Okay, that was fast. Dunno if it's a record, but I did hit the ground running with plenty of prep this year.
The festival changed the format of the order form: instead of the colour-coding by double-ended highlighter (which hasn't been included in the bag since 2006 anyway) you now write a screening code for your second pick under each first pick. I know there's been enough confusion in the past but this shift still seems odd to me. No matter.
As I mentioned earlier, blogs written by The People aren't being linked from the festival site this year, so if anyone does read this it'll likely be FB friends who may not be here in Toronto. I won't prattle on with details (oh who am I kidding...) but short version: I bought a 10-pack of tickets, so I chose my top ten movies (with specific screening times) and ten backups in case the first ones are sold out. Except for the Michael Caine afternoon, I don't think many of my top ten are big ticket festival items (ie: no Clooney, Coens or Michael Moore) so I may be on fairly solid ground. That said, I also plan on buying four or five individual tickets when they go on sale, so ideally I'll still be able to catch a handful of my backup picks, and even possibly some of what I don't get in the first ten at different screenings if the ones I've requested are sold out. I drop off my order form after work tomorrow, and next week sometime I'll get the email telling me what I got. Anyhoo...
My top ten picks (check out the summaries on the TIFF website if you're curious):
An Education
Cleanflix
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
The Disappearance of Alice Creed
in conversation with...Michael Caine
Kirot
The Loved Ones
La Donation
L'affaire Farewell
Timetrip: The Curse of the Viking Witch
My ten backups:
Fish Tank
Five Hours From Paris
Solitary Man
Cracks
Mall Girls
Giulia Doesn't Date At Night
The Search
Slovenian Girl
My Tehran For Sale
Hipsters
So what's the breakdown? No Dialogues this year (Joe Dante might be cool, come to think of it), no Canada First!, and I'm going to a Sprockets screening for the first time, that Danish kids movie that looks like fun. Four of my top ten are not in English, and two of those are in French; seven of my runners-up aren't in English. Only one Midnight Madness flick in the whole batch. Did Martyrs turn me off that program so much? I doubt it, it's just that of the other nine this year, three or four are definitely hitting screens later this summer and I've already seen Ong-Bak 2. I've got some huge gaps in my screening schedule, but I'll no doubt fill them somehow. Even if it's not with #s 11-20, as there are plenty of others in the book I wouldn't turn up my nose at. I've got nothing from Hong Kong in either list this year, but if I wind up squeezing Vengeance or Accident into a hole in my schedule, no complaints.
Made it through Station To Station and most of Buddah of Suburbia while bashing this out. Exhausted. Another annual tradition passed.
3 days 'til FanExpo
16 days 'til TIFF
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Program Book Day! and planning the schedule
Partway through the process, and before my eyes go crosseyed from the Excel, some first impressions.
Superficial stuff first: love the program book cover this year, the motif that appears in variations throughout the materials of enraptured audience members instead of vague abstracts or modern-art surrealism. The people's festival indeed, illustrated. Looks like the bag is made of better material than it has been in the past two years as well, with a flat bottom to boot (okay, this seems irrelevant, but I save 'em as souvenirs and last year's was made of some fabric barely a notch up from crepe paper). Got a second Stella Artois glass, assuming they remain a sponsor, after TIFF '11 I'll be able to serve pilsner for four. Took the traditional big whiff of the book and...hmmm. Paint. The Nathan Philips Square TIFF tent's new expansion just got a fresh coat recently, it seems, and the glorious new-ink-and-cinema scent of the program book is subsumed by the odour of white latex paint. Got back to the office, gave the enclosed promotional sample cosmetics, coffee, popcorn and cherry/pomegranate power water to co-workers and began highlighting titles in the index.
I suppose the Kindle may be different as it's not so much for the interactivity, but I must say that books, ie: solid paper-based blocks of info you can hold in your hand, can't be disappearing any time soon. Sure the whole film list has been up on the festival site for a few days and bouncing back and forth between links there has been helpful, but actually being able to study the summaries and credits caused a small shakeout and huge additions. 25 titles highlighted in the index based on the cover-to-cover I did at my desk. And now comes the winnowing.
