Over at New York Mag they've got a quick Q-and-A with Hugh Jackman that is billed as being about his thoughts on Neil Patrick Harris and the Oscars. It's not, really, as the piece instead looks at the actor's involvement with environmental causes.

Could you live without air-conditioning in New York?
Yeah. I open my windows all the time. I don't like air-conditioning very much. I'm an Aussie, you know, back door, front door open, that's air-conditioning, you know?

On the other hand, he does admit to thinking that Harris was "so good" at the Emmys, and that he hasn't been asked to host the 2010 Oscars. I smell Pulitzer.

The 2009 Toronto International Film Festival starts this Thursday and runs through Saturday, September 19. Previewing what films are included in any year’s TIFF slate is a tantalizing chore (one I’ve undertaken), but here’s a different kind of tribute to the institution: My list of favorite films from past years’ festivals.

Boogie Nights (1997): Raw, sophisticated, unsentimental filmmaking from Paul Thomas Anderson, featuring an early Philip Seymour Hoffman performance. I remember coming back from TIFF that year and experiencing a frisson of pleasure followed by a feeling of awkwardness as I described to my buttoned-down colleagues how the best of the fest was an epic narrative about the 1970s porn industry.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997): If Canadian films are often depressing – and they are – then native-born filmmaker Atom Egoyan may just be the patron saint of TIFF. Here he marvelously assayed Russell Banks’ novel of secrets and tragedies in a small rural town.

L.A. Confidential (1997): I watched this at a 9am Saturday screening at the old Uptown Theatre three-plex, once the centerpiece of the festival but now long-gone, demolished for condominiums. Curtis Hanson’s masterpiece blew me away, and today remains one of my most-admired cinematic constructs: A nearly perfect movie.

Last Night (1998): A quintessential Canadian movie, from writer/director (and TIFF wunderkind) Don McKellar. A weird mix of urban storytelling and end-of-the-world sci-fi melodrama, the film was packed with sly north-of-the-border in-jokes and references that I would still be deciphering years later.

Rushmore (1998): I had a hole in my schedule on a Wednesday afternoon, and ducked in to see Wes Anderson’s second feature on the strength of a rumored appearance by Bill Murray. I didn’t laugh so hard all week – and wouldn’t, for the rest of the year.

Requiem for a Dream (2000): For me, TIFF is usually a solitary experience – I go for the movies, not for socializing or networking opportunities – but I watched Darren Aronofsky’s second film in a public screening on a Monday afternoon with my future fiancée and a friend from Rochester, both in town for the fest. Typically the audience bursts out of the theater when a TIFF selection ends (there’s always something else to see), but Requiem’s intensity was such that the three of us were rooted in our seats while we absorbed what we had just seen. I noticed that we weren’t alone.

Sideways (2004): I saw this at an 8:30am screening on Sunday, my last day of the festival that year. I had already checked out of my hotel with the intention of seeing a full day of movies before hitting the QEW for home, but after watching Alexander Payne’s sublime treasure I knew any subsequent movies would be anticlimactic. I was even inspired to stop at a Canadian winery on the way back to Rochester.

The Squid and the Whale (2005): Smart, funny (and intensely personal) filmmaking from Noah Baumbach, a TIFF regular. I’ve seen three of his movies at the festival, including Mr. Jealousy (1997) and Margot at the Wedding (2007); this was his best work.

Borat (2006): Pure comedies are typically rare in the TIFF schedule, but Larry Charles’ feature – with a star-making performance by Sacha Baron Cohen – was a glorious exception to that unwritten rule. I watched this in a VIP screening room at the Varsity multiplex with a couple dozen critics; none of us were immune from Baron Cohen’s bawdy charms.

Far From Heaven (2003): I nabbed the last seat in the house for a Saturday-evening press screening of this Todd Haynes picture. I sat in the front row, and really didn’t care.

The Visitor (2007): Thanks to TIFF, this made my annual 10-best list a year before its theatrical release.

No Country for Old Men (2007): I missed the last few minutes of this screening to make another film in my schedule, but I caught up with it stateside and reaffirmed the brilliance of the Coen Brothers’ vision.

Of course, not every movie shown in Toronto is destined for greatness. The three worst movies I can recall seeing up there? Elizabethtown (a rare misstep from Cameron Crowe), All the King’s Men (a rare misstep from Sean Penn), and The Other Man, with Liam Neeson pursuing proof of his wife’s infidelity. That one screened at TIFF last year, and is just now preparing for a fall 2009 release. Fortunately, plenty of other more worthy films – including many from this year’s festival, I imagine – will be available to occupy us.

Comedy is not pretty – especially if you’re a woman. Over in Slate, Seth Stevenson salutes Brighton native Kristen Wiig as “the undisputed star of the past few seasons of Saturday Night Live,” only to point out (bad news alert!) that this brilliant comedian keeps getting cast in movies for parts in which she’s asked to do little or nothing. 

There are worse things in life – even by Hollywood standards – than to become famous for being the best thing about a popular television show. But given that SNL has proven itself almost as concerned with launching movie careers for its stars as with making audiences laugh every weekend, it’s fair to conclude that Wiig, a hit on the small screen, deserves at least a chance to prove herself in movies. Her blink-and-you-missed-them appearances in two smart but little-seen comedies of the last year (Ghost Town and Adventureland) make me crave more Wiig. 

Certainly not everyone can “carry” their own movie – and with Hollywood budgets getting ever more bloated, it’s understandable that studios may be less likely to take gambles. But Stevenson’s invocation of Will Ferrell’s career as a beacon for Wiig to follow makes sense: Based on the bulk of his SNL output I never would have expected to be enjoying him so much in movies, but he makes it work. So, I suspect, could Kristen.

Come on Hollywood: give Wiig a chance. Supporting roles are great, but an actress this funny deserves a spotlight of her own.

The news has burst furiously out of Hollywood's chest that Ridley Scott will direct another Alien movie-- either the fifth or the seventh installment (depending on whether you count the AVP quasi-franchise). This time it'll be a prequel to Scott's original film; and no, it looks as though Sigourney Weaver will not reprise her role as the almost comically beleaguered Ellen Ripley.

That last part is good news; the rest, I'm not sure. Sequels in general are typically nothing to get excited about -- they can be great fun, but those are most often the exception, not the rule -- and prequels in particular are often excuses to print money rather than logical or justifiable extensions of whatever made the original work any good.

In this case, it's worth noting that the proper Alien franchise has never really been about H.R. Geiger's fantastic vagina dentata creation. Rather, the beastie has been a narrative device against which four very different filmmakers chronicled the bizarre story of Weaver's character: Call it Alien: The Ellen Ripley Chronicles. Without her it's difficult to imagine a true Alien installment, given that the alien wasn't the star of the other movies in the first place.

In fact, there's a precedent in Scott's own resume that suggests what a bad idea this is. In 2001 he made Hannibal, a patently awful sequel to a phenomenally popular film whose producers made the mistake of assuming was more about the villain than the hero. Scott doesn't know how to make a bad-looking movie, but lush production values couldn't save Hannibal and may not be able to redeem the Alien prequel.

It's hard to imagine how this won't turn out to be a mistake. And as Hannibal and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull taught us, mistakes like these can often taint the experience of the great original films. Weaver has already indicated she won't participate in this; now, won't someone try to talk Scott out of his decision?

Who said government never did anything right for the people? Here's the remaining schedule of free movies playing this summer, courtesy of the city of Rochester and the county of Monroe.

Movies in the Bowl: Thursdays, starting at dark, at the Highland Park Bowl:

• July 16: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) (PG)
• July 23: A Christmas Story (1983) (PG)
• July 30: Hotel for Dogs (2009) (PG)
• August 6: The Goonies (1985) (PG)
• August 13: Kung Fu Panda (2008) (PG)

Movies at the Beach: Tuesdays, starting at dark, at Monroe County’s Ontario Beach Park:

• July 14: Iron Man (2008) (PG-13)
• July 21: Fred Claus (2007) (PG)
• July 28: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) (PG)
• August 4: The Dark Knight (2008) (PG-13)
• August 11: Quantum of Solace (2008) (PG-13)

Granted, they're not all gems. (Fred Claus? Yeesh.) But there are more keepers than losers, and they're free summertime experiences -- a perfectly reasonable use of our tax dollars at work.