Chris Pine on the red carpet at TIFF 2018.

One of the world’s largest film festivals, The Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF, kicked off Thursday, an 11 day extravaganza featuring screenings of more than 340 films this year.

Gaining the biggest buzz so far are premieres of the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga remake of A Star Is Born, and Beautiful Boy, a potential Oscar frontrunner about crystal meth addiction. The most titilating talk though, has been about Chris Pine’s penis, which has a brief starring role in the Netflix Game of Thrones-inspired Scottish battle saga, Outlaw King.

Chris Pine in Outlaw King.

The film, a medieval saga modeled in the vein of the wildly popular HBO series, didn’t garner nearly as much attention as that brief, but apparently memorable, scene. The film reunites Pine with his Hell or High Water director, David Mackenzie, and will be available on Netflix in November, where it could become one of the most “paused” movies in recent history.

“That is also humanity in itself – it’s violence and sex,” Chris said at a post-premiere news conference. “If we reduce it ultimately to some base elements: hunger, food, feeding, procreation, and power… (there are) elements like air, water and fire in this film that we have to show due respect for.”

Um, ok!

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born.

Early buzz about A Star Is Born, is that Gaga and Cooper, whom makes his debut as its director, deliver deeply moving, convincing performances in this third remake about the love affair between a pill and booze-addicted superstar in the twilight of his career and an up-and-coming, wildly-talented young ingenue.  Expect the soundtrack to crank out several rousing hit songs about love and loss, when the film debuts worldwide October 5th. Here’s an audio preview of, “The Shallow,” what will likely be an Oscar shoe-in for Best Original Song:

Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell in Beautiful Boy.

Beautiful Boy stars Timothée Chalamet as a young man in the throes of crystal meth addiction, and Steve Carell as his concerned journalist father trying to save him. Based on the memoirs of the real life father-son duo, Beautiful Boy premieres October 12th.

Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Rodriguez and Elizabeth Debicki in Widows.

Other hotly-anticipated potential awards winners premiering at TIFF will be Moonlight director Barry Jenkins’s adaptation of If Beale Street Could Talk, the 1974 novel about a pregnant teenager  working to clear the name of her boyfriend after he is falsely accused of raping another woman, and Widows, director Steve McQueen’s follow-up to 2013’s Best Picture Oscar winner, 12 Years a Slave. Widows stars Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki and Cynthia Erivo as four women who must finish the job when their armed robber husbands are killed in a failed armed robbery.

Audiences awaiting a screening at TIFF 2018.

Attracting more than half a million attendees, Variety magazine has reported that TIFF is second only to Cannes in terms of high-profile movies, stars and market activity.

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