Film festivals have a reputation for disdaining mainstream Hollywood movies in favor of obscure, artsy stuff -- a reputation that in many cases is well deserved, by the way -- but the Toronto International Film Festival seems to have no such compunctions. Among the documentaries and French tragedies are unabashedly populist flicks like Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist and the Coens' Burn After Reading, to name just two. You could come to TIFF and never bother with a single subtitle or shaky, handheld camera, if you so desired.

Nearly every mainstream film I've seen in Toronto so far has been very good -- which is a much better yardstick anyway. Sensible people have no problem with mainstream entertainment as long as it's GOOD mainstream entertainment. Among the most anticipated was Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers' first film since last year's Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. (There was a time when the Coens would not have been considered mainstream, but those days are long gone.) The new film's tone of black comedy and general buffoonery is the opposite of No Country, though the themes of crime, punishment, and theft -- the Coens' favorite things since day one -- are still intact.

Speaking as an ardent Coenite, I don't think Burn After Reading is among their greatest comedies. Detractors have long complained that the Coens don't exhibit any sympathy for their characters, and this is the first time that I agree with them (or, rather, that the lack of compassion actually bothers me). That said, it's a very funny movie, a daffy semi-satire of high-tech espionage thrillers in which some ordinary idiots accidentally find what they believe is highly sensitive CIA data. Frances McDormand, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt are the major players, and their performances are loose, quirky, hilarious, and profane. The film opens theatrically next week, and Laremy will have a full review of it then.

You won't have to wait long for Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, either, as it opens on Oct. 3. It stars Michael Cera as Nick, a very Michael Cera-ish sort of smart, somewhat awkward high school student who's just been dumped by his horrid girlfriend. Still nursing his wounds from the breakup (and still compiling mix CDs to woo her back), Nick winds up spending an evening in New York City with Norah (Kat Dennings), who likes Nick but can't get him to let go of the last girl. It's a surprisingly sweet comedy about teen romance, the kind where everything takes place over the course of one magical night, and Cera and Dennings are a terrific duo for it. Furthermore, I'm not surprised that it captures young love in the big city as well as it does; the director, Peter Sollett, made a film called Raising Victor Vargas a few years ago that was just as evocative.

The Brothers Bloom doesn't have quite as much mainstream street cred as Burn After Reading or Nick & Norah -- it comes from Rian Johnson, writer/director of 2005 indie darling Brick -- but it has a mainstream cast and it definitely deserves mainstream success. Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo star as Bloom and Stephen, con men and brothers who have been pulling one scam after another ever since they were kids, when their hijinks got them bounced from one foster home to another. Now in their 30s, the two agree to do one last caper before Bloom quits the business so he can meet a girl and settle down into a normal life. Naturally, Stephen arranges for the final game to involve a woman, Penelope (Rachel Weisz), a lonely, eccentric heiress, and Bloom finds himself falling for her even as he and Stephen plot to make off with a million of her dollars.

The mechanics of the brothers' schemes are somewhat murky and maybe illogical, so the film doesn't work entirely as a con story. But that's not what it's trying to be anyway. It's more of a humorous character study, with a style similar to Wes Anderson's, and packed with surreal sight gags and random goofiness. Brick was a great film, but it's nice to see that Johnson can be light and jolly, too, making something accessible to general audiences without sacrificing intelligence. Summit Entertainment just moved the film's release date from October to late December, aka Oscar-bait season. Rachel Weisz's performance, in particular, might be worthy of some Academy attention when the time comes. She's so lovable as Penelope that you can see why a fella would do everything in his power to insinuate himself into her life, and not just to steal her money.

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Eric D. Snider is in Toronto for the festival. Check back later for more reports on what he's seeing.

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