The big talk this morning in Toronto– the sensational performance by British actor Eddie Redmayne as genius physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.  A biopic similar to A Beautiful Mind, James Marsh’s emotional but uneven film relies on Redmayne to pull off this miracle of a performance. Hawking, now 72, has lived in a wheelchair with a severe form of ALS since his early 20s.  Redmayne conveys completely Hawking’s genius and his suffering very much as Daniel Day Lewis did something vaguely similar  in its physicality with My Left Foot.   Redmayne has already proven himself as a star in the making from “Les Miserables” and on Broadway with “Red.” This cinches it.  Bravo!

Saturday in Toronto: Noah Baumbach’s last couple of movies are among my favorites ever– “Greenberg” with Ben Stiller and Greta Gerwig, “Frances Ha” with Gerwig and Mickey Sumner, and his screenplay work for “The Fantastic Mr. Fox.” Now Baumbach goes all neo Woody Allen in the very funny, adroitly observed “While We’re Young,” which opened with a bang last night at the Princess of Wales Theater.

Something about Baumbach’s writing brings out the best in Ben Stiller. This time lightning strikes for all four main actors– Stiller, Naomi Watts, Amanda Seyfried, and Adam Driver. “While We’re Young” shrewdly satirizes the Lena Dunham generation of twenty-something Brooklyn, lower East Side slackers who feign indifference to success but are actually so ambitious for fame that they’ll do anything to get it.

Stiller and Watts are a long-married couple without kids, and happy that way. But then another couple has a baby and they are suddenly out in the cold as everything  becomes baby talk. At the same time, a Driver and Seyfried, married, in their twenties, very hip downtowners, come into their lives and their whole order of business is turned upside down.

But 44 is a lot different than 25, as they soon learn. And on top of just not being able to keep up physically– Stiller, for example, finds out he has arthritis in a very funny scene– there’s professional mayhem. Baumbach adds in a kind of “All About Eve” twist that will ring all too familiar for a lot of the audience. And that’s when things get interesting thanks to a not seen enough Charles Grodin as Watts’ legendary documentary filmmaker father (sort of a DA Pennebaker, Richard Leacock character).

“While We’re Young” hinges on an incident that has echoes (but is different) of “Broadcast News.” Suffice to say, this is a smart comedy very much in the vein of later Woody Allen. All the acting is superb, including Beastie Boys performer Adam Horovitz (whose dad is playwright Israel Horovitz) who makes a nice feature film acting debut.

PS For Toronto, this is Naomi Watts’s second big success after her hilarious Russian hooker in Barry Levinson’s terrific “The Humbling.” It’s about time.

Some big studio or distributor will snatch up “Boychoir” today and have a big Christmas or Easter hit. Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Eddie Izzard and some precocious young men are superb in Francois Girard’s film about the American Boychoir, a real and famous school that tours around the world.

Of course, the music — all choral– is a salve, gorgeously produced and wonderful to listen to.

The story– with Josh Lucas in a subplot as the main boy’s father– is a little contrived but it works. And Lucas is quite good as the dad who never wanted this kid and keeps him a secret from his family.

The main boys are played by Garrett Wareing (Stet) who comes to Boychoir as a juvenile delinquent who can sing like an angel– and Joe West, the angelic little kid who’s been the star and now turns a little evil to defend his position in the choir.

So guess what? Joe West is the son of Maura West, Emmy winning soap opera actress currently turning “General Hospital” into chaos as a beautiful 40s style female mobster. When I saw her in Roy Thompson Hall last night my first instinct was to call the police or duck. Her “GH” character means business. She told me Joe was her son, and that she has five kids! This one doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Anyway back to “Boychoir”: Kathy Bates wasn’t here last night but she got a big reaction from the audience. The screenplay throws her a lot of good lines, and she never fails to land them. Izzard is fine but a little flat because of the role. If you know his work, the real Eddie Izzard is a star. Hoffman plays the “Mr. Holland” character in this opus. It’s always instructive to watch him work. He is flawless in his delivery.

Again, a warm, welcoming movie, great family fare in the best way, sensational music.

After a very good screening for “Boychoir” with Dustin Hoffman– a lovely “Mr. Holland’s Opus” meets “Dead Poets Society” — and more on that later– the Toronto crowd braved pouring rain and headed over to Princess of Wales Theater for Theodore Melfi’s “St. Vincent.”

Bill Murray got such a thunderous standing ovation last night after the premiere of “St. Vincent” that he was still dazed and a little teary at the after party following at Patria (sponsored by Hudson Bay).

“St. Vincent” is evidently Harvey Weinstein’s surprise movie of the season, a “Silver Linings Playbook” style character study that is brilliant, weepy, poignant and unexpected. Bill Murray may actually win his Oscar at last for playing this sort of oddball outsider with a heart of gold because he manages to keep it from being saccharine. It’s Murray at his most endearing, sort of picking up signals from outer space while at the same communicating them to those around him warmly. Vincent may actually be the human version of “ET.”

Murray is totally aided in this effort by an exceptional cast starting with an 11 year old boy named Oliver played by Jaeden Lieberher who does his best to steal the movie from Murray but can’t quite. (We’ll see Jaeden next in Cameron Crowe’s new film.) But there are also Naomi Watts as Vincent’s paid Russian lady friend, Melissa McCarthy as Oliver’s mom, Chris O’Dowd as Oliver’s teacher and the local priest, and a talented group of New York actors in various other roles.

The movie is from first time film director Melfi, who’s done a lot of commercials. He is as sure with “St. Vincent” as a veteran. That he got this shot is a real tribute to Harvey Weinstein, who “got” this whole thing and went for it. Everyone in the press thought “Imitation Game” was Harvey’s Oscar card this season. Wrong! A nice surprise.

Bill Murray marches to his own drummer. They had “Bill Murray Day” here yesterday as a gimmick just to keep him interested in what’s going on. At the brief Q&A he joked that he only got the part “because they couldn’t get Jack Nicholson.” He asked, from the stage, “Where are we?” until audience members shouted back “Toronto.” It’s a role he’s assumed, and it’s a little real. But he knows what he’s doing. And now he’s got a good shot at his most major success.

At the party: “Mad Men” and “ER” star Linda Cardelini, who told me she became buddies with Bill because he just called her up one day to say how much he liked her. She’s here with “Welcome to Me,” which also stars Kristin Wiig– she was at the party, too, along with Josh Charles and a host of other actors who partied through the wet wet night.

PS Maybe they let that crazy mayor Rob Ford run this city after all. All the streets are blocked off around the film festival, traffic is a mess and access is impossible. Only Rob Ford could have thought of this. Being in Toronto is a frustrating experience. They’ve brought passive aggressive inconvenience to a high art!

Wake me up when tomorrow comes: Green Day rocker Billie Joe Armstrong is serious about his acting career. He’s following Justin Timberlake from the radio to the big screen. BJ has already finished his first film, “Like Sunday Like Rain” directed by our old Naked Angels pal Frank Whaley.

Now I’m told he’s signed to play a rocker (duh) in Lee Kirk’s “Geezer,” a comedy about an aging rocker whose family forgets his 40th birthday. Sounds like fun. Someone’s giving Billie Joe good advice. Both movies are combining music and acting. Plus, they’re indie enough to give him cred.

Soon enough we may see Billie Joe at the Indie Spirit Awards. Far from an American Idiot, he’s quite smart and talented. Can’t wait to see where this will lead,