After a full day of travel, I finally landed in Toronto around 10PM tonight. I spent part of the flight watching screeners — I’ll have a review of Swedish film Behind Blue Skies up soonish, but in brief: it’s kind of a Swedish Holy Rollers (the Jesse Eisenberg, Hasidic Jews smuggling ecstasy flick), set in the ’70s, and stars Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd (Son of Stellan) in a soulful, impressive lead performance.

I have to finish watching my other screener, Erotic Man here, though — there’s a nudity in the film, and the 14-year-old boy across the aisle from me was getting an eyeful and his mother did NOT look amused, so I shut it down and opted for decompressing with some Kingdom Hearts instead.

Now I am in the flat, settling in and looking over the P&I schedule so I can figure out what I’m seeing when. I have a short list of must-sees based on Telluride/Venice buzz, including Russian film Silent Souls (said to be a contender for the Golden Lion at Venice); Danny Boyle‘s 127 Hours (which I am about DYING to see); Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan (if it’s more The Wrestler than The Fountain, I’ll be happy); and Casey Affleck‘s Joaquin Phoenix doc, I’m Still Here.

Other films on my radar: Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black‘s directorial debut, What’s Wrong With Virginia (starring Jennifer Connelly as a mentally ill mom); Passion Play, starring Mickey Rourke in another down-on-his-luck role, this time as a musician; Half-Nelson team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, here with It’s Kind of a Funny Story; Mike Leigh‘s Another Year; Stephen Frears‘ Tamara Drewe; and Charles Ferguson‘s Inside Job.

I do want to catch Ben Affleck‘s The Town and Never Let Me Go while I’m here as well, since I’ll probably be missing the Seattle screenings, but I’m going to try very hard to balance the “name” stuff with some more obscure films that might just be gems.

So on that note, a few films you may NOT have heard of that also have my attention among the crowded fray here: Takashi Miike‘s 13 Assassins; The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical; The Piano in a Factory; Windfall, a doc about a wind turbine project in upstate New York; Dirty Girl (in part because it’s set in 1987 in Norman, Oklahoma — my old stomping grounds); Henry’s Crime — which features the very interesting mix of Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga and James Caan — no, seriously!; and … Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a doc about B-movie making in the Philippines.

Of course, I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground for the hottest buzz from the fest, so I will no doubt be adding films to my slate later on that may not be on my radar screen at the moment, but with only 8 days to watch films, I’ve got to narrow it down somehow … and I think I have a good start.