Michael Winterbottom's road movie The Trip follows Rob Brydon, left, and Steve Coogan as they embark on a tour of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales of Northern England, eating, chatting and driving each other crazy. (TIFF)

By Greig Dymond, CBC News

Good morning, everyone.

I write with a heavy heart and extremely pale skin. Like many of you, I've spent the past 11 days immersed in TIFF. I've seen such little sunlight I feel like one of the vampires in True Blood. For movie fans, the 2010 edition of the Toronto fest has been a godsend. If you weren't a 12-year-old, this past summer of cinema seemed especially bleak. (Get Him to the Greek, anyone?)

Labour Day weekend came and went, and shortly thereafter legends like Danny Boyle, Woody Allen, Mike Leigh and Clint Eastwood were in the T-Dot to peddle their latest wares. For a glorious week and a half, the collective I.Q. of films on our screens rose by at least 50 I.Q. points.

And it ends today, with about a hundred repeat screenings of some of the best of the fest. It's your last chance to catch some of these TIFF highlights until they appear at your local multiplex (which, in some cases, won't be too long).

Highly recommended:

• Director Michael Winterbottom's The Trip received amazing buzz this week. British comedy dynamos Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play slightly fictionalized versions of themselves, taking a madcap holiday around the countryside. Savour the passive-aggressive broadsides they hurl at each other.

• Beginners - Another much-loved TIFF entry. Ewan MacGregor plays an illustrator, Christopher Plummer plays his father who is both dying of cancer and coming out of the closet. Also starring Melanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds. Directed by Mike Mills, this dramedy was definitely one of the fest's breakthrough hits.

And talk about going back to square one -- at 9 p.m. at Ryerson, there's a free screening of the opening night film, Score: A Hockey Musical. It certainly wasn't my favourite entry at the festival (Fubar II is just as Canadian and way funnier), but it's a nice gesture from TIFF organizers. Tickets will be handed out at Ryerson, starting at 7 p.m. Was it only 11 days ago that people paid around $40 to see the very same film at a gala screening? Wonder how they feel now. Such is life at TIFF.

I'll resist the impulse to use the "rolling up the red carpet" phrase, which I've seen in several places over the past 12 hours. Instead, I'll just say thanks for reading my daily missives. It's been a pleasure.