I wanted to hate it. I thought it was going to be a Hollywood fluff piece; co-opted, repackaged, dumbed down, status-quo type shit. But I must say, I was pleasantly surprised - I really enjoyed Battle in Seattle.

Yes, Charlize Theron's character is annoying as the pregnant department store clerk caught in the crossfire, but Andre 3000 as the sea-turtle loving activist more than makes up for it. It's actually quite a celebrity-filled cast including Ray Liotta, Michelle Rodriguez, Joshua Jackson, and Woody Harrelson (playing a bad guy!).

Ever since the film festival started, I've been sidestepping the first question everyone's been asking me - which film has been my favourite - I hate naming favourites. I've seen a lot of great films all great in different ways. Until now. I can now say unequivocally that The Edge of Heaven has beaten all the other 25 films I've seen and is my absolute favourite. I've even filled out that people's choice award thingy they've got in the lobbies.

Fatih Akin's Edge of Heaven has all the components of a really good film; engaging characters, great acting, an intricately woven story and stunning cinematography. Throw in winding Turkish streets, revolutionary politics, hot lesbians, immigration, murder, prison, prostitution and bookstores and you've got an international hit on your hands.

The strangest thing happened the other day over brunch. My friend Nicole and I were at Rhizome pouring over our VIFF program guides circling films we want to go see together when I saw Let's All Hate Toronto nominated for the NFB Best Canadian Documentary Award - I hadn't seen it in the Canadian Images Section of the guide. So I say, hey I heard that's a good film, we should go see that, and the guy sitting at the table next to us says "it's canceled". What? We turn to him wondering how long he's been listening to our conversation and how he knows. Turns out he's Hart Snider, one of the writers and the editor of the film. He's from Vancouver. And unbeknownst to him, the film was pulled out of the VIFF because it was released early on DVD. And you know how he found out? He tried to buy tickets for it.

And isn't that a perfect example of why we all hate Toronto? The film was released there in the spring to sold out showings at Hot Docs. And the distributor felt that it was time to put it on DVD, Western Canada be damned! So we here in Vancouver don't get to see it in theatres, it's straight to video for us.

Interview with Hart Snider after the jump.

I stumbled into the Czech box-office hit Empties, by accident last night. I was trying to see Battle in Seattle but didn't realize it was playing at the Ridge. So I just picked the film that had the longest line out on Granville Street, and let me tell you, I picked a winner. The first line of the film had the theatre laughing and within the first few minutes it had already won me over.

Empties chronicles the adventures of Josef, an old man just starting in on the retired life after quiting his teaching career. Except that he doesn't retire. Instead of whiling away the hours with his neglected wife, he takes on strange jobs - like bicycle couriering and, when that humourously fails, working at the bottle depot at a supermarket.

I was worried. A Romanian film about abortion - not exactly a happy topic from a country known for its bleak cinema (seriously, I have yet to see the sun shine in a Romanian film). But there we all were, standing in the pouring rain on Sunday morning hoping to get tickets to the sold out screening. And we were not disappointed.

Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, Highway 61) returns and gives us an unsettling masterpiece of editing; The Tracey Fragments is the most ADD-friendly, MTV generation movie I've ever seen. The screen is split for most of the film, showing multiple viewpoints; there's always something changing, always something else vying for your attention. Ellen Page plays the eminently watchable Tracey beautifully and the whole film is from her exaggerated point of view. We are literally thrown into the mind of a troubled fifteen year old. And it's as bleak as an Ontario winter in there.