TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL Ray Charles biopic garners buzz

The movies on view at the festival fall into four categories.
By JAY BOYAR
ORLANDO SENTINEL
For the movie-minded, attending the 29th annual Toronto International Film Festival, which ended Saturday, was like stepping into a time machine.
That's because, after watching way too many of the 328 films on view at the 10-day event, the bleary-eyed cinephile staggered out of the darkness with a clearer idea of what's in store for the next six months or so.
And this year, a lot of the festival's most important films fall neatly into four categories: biopics, sexual explorations, road pictures and political cinema.
'Ray'
The most straightforward biopic in Toronto was "Ray," the Ray Charles story.
There's an Oscar buzz about Jamie Foxx's performance as the great black musician. But the film's biggest problem also afflicts "Modigliani," in which Andy Garcia plays the celebrated Italian artist.
Like many biopics, both seem so determined to run through the highs and lows of their heroes' lives they lose focus.
Seeking a different sort of focus is "Beyond the Sea," starring Kevin Spacey as pop-star Bobby Darin. The film, which Spacey directed, jumps around in time, incorporates song-and-dance numbers and uses fantasy sequences to comment on the action.
Spacey can really sing. But the major rap on the film is that the 45-year-old star is simply too old to play Darin, who died at 37.
"Relax," advised Spacey, brushing away the criticism. "We're warping time. ... It's a dream. It's a memory. It's a real movie. It's not a real movie. Just get over that little aspect, and let's get on with it."
'Kinsey'
The best of the fest's biopics -- and a multiple Oscar contender -- is "Kinsey," which examines the life of sex-researcher Alfred Kinsey. Liam Neeson has the title role, with Laura Linney as Kinsey's wife.
Yes, it's inevitably a film about sex. But to an amazing degree, it stays focused on Kinsey's life as a scientist.
Of course, if the public buys Kinsey, it's the sex that'll sell it.
Speaking of sex, there was plenty of it on the festival's screens, much of it nonstandard.
Take, for example, "Ma Mere," a French film about a mother who introduces her son to S & amp;M. Or "The Woodsman," in which Kevin Bacon stars as a pedophile. Or "Bad Education," bad-boy Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's examination of sexual perversity within the Catholic church.
Getting the best buzz of all at the festival was "Sideways," a road picture from director Alexander Payne ("Election").
Paul Giamatti stars as a struggling novelist who hits the road with his TV-actor buddy (Thomas Haden Church).
The actor is soon to be married, so the trip, through California wine country, becomes an increasingly inappropriate -- and hilarious and poignant -- final fling. Almost reluctantly, the film explores the romance of the road.