Still nothing for me from India this year, the one that looked great, What's Your Rashee?, is a gala. Didn't know anything about An Education until...screenplay by Nick Hornby?!? I'm there. Quite a lot in Reel To Reel I'm curious to see, but oddly enough there's nothing in Canada First! that's grabbing me. The afternoon with Michael Caine is on my list, but the movie he's selling isn't. I suspect his Q&A will be sold out, or at least I'm bracing myself for settling for a second pick that day. The first screening of one of my gotta-see's conflicts with the Nick Cave book signing, which is a drag, but maybe Willem Defoe will stick around for the second screening. Still sort of regretting not doing two ticket books, but pragmatism must rule.
Okay, back to the spreadsheets...
Superficial stuff first: love the program book cover this year, the motif that appears in variations throughout the materials of enraptured audience members instead of vague abstracts or modern-art surrealism. The people's festival indeed, illustrated. Looks like the bag is made of better material than it has been in the past two years as well, with a flat bottom to boot (okay, this seems irrelevant, but I save 'em as souvenirs and last year's was made of some fabric barely a notch up from crepe paper). Got a second Stella Artois glass, assuming they remain a sponsor, after TIFF '11 I'll be able to serve pilsner for four. Took the traditional big whiff of the book and...hmmm. Paint. The Nathan Philips Square TIFF tent's new expansion just got a fresh coat recently, it seems, and the glorious new-ink-and-cinema scent of the program book is subsumed by the odour of white latex paint. Got back to the office, gave the enclosed promotional sample cosmetics, coffee, popcorn and cherry/pomegranate power water to co-workers and began highlighting titles in the index.
I suppose the Kindle may be different as it's not so much for the interactivity, but I must say that books, ie: solid paper-based blocks of info you can hold in your hand, can't be disappearing any time soon. Sure the whole film list has been up on the festival site for a few days and bouncing back and forth between links there has been helpful, but actually being able to study the summaries and credits caused a small shakeout and huge additions. 25 titles highlighted in the index based on the cover-to-cover I did at my desk. And now comes the winnowing.
Still nothing for me from India this year, the one that looked great, What's Your Rashee?, is a gala. Didn't know anything about An Education until...screenplay by Nick Hornby?!? I'm there. Quite a lot in Reel To Reel I'm curious to see, but oddly enough there's nothing in Canada First! that's grabbing me. The afternoon with Michael Caine is on my list, but the movie he's selling isn't. I suspect his Q&A will be sold out, or at least I'm bracing myself for settling for a second pick that day. The first screening of one of my gotta-see's conflicts with the Nick Cave book signing, which is a drag, but maybe Willem Defoe will stick around for the second screening. Still sort of regretting not doing two ticket books, but pragmatism must rule.
Okay, back to the spreadsheets...
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Film list day
With mind reeling from finally watching the Series 4 finale of Dr. Who (god, could I have a bigger crush on Eve Myles?) time to tackle the fully-posted TIFF list. Oy. Once again, regretting only getting a ten-pack, even with the four or five individual tix I plan on picking up I'll still miss a lot.
A few things I noticed: no Baltasar Kormรกkur movie this year, in fact only two Icelandic films, one of which is a documentary largely in English (judging from the trailer) and the other a multinational co-production starring Brian Cox and Paul Dano so I guess no whimsical Reykjavic family dramas starring lovely elfin redheads for me this year; no Takashi Miike; still no Palermo Shooting, which has been in the can for so long I'm sure we'll have to wait for his next film for another Wenders appearance at TIFF. There are, as usual, new offerings from the Coen brothers, Carl Bessai, Johnny To and Steven Soderbergh.
As for what I want to see...okay, here's the tentative list of the twenty movies I'd most love to see, the Can't Miss ones marked with an asterix:
So...more than the usual quota of French-language films on the list...and shit, no Indian movies. I'll have to look deeper once the book comes out. Only three Midnight Madness movies, as I figured I'd be cutting back this year, but as I suspect that Daybreakers will get a regular release I'll probably pass on it for the fest. With the Danish time travel flick, that could be my first-ever Sprockets Family Zone screening. First Israeli movie as well. Michael Caine? Oh wow...that's gonna rock, I suspect that'll be one of the fest's hottest tickets.
Got an invite today on FB for Nick Cave, apparently he's doing a reading/signing of his new novel at Indigo at the Eaton Centre in the middle of the fest. That's going to poke a hole in my schedule, for sure. Does Cave have a movie in the festival as well? Has anyone snatched up the rights to "And The Ass Saw The Angel" yet?
How come the rain didn't cool everything off?
8 days 'til FanExpo
21 days 'til TIFF
A few things I noticed: no Baltasar Kormรกkur movie this year, in fact only two Icelandic films, one of which is a documentary largely in English (judging from the trailer) and the other a multinational co-production starring Brian Cox and Paul Dano so I guess no whimsical Reykjavic family dramas starring lovely elfin redheads for me this year; no Takashi Miike; still no Palermo Shooting, which has been in the can for so long I'm sure we'll have to wait for his next film for another Wenders appearance at TIFF. There are, as usual, new offerings from the Coen brothers, Carl Bessai, Johnny To and Steven Soderbergh.
As for what I want to see...okay, here's the tentative list of the twenty movies I'd most love to see, the Can't Miss ones marked with an asterix:
Five Hours From Paris
The Disappearance of Alice Creed
The Misfortunates
Accident
The Loved Ones*
Timetrip: The Curse of the Viking Witch
Daybreakers
The Most Dangerous Man In America
Ape
In conversation with Michael Caine*
Cleanflix
L’affaire Farewell*
Blessed
Defendor
Giulia Doesn’t Date At Night
Fish Tank
Hipsters
Collapse
La Donation*
KirotSo...more than the usual quota of French-language films on the list...and shit, no Indian movies. I'll have to look deeper once the book comes out. Only three Midnight Madness movies, as I figured I'd be cutting back this year, but as I suspect that Daybreakers will get a regular release I'll probably pass on it for the fest. With the Danish time travel flick, that could be my first-ever Sprockets Family Zone screening. First Israeli movie as well. Michael Caine? Oh wow...that's gonna rock, I suspect that'll be one of the fest's hottest tickets.
Got an invite today on FB for Nick Cave, apparently he's doing a reading/signing of his new novel at Indigo at the Eaton Centre in the middle of the fest. That's going to poke a hole in my schedule, for sure. Does Cave have a movie in the festival as well? Has anyone snatched up the rights to "And The Ass Saw The Angel" yet?
How come the rain didn't cool everything off?
8 days 'til FanExpo
21 days 'til TIFF
Monday, August 17, 2009
A sense of order
I was just sitting here sweating my way through a marathon of Dr. Who season 4 DVDs, and realized that it's only three days until the full film list goes live. It's well past time for an update, as the summer is cresting and the accelerated race through my glory weeks of FanExpo/TIFF is nearly upon us. Funny thing, if you go to the festival website, the list of films is already pretty comprehensive. Have the announcements been more thorough and spoilerish this year or is it my imagination? There's always been that glut of reveals every year regarding when Clooney will be arriving and whatnot, and even though I don't get a paper at work anymore, I seem to be picking up a steady stream of such news via osmosis this year. What is there left to unveil on Thursday?
Anyway, I'll get back to the current list in a minute, but first some housekeeping, which may be crying into an abyss for all I know because the TIFF09 website has yet to announce any links to fan blogs. For the past three years I've answered the invitation to link my blog (first two years on MySpace and since last year here at blogspot) and enjoyed a few readers. Not tons, but I don't need tons, I just think it's cool when strangers tune in for whatever reason. My dream job is film critic; real life doesn't really afford me the opportunity, and the rise of the internet has, sadly, rendered such an occupation as it's been commonly defined since the thirties to a degree obsolete. So for two weeks a year I can immerse myself in cool foreign and indie fare, dissect and analyze and assign arbitrary star ratings...oy that sounds callous. I love movies, and I love to talk movies. If one person checked out Not Quite Hollywood, Son of Rambow or The Burrowers because they were sampling fan blogs via the TIFF website and took my rave at my word, I suppose I'll never know (MySpace used to count fifty-plus readers a day during the festival but nobody ever left comments), but part of me would be greatly satisfied.
At any rate, I used to have readers, I have a couple of subscribers here and my fingers are crossed that a few more film fans will join me here later on. Thus, I'd like to tell the assembled multitudes my basic rules...well, traditions, really...for how I pick movies for the prime festival experience.
1. No galas. They're not worth the money, all the movies are going to play in theatres later (some notable bombs excepted, and I'm looking at you, Edison), and without a high-priced donor pass, you wind up in the nosebleed seats. Fuhgettaboutit.
2. By the same token, nothing that's going to play theatres in the fall anyway. Sometimes one can't tell; the star-studdedness of a film is no longer any guarantee that it's arrived at the festival with a distributor or that it'll pick one up after the premiere. But I've seen festival premieres announced long after the trailer for the same flick has been playing for months. 2007 was an odd festival in that regard: from the festival's second Friday through the Sunday after wrap, I saw three movies outside the TIFF that had premiered at the festival mere days before (Eastern Promises, The Brave One and Across The Universe).
3. Try to see at least one of the following: documentaries, "In Conversation With...", Dialogues, Canadian movies, and if at least half of what I see isn't subtitled, I'm not trying hard enough. Every year I swear I'm going to see something from India and it never seems to happen. I've had good luck with Iceland in the past, and if there's anything filmed in the Welsh language, I'm so there.
4. I'm not quite the starfucker I was as a young lad (especially when I first moved to L.A., I was pretty insufferable then, actually) but if anyone I've actually worked with or for is in a movie at the festival, I try to check that one out to say hi. For the record, I've crewed on two feature films, a low-budget indie called Lovelife (1997) and the remake of The In-Laws (2003), worked for one major actor (who shall remain nameless) and interned for a multiple Oscar-winning director (ditto), plus I met or knew tons of other creative folk who may be passing through town in September.
5. My favorite director is Wim Wenders, if he comes to town, I'm in the front row. Plus I've now got a cool Bis ans Ende der Welt poster that I'm dying to get autographed, and if anyone has spotted Sam Neill around town while he's filming, I'd love a tip or two.
So I just went over to the site to comment on the list and while I was there they took it down for updating! Dagnabit, they did that the other night as well! Okay, I'll go through the list again later this week.
11 days 'til FanExpo
24 days 'til TIFF
Anyway, I'll get back to the current list in a minute, but first some housekeeping, which may be crying into an abyss for all I know because the TIFF09 website has yet to announce any links to fan blogs. For the past three years I've answered the invitation to link my blog (first two years on MySpace and since last year here at blogspot) and enjoyed a few readers. Not tons, but I don't need tons, I just think it's cool when strangers tune in for whatever reason. My dream job is film critic; real life doesn't really afford me the opportunity, and the rise of the internet has, sadly, rendered such an occupation as it's been commonly defined since the thirties to a degree obsolete. So for two weeks a year I can immerse myself in cool foreign and indie fare, dissect and analyze and assign arbitrary star ratings...oy that sounds callous. I love movies, and I love to talk movies. If one person checked out Not Quite Hollywood, Son of Rambow or The Burrowers because they were sampling fan blogs via the TIFF website and took my rave at my word, I suppose I'll never know (MySpace used to count fifty-plus readers a day during the festival but nobody ever left comments), but part of me would be greatly satisfied.
At any rate, I used to have readers, I have a couple of subscribers here and my fingers are crossed that a few more film fans will join me here later on. Thus, I'd like to tell the assembled multitudes my basic rules...well, traditions, really...for how I pick movies for the prime festival experience.
1. No galas. They're not worth the money, all the movies are going to play in theatres later (some notable bombs excepted, and I'm looking at you, Edison), and without a high-priced donor pass, you wind up in the nosebleed seats. Fuhgettaboutit.
2. By the same token, nothing that's going to play theatres in the fall anyway. Sometimes one can't tell; the star-studdedness of a film is no longer any guarantee that it's arrived at the festival with a distributor or that it'll pick one up after the premiere. But I've seen festival premieres announced long after the trailer for the same flick has been playing for months. 2007 was an odd festival in that regard: from the festival's second Friday through the Sunday after wrap, I saw three movies outside the TIFF that had premiered at the festival mere days before (Eastern Promises, The Brave One and Across The Universe).
3. Try to see at least one of the following: documentaries, "In Conversation With...", Dialogues, Canadian movies, and if at least half of what I see isn't subtitled, I'm not trying hard enough. Every year I swear I'm going to see something from India and it never seems to happen. I've had good luck with Iceland in the past, and if there's anything filmed in the Welsh language, I'm so there.
4. I'm not quite the starfucker I was as a young lad (especially when I first moved to L.A., I was pretty insufferable then, actually) but if anyone I've actually worked with or for is in a movie at the festival, I try to check that one out to say hi. For the record, I've crewed on two feature films, a low-budget indie called Lovelife (1997) and the remake of The In-Laws (2003), worked for one major actor (who shall remain nameless) and interned for a multiple Oscar-winning director (ditto), plus I met or knew tons of other creative folk who may be passing through town in September.
5. My favorite director is Wim Wenders, if he comes to town, I'm in the front row. Plus I've now got a cool Bis ans Ende der Welt poster that I'm dying to get autographed, and if anyone has spotted Sam Neill around town while he's filming, I'd love a tip or two.
So I just went over to the site to comment on the list and while I was there they took it down for updating! Dagnabit, they did that the other night as well! Okay, I'll go through the list again later this week.
11 days 'til FanExpo
24 days 'til TIFF
Thursday, July 23, 2009
More picks and a semi-retraction
As I type this update I've got the Live Aid DVD box set playing, found it used at Refried Beats yesterday. Loving the Wembley stuff (my hero Paul Weller rocking an entire stadium...wowwowwow) but since all I've seen so far of Philadelphia is Bryan Adams the U.S half is less than stellar so far. Seriously, did every male rock star in 1985 have ginormous hockey hair? Oh, here's Nicholson introducing U2. This could be good...
Right, the fest. Two more programs were (partially?) unveiled today but before I get to those I have to confess I've sort of come around on the issue of Jennifer's Body opening MM. Despite the presence of Megan Fox, whom I'm still not convinced is an actual living, breathing human being and not a s1m0ne-like computer simulacrum created Weird Science-style by wrapping a bra around Michael Bay's head and shoving Maxim photo spreads into a CPU for replication, which hangs an unassailable mainstream cred millstone around the neck of the whole affair despite the inherent coolness of Diablo Cody and thus not exactly in keeping the the renegade nutball spirit of Midnight Madness, I realize that this opener represents an elevation of the MM program in the estimation of the programmers. Jennifer's Body could have been a Special Presentation; shit, Zack & Miri was last year, and as I said before Cody has earned her status as a star of TIFF. But an actual high-profile star vehicle brings press and critical attention the the Midnight Madness program in a way that even, for instance, Borat and his peasant-hauled oxcart arrival in 2006 wouldn't. I guess to some degree this means that MM isn't just for the fringe-dwellers in the festival crowd any more, which is sad, the way a favorite band suddenly going from the clubs to the arenas always hurts, but as long as this isn't a harbringer of future programming trends (I shudder at the thought of MM gaining, say, Bob Weinstein as a primary sponsor), it's actually a good thing.
(Live Aid interjection...okay, July 13 1985 was officially the moment that Bono's self-satisfied messianic impulses leapt into the driver's seat permanently. And may I say again, dude, THAT FUCKING HAIR!!!!!)
Discovery and Vanguard titles hit the website today, there are a few more that range from tempting to gotta-see for me. There's a lot of misery on parade as well, which is always a big turnoff for me. I'm hoping to see some more cool Scandinavian work this year (I've had generally good luck with Icelandic picks over the past three TIFFs) but, and call me narrow-minded if you must, I'm steering clear of dead kids, abusive parents and addiction tales that are promised to be even an iota less cheery than Trainspotting (which is one of my favorite movies, dead baby and all, but I hadn't reached my saturation point on that particular subgenre yet when the movie came out). Which is hard because a quick scan at the summaries for Discovery alone reads like a depressive's diary, half the titles involving one or all three of my no-gos listed above. Samantha Morton, one of my favorite actresses and one of the most luminous screen presences of my generation, is bringing her directorial debut The Unloved to Discovery, but..."the stark portait of a young British girl plucked from her abusive family and thrown into the hands of government care"? Le sigh. I dunno, maybe I'll have to for Morton, but...
So the cool stuff that jumps out at me so far is...Paul and Sandra Fierlinger's My Dog Tulip, because I'm definitely looking to see some cool animation this year; Leon Prudovsky's Five Hours From Paris; J. Blakeson's The Disappearance of Alice Creed, as it stars the amazing Eddie Marsan from Happy Go Lucky and Gemma Arterton from Quantum of Solace, one of the most underrated Bond girls in the entire franchise; The Misfortunates, because drunk rambunