The behavior was as bad as the product

TORONTO — Another thing that made this year’s festival such an ordeal was the increasingly obnoxious behavior of TIFF attendees. BlackBerries and cell phones were a routine annoyance at press and industry screenings. Jostling for a place in line — TIFF is all about queuing up — was more stressful than ever. I witnessed at least two fistfights break out during interminable waits for “Priority Press” screenings. Even Grand Poobah Roger Ebert got involved in a highly publicized fracas that made the front page of the New York Daily News. Or maybe everyone was just grumpier than usual because the movies were so bad.

UUnlike TIFF ’07, there was no “Juno,” “Into the Wild,” “No Country for Old Men” or even “Atonement” to make your heart beat a little faster, and give your weary bones — and even wearier posterior — a much needed shot of adrenaline. There were, however, a slew of marginal titles, most of which departed the festival still seeking a U.S. distribution deal.

Three movies that left empty-handed were “Easy Virtue,” a dawdling, decorous period romp starring Colin Firth, Jessica Biel (surprisingly good) and Kristin Scott Thomas, directed by Stephan Elliott (“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”); John Stockwell’s clunky “Middle of Nowhere” that teamed real-life mother and daughter Susan Sarandon and Eva Amurri as, what else?, mother and daughter; and “Uncertainty,” a maddeningly opaque urban-romance-noir-whatzit by Scott McGehee and David Siegel (“The Deep End”). And so it goes.

USome smaller films suffered from being viewed in a pressure cooker environment like TIFF. Neither “Hunger” (an impressionistic look at the final days of IRA political prisoner Bobby Sands that won the Camera d’Or for best first feature at Cannes) or Norwegian minimalist Bent Hamer’s low-key quirkfest “O’Horten” registered the way they might have in the real — i.e., nonfestival — world. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to take a second look when they open theatrically in 2009.

UThe lack of additional late-night screenings for some of the more popular movies was both confounding and irritating. Last year I was able to see “Lars and the Real Girl,” “No Country for Old Men” and “The Visitor” at 10:30 p.m. Sometimes it felt like the festival staff didn’t want critics to see any movies at all.

For example, a seemingly arbitrary last minute scheduling change meant that I was forced to miss “Lymelife,” a buzzed-about “Ice Storm”-y drama set in late-’70s Long Island starring Alec Baldwin and Rory and Kieran Culkin. Produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by the talented Derick Martini (“Goat on Fire and Smiling Fish”), “Lymelife” is certain to find a distributor. Too bad I wasn’t allowed to take an early peek.

— Milan Paurich