The Toronto International Film festival has announced the lineup of Canadian films to be screened this year and it's an impressive list. Topping the list are gala screenings of David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and Denys Arcand's L'Âge Des Ténèbres (Days of Darkness). Other Canadian premieres include:

• My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
• Shake Hands with the Devil (Roger Spottiswoode)
• The Stone Angel (Kari Skogland)
• Silk (François Girard)
• Normal (Carl Bessai)
• Weirdsville (Allan Moyle)
• Poor Boy's Game (Clement Virgo)
• American Venus (Bruce Sweeney)
• Young People Fucking (Martin Gero)

It's good to see some familiar faces return to the festival with new films, but I can only wonder how many of them will actually arrive in Canadian theatres outside of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Having seen Factory Girl last night, I wish there were some good Canadian films freshly available on DVD. I don't want to write a proper review, but Factory Girl is a big bore, especially on a hot summer night. While Guy Pearce is creepily effective as Andy Warhol, Sienna Miller overacts her way through the film as spoiled heiress Edie Sedgwick, a flash-in-the-pan member of the Factory. Yes, Ms. Miller uses an American accent, wears a lot of retro clothes and even pops up naked in several scenes, but alas, one never cares for Edie because she's not the main character but a caricature of titanic proportions. She parties, boozes and shoots up drugs and talks a lot of nonsense and that's all you get. Bah. Don't even get me started about Anakin Skywalker as is-he-or-isn't-he Bob Dylan (never named in the film of course). There's a tease with an appearance of Nico and mention of Warhol's entrance into the music biz, but nothing more, just an insubstantial quasi-indie film. Now if they could make a film about the Velvet Underground, that would be interesting!