It’s a very good weekend to be a Weinstein. First Weinstein Company’s The Master set new per-theatre records for a live-action movie release without a stage show, and now the tidings from Toronto are lined with gold: David O. Russell’s SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, the studio’s romantic comedy-drama starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro, has won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award. Toronto doesn’t have any kind of festival jury, so this award, voted on by actual audience members, is the festival’s top prize. (UPDATE: 2d place for the award went to Ben Affleck’s ARGO, and 3d place to the Middle East-set ZAYTOUN.)
The Toronto People’s Choice Award may also be the only festival prize that really means something in the Oscar race. While no guarantee of success (last year’s winner was the Iranian Where Do We Go Now), in recent years winners have included Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech, which didn’t fare too badly in awards season, and the 1999 win for Anerican Beauty put that film, and the festival itself, on the map.
Silver Linings Playbook opens to the general public on November 21.
(UPDATE: The Festival’s other Audience Prize, limited to Midnight Madness genre titles, went to Martin McDonagh’s SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, the glam event of that program. Psychopaths will be released by CBS Films on October 12. 2d place went to Barry Levinson’s THE BAY, and 3d place to Don Coscarelli’s JOHN DIES AT THE END.)
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About the Author
Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."
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