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Opening nights at the Toronto International Film Festival tend to the self-serious -- cinematic images of Canadian war heroism and Inuit ethnic pride come rushing back. But Thursday night, for the start of its 35th edition, the festival took a break from its usual earnestness to let down its hair -- or was it a hockey mullet?
To give you a sense of the campiness at the opening-night ceremony/premiere screening of "Score: A Hockey Musical": After the end credits rolled, a guitarist, an array of drummers and a slew of backup singers came out to play a live rendition of a song whose main lyric is "Hockey's the greatest game in the land."
Michael McGowan's musical is an utterly silly but absurdly fun adolescent confection -- coming in, we were thinking of "Glee" and "Slapshot," though occasionally evident too were Christopher Guest and "Dodgeball." The filmmaker is known more for inspirational drama ("One Week," "Saint Ralph"), but he's able to put his tongue sufficiently in cheek with a series of one-liners and characters that gently poke at Canadian stereotypes.
McGowan's film tells the story of 17-year-old Farley Gordon (Noah Reid), a precocious cherub of a teenager who happens to have an uncanny...