Margot At the Wedding - I didn't really love Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale when I first saw it, but enjoyed it immensely upon second viewing.  Maybe you just need to be in the right mood to get Baumbach's off-kilter rhythm and wry sense of humor.  If that's the case, I was in the right mood today when I saw Wedding -- or maybe it's just a stronger picture.  I think it's one of the best-written films I've seen this year, and it features what might be the greatest performances to date in the careers of Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Kidman is the eponymous Margot, who along with her teenage son Claude (Zane Pais), travel to her childhood home for the wedding of her sister, Pauline (Leigh).  The two siblings have been estranged for years, and Margot's presence at her sister's Big Day seems to be a peace offering of sorts.  But the overly-critical Margot doesn't approve of the Groom (Jack Black), and might have used her appearance at the wedding as a ruse to spend time with an old flame (Ciarán Hinds) who just happens to live in the neighborhood.  And it's not just Margot dishing out the psychological and verbal abuse -- it's everyone.  These are nasty people who were raised nasty and don't quite realize what they're doing is incredible messed up.  Margot and Pauline spend most of the movie trying to one-up each other in a race to crown themselves Miss Dysfunctional, including an aborted conversation to see who has screwed the most guys.

There's a lot more going on, like a feud with the neighbors, a third sister who we never see (she was supposedly raped by their horse trainer way back when -- Margot and Pauline think this is a hoot), a missing dog, a car with no brakes, and lots and lots of infidelity.  That Baumbach is able to create a film this engaging with characters this unlikable is very, very impressive.  And there will be plenty of folks who just can't get over the hate-and-spite-filled screen surrogates -- like the ones bellyaching up a storm after this screening -- but these are the same folks who will eagerly gobble up a biopic about an even bigger monster without the slightest sense of irony.

My Winnipeg - I can say with absolute authority that you've never seen a film like Guy Maddin's love/hate/goodbye letter to his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Part real documentary and part drop-dead hysterical farce, Maddin's narration leads you through traumatic re-enactments of his childhood, the city's loss of iconic institutions like Eatons and the Jets, and bizarre facts about its citizens being much more likely to sleepwalk than those of any other city on the planet.  All over humorously ominous music.  It's almost more performance art than a movie -- a distinction that will be made even clearer when Maddin narrates live during the festival's official premiere later this week.  But to call it that shortchanges Maddin's unique ability to cobble together images in a distinctive way that makes his films immediately recognizable.

Blind - An almost demonic blind teenager is making life a living hell for his ailing mother.  Ruben (Joren Seldeslachts) makes quick work of any help his poor mom hires to care for him -- at least until she hires Marie (Black Book's Halina Reijn) to read the unruly boy stories.  Marie's no-nonsense approach to Ruben's physical outbursts almost immediately bring an end to the biting and the bellowing, and before you know it, the two are getting along famously.  Light and color slowly begin to seep into the previously cold, dark estate, and Ruben and Marie even share some touching moments before they start interlocking their naughty pieces together.

When a doctor claims to be able to cure Ruben's blindness, Marie doesn't take the news too well.  See, she's a homely-looking 40-something albino, covered in scars thanks to a very abusive mother.  She doesn't want Ruben to see what she really looks like (he thinks she's a 21-year-old redhead), even though their relationship has made her come out of her shell and feel better about herself.  The ending is straight out of one of the fairy tales Marie reads to Ruben.  An impressive directorial debut from Tamar van den Dop, who was in the Oscar-winning Karakter, and appears in this festival's Wolfsbergen.