TORONTO () - Forget red carpets and polite Hollywood stars. Mayhem reigns at the Toronto pic festival's "Midnight Madness" movies that kicked off, literally, with an early Friday morning screening of "JCVD" in which aging action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme pokes fun at his own calling.
The Toronto festival is unitary of the world's top movie gatherings and Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and even youth Dakota Fanning will be in town walking up the glamourous red carpet at gala affair screenings.
But at midnight, the glitz is packed up and moviegoing gets down to dark, bloody, and outlandishly risible films that help limit the range of most 300 films overall at the festival.
In the past, Midnight Madness has launched Hollywood hits such as Sacha Baron Cohen's clowning "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" and horror flick "Saw", which spawned several sanguineous sequels.
Studio executives prey on the upbeat material for their adjacent big hits, and the buzz around "JCVD" is pretty strong.
Van Damme plays himself, an international action hero who's down on his chance and loss through a custody conflict. His ageing body makes it hard to kick butt, and he's in money hassle.
He heads endorse to his hometown to escape life, but is taken surety in a heist-gone-awry and has to fight his way out. Sure, there's high-flying kicks, but Van Damme won fans here for a monologue he delivers addressing his personal demons.
Known as the "Muscles from Brussels," Van Damme was non among the predominantly male audience in the early morning hours on Friday, and he apologized via a brief video message.�
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