I had to catch myself in Toronto during the festival press screening of Cloud Atlas, the new film from Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis (Andy and Lana), and carefully consider what it would mean to define their adaptation of David Mitchell’s book as “novelistic.”   

Midnight Madness swept the Toronto International Film Festival last year and the clear winners were the audiences who saw The Raid: Redemption, the martial arts actioner from writer-director Gareth Evans. The Raid introduces Rama, a rookie SWAT team officer prepping for his first full-scale assignment, an early morning raid on an apartment building that serves as the stronghold for a ruthless drug lord.