"Darren did not put a strip pole in his office." -- Marisa Tomei.

Does the New York Film Festival still matter? The 46th edition opened last Friday, and while the fest may not have the celebrity cachet and discovery intent of Sundance and Cannes, or the welcoming populist mentality of Toronto, it stubbornly insists on being recognized as the gatekeeper for all that is worthwhile in world cinema.

Nonetheless, press conferences with a big-name American director and a resurrected American star (and his fetching, Academy Award-winning co-star) have stolen the spotlight during the first week of the festival. Looking somewhat like a guerilla himself, Steven Soderbergh arrived to promote his four-hour epic Che, starring Benicio del Toro as the revolutionary leader. According to the director, "There are a million Ches -– he means something different to everyone."

That attitude has irked some critics; Karina Longworth at Spout felt that Soderbergh's "unwillingness to make a statement may be a major part of the problem." On the other hand, Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running opined: "Silly me, I imagined that such an approach constituted a statement sufficient unto itself, but apparently not." The film will get a rare "roadshow" treatment when it opens in December: trotted around in its four-hour entirety to selected cities for one week only by IFC Films in December, complete with elevated ticket prices and a fancy giveaway program of some sort. Dreamgirls for the intelligentsia?

After the jump: The Wrestler and two fresh new films about those darn kids.

On a bright Toronto Morning, The Wrestler's director Darren Aronofsky still can't quite wrap his head around his past week: "It's been wild. Look, we started shooting in January; we finished the film five days ago. I was in Venice four days ago, with no buzz; three days ago, we won the Golden Lion out of nowhere, and two days ago, we showed it at Toronto and sold it to Fox Searchlight, so everything changed in five days. ..." Cinematical spoke with Aronofsky about the world of '80s wrestling, the unique possibilities and challenges inherent in working with Mickey Rourke, custom-crafting an old-school Nintendo game on an indie budget, punching up political commentary in post-production and more. ...

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After winning top honors at the Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler rapidly became the must-see of the Toronto International Film Festival, with huge lines at the press and industry screening this afternoon seemingly unaffected by the news that Fox Searchlight had purchased the film. After seeing The Wrestler for myself, I feel the need to extend a note of caution about the film, which sailed into Toronto buoyed by advance raves for Mickey Rourke's performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a low-level professional wrestler -- and we soon see how really, both those words could be in quotation marks -- whose '80s glory days are long over, scraping by at low-level, low-paying matches until a heart attack forces him to leave the ring and look at his life in the shadow of death. Many have already written about the parallels between Mickey Rourke and the swaggering, scarred wrestler he plays -- early success, fame and notoriety, a series of mis-steps and mistakes taking it all away bit by bit as the years advanced -- and the charge Rourke's own rise and fall offers a filmmaker like Aaronofsky looking to explore ruin and redemption.

But don't believe the hype -- or, more importantly, look past it; if a complicated, messy personal life were all it took to deliver a great performance, Paris Hilton and O.J. Simpson would have more Oscars than Katharine Hepburn. Rourke's work as Randy is physical, invested, powerful and sprawling -- but it's also quiet, sad and hauntingly wounded, too. And The Wrestler offers viewers far more than just Rourke's performance -- which, it must be said, is excellent -- if they're willing to not flinch from what it has to say: The Wrestler is a fascinating, rich, unblinking look at the dark, hunched mean streak that lies curled and poisonous inside of so much American popular entertainment and of so much American life. It's early to say this, but The Wrestler is one of the most grimly exciting, magnetically repellent movies we've had in a long time; it's flat-out one of the best American movies of 2008.

After a massive, all-night bidding war, Variety's Anne Thompson reports that Fox Searchlight has snagged The Wrestler for roughly $4 million, marking the first big purchase of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Following its Golden Lion win in Venice and a Toronto premiere that left folks buzzing up a storm, Searchlight, along with Overture, Lionsgate, Weinstein Co. and Sony, began bidding on the flick, which some say solidifies a sure-fire Oscar nod for Mickey Rourke. In the end, it would appear that Searchlight won out ... and after a very successful marketing campaign last year for Juno (which landed all sorts of recognition), it should be interesting to see what Searchlight does with this.

So far all the talk has surrounded Mickey Rourke, with folks calling him the comeback kid, what have you -- but not for nothing, I think we have a nice little comeback story for director Darren Aronofsky as well. Great vibes with this one; I look forward to seeing it. Remember when Nic Cage was signed on to this? Heh. Bangkok Dangerous. Double heh. Check out this preview video from Venice, and look for much more on The Wrestler from Cinematical in the next couple of days.

It's so heartwarming to see rival studios playing nice with each other, even if it's only for purely financial reasons. It's especially good when the result of their cooperation is that a film by Danny Boyle (pictured) will get the theatrical release it deserves.

Slumdog Millionaire, about a Mumbai street kid who strikes it rich on an Indian game show before having his knowledge called into question, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next week. And now it'll hit multiplexes, too, on Nov. 28, thanks to a deal hammered out this week between Fox Searchlight and Warner Bros.

The film was originally part of Warner Independent Pictures' slate. But that division got shut down earlier this year, and Warner Bros. was left to deal with its leftover movies. It's like Warner Independent was a slightly irresponsible young adult, and Slumdog Millionaire was one of its children. Then Warner Independent died penniless in the gutter, and the child's grandmother, Warner Bros., being the only living relative, got custody. And Nana Warner Bros. loves the kid, thinks it's a great movie that people will enjoy, but ol' WB is on a fixed income and can't really support it. WB has kids of its own still living at home, for crying out loud.

So WB sidled up to Fox Searchlight, the dashing playboy son of billionaire Twentieth Century Fox, and struck up a relationship that involves Fox Searchlight paying for the film's marketing and distribution. Nobody has any illusions about this arrangement -- there's certainly no romance involved -- and they all live happily ever after. I just hope Fox Searchlight's dad doesn't find out, considering mean old Twentieth Century Fox is busy suing Warner Bros. over Watchmen. It's a pretty thorny situation, but hey, you gotta do what's best for the kids. It takes a village, right?

Four years after Connie and Carla failed to set the world on fire, Nia Vardalos has left the writing to someone else while returning to the safe turf of Greece for her new film, My Life in Ruins. Vardalos plays an Athens tour guide tired of all the grating tourists, obnoxious locals, and scheming colleagues in her life, and if the trailer -- link removed at request of studio -- (for those who don't mind Greek subtitles) is any indication, things might just change for the better soon enough.

There has yet to be any specific Stateside release date announced -- Fox Searchlight tentatively has it scheduled for 2009 -- but the crowdpleaser pedigree of Vardalos and director Donald Petrie certainly doesn't hurt the film's chances of outgrossing the $8 million that Connie raked in theatrically (whether or not the downright loud pairing of Harland Williams and Rachel Dratch will is a different story).

Also in the name of safe-bet follow-ups is I Hate Valentine's Day, a rom-com written and directed by Vardalos that reunites her with My Big Fat Greek Wedding love interest John Corbett. That project also bears an equally vague '09 release date, but I have trouble thinking that it couldn't be out of post-production and in theaters by next February.

I was pretty skeptical that Clark Gregg would be able to bring Chuck Palahniuk's novel Choke to the big screen. Fox Searchlight has launched the red band trailer for the dark comedy (along with four new clips), and I'll be the first to admit I was wrong. The first trailer was released back in May, and for anyone who was worried the book's more 'colorful' moments wouldn't be included, I'm here to tell you the filthiness is present and accounted for -- and I couldn't be happier.

Along with the new trailer, there are also some additional clips with the added bonus of exotic dancers filling in the narration from the book -- bizarre, sure, but surprisingly entertaining. Now for the bad news: the site has one of those age-verification login pages that are pretty crappy at the best of the times, but luckily you can always count on You Tube.

Choke is the story of sex addict Victor Mancini (played by Sam Rockwell), a con-man with the unusual tactic of choking in restaurants to earn money to care for his dying mother (Anjelica Huston). It almost sounds sweet, doesn't it? Well, it's not, and if you know anything about the work of Chuck Palahniuk, then you already know how messed up the story gets -- and I truly mean that as a compliment.

Choke arrives in theaters on September 26, 2008.

Yesterday we learned that a bunch of Disney movies will be available for free online, each for a limited time, this summer. Now, because everyone wants in on the streaming video game, Fox Searchlight has also put up three of its own films for free. Sideways, 28 Days Later and Quills can now be watched in full on the studio's website or on Hulu, which is hosting the videos. Hulu, known best as one of the premier streaming sites to watch TV episodes, is also hosting some movies from Searchlight parent Twentieth Century Fox, as well as from Lionsgate, Universal, MGM, Salient Media and FEARnet.

To me, the interesting thing about Searchlight's three available titles is that they're each R-rated, yet neither Fox nor Hulu requires proof of age to view the videos. The same goes for a few other titles offered on Hulu, but Searchlight's crop seems particularly adult in content. When I first saw the press release, I immediately thought of it as the antithesis to Disney's offerings. Of course, I don't mind who sees these movies. I'm having more difficulty getting over the idea of watching R-rated material with "limited commercial interruption." The ads make me feel like I'm watching a movie on network television, which of course would only broadcast films reedited or a general audience. But then suddenly I realize I'm not watching network-friendly versions when suddenly I'm seeing full-frontal male nudity in Quills. It's a little disorienting.

What do you think? Should Hulu have the same kind of censored cuts that the networks have to show? Or should these videos at least come with age-restrictive blockers?

The first poster for Choke has been released online (click image to enlarge), courtesy of Fox Searchlight, and it's definitely one that catches your eye. Heck, if I was walking down the street and spotted a hot pink poster featuring the silhouette of a guy eating a girl in high heels, I'd certainly be interested -- then again, I'm dirty like that. Choke, based on the excellent book from Chuck Palahniuk, premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival where I called it "a straight-up laugher that really works ... some of the time." Sam Rockwell absolutely steals the show here as a sex addict who pretends to choke in restaurants in order to get wealthy people to feel bad and give him money, which he then uses to help pay for his wacky mother's (Anjelica Huston) stay in a hospital. (I wonder if the timing of this poster had anything to do with the fact that Palahniuk's new book Snuff debuted yesterday with a bright, hot pink cover? Hmmm?)

Choke was recently pushed back and will now hit theaters on September 26.

A French master topped an American actress' directorial debut this weekend. Claude Lelouch's Roman de Gare (Samuel Goldwyn) opened at two theaters in Manhattan and grossed $25,500, for a very nice $12,750 per-screen average, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. The French-language thriller scored 73% positive at Rotten Tomatoes, though a number of critics had reservations about its twisty, playful nature.

Helen Hunt's comedy/drama Then She Found Me (ThinkFilm) hauled in $8,266 per-screen at nine locations. Hunt plays a teacher who must deal with an unlikely fiancee (Matthew Broderick), a volatile love interest (Colin Firth), and the unexpected appearance of her mother (Bette Midler). Ryan Stewart felt that the story is "as old as the hills," but that it was "still executed with style."

Standard Operating Procedure (Sony Classics), the latest doc by Errol Morris, has generated controversy not only because of its subject matter -- the story behind the notorious Abu Gharib prison photos -- but because Morris has admitted to paying some of the interviewees. Reviews were mostly positive (79%, according to Rotten Tomatoes). Opening at two theaters in Manhattan, the film averaged $7,450 per screen.

Two holdovers continued to perform well. Tom McCarthy's excellent The Visitor (Overture) expanded into 76 theaters nationwide and averaged $6,684 per screen in its third week of release. Stephen Walker's heartwarming music doc Young @ Heart (Fox Searchlight) expanded from 23 to 56 locations and grossed an average of $4,017 per screen.