film about a man who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage falls apart, starring Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem, Rachel Weisz, and fellow festival filmmaker, Ben Affleck. Affleck (pictured) — whose hotly anticipated film Argo, based on the true-life story about a CIA "exfiltration" in 1979 to get six Americans out of Tehran — leads an all-star cast that includes Bryan Cranston, Kyle Chandler, and John Goodman.
The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival (you can check out the full lineup of movies at the event
here) begins on September 6 and ends on September 16.
More:
Watch Ben Affleck's Argo Trailer
[Photo credit: Warner Brothers]
TIFF