Hot off his own fest, the hugely popular Fantasia in Montreal, Mitch Davis gives us his thoughts and picks from the Midnight Madness line-up!

Hot damn, is it ever going to be a hot September in Toronto this year.

Like many festival programmers, I?m one of those crazy obsessive types who prides himself on seeing everything out there in the genres that spark my wick. I scout at other fests, chase after screeners from every corner of the galaxy and watch cavalcades of stuff that people send to me. Because Fantasia takes place in July, it?s been years since I?ve been able to scout at the Cannes Film Market, as we?re already deep in the heat during that time of the year, scrambling to lock 11th hour programming picks as two hundred billion ? give or take a billion or two ? slabs of critical minutia are being wrangled, wrassled and slammed into place in order to keep the FanTrain throbbing on track. All of that set-up to say, Colin?s got numerous choice picks in his lineup that have thus far only been presented to programmers at Cannes, and that I?m voraciously dying to see. He?s asked me to select my top 3 can?t-wait-fors, a real SOPHIE?S CHOICE scenario when we?re talking about such a wildly strong lineup of titles.

In the 11 years I?ve known him, Colin has always been a brilliant programmer, and TIFF has never failed to deliver the overall strongest and broadest-reaching lineup of cutting-edge filmmaking from celebrated masters and undiscovered visionaries. This year?s lineup somehow appears to outdo past editions and I can tell you, between Midnight madness, Vanguard, Real To Reel, Contemporary World and even, dare I say it, Canada First, there?s so much inspired electricity in the air that adventurous film lovers are going find their nervous systems collapsing on them. TIFF 2007 is here to prove that too much of a good thing is a damn good thing.

So, by now you?re probably thinking ?Christ man, get it on, what are your three MM picks already?!?. Can you tell how hesitant I am to single out just 3? I?m stalling, I?m stalling. Okay, since I can?t choose every single MM pick ? though I?m tempted to cheat and pick six, calling each pair of films ?a tie?:

MOTHER OF TEARS ? SUSPIRIA and INFERNO are two films that changed my life. Dario returning to complete his surrealistic 3 Mothers trilogy is something I?ve been hoping for since I was 15 years old. That he has brought back Daria Nicolodi, who was such a major creative collaborator on the other two, and whose knowledge of magic and the supernatural is clearly invaluable to the trilogy, is spectacularly exciting to me. If M.O.T looks, sounds and feels anything like the previous films, it will be nothing less than a cinematic Second Coming. Blessed be.

A L?INTERIEUR ? I can?t wait, I can?t wait, I can?t wait. Every few years, France unleashes a personal and existentialist horror work unlike anything the genre has experienced. IN MY SKIN, THEY CAME BACK, I STAND ALONE, TROUBLE EVERY DAY etc. Everyone who attended the Cannes market screening of A L?INTERIEUR all but lost their minds praising it, and numerous people whose tastes are simillar to mine have told me that this is going to be my favourite film of the year. From the clips I?ve seen and the essays I?ve read, I believe them.

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO ? Corbucci smash-filtered through Miike?! I?m so there! We were killing ourselves trying to get it for Fantasia but it wasn?t going to be ready in time - and even had it been, the moment the Venice Film Festival took it in competiton, no earlier fest would have been allowed near it. This film promises something truly special and I have no doubt it will deliver past our loopiest hopes. On a side note, I love the poetry of the fact that TIFF is doing the North American premiere of this one on the same date they gave ICHI THE KILLER back in 2001.

And you know, when a horror lover?s top picks exclude new works from such heroes as Stuart Gordon and George A. Romero, the lineup of titles in question is a monumental one. And that it is. I have no idea how Colin will be able to top this next year. Incredible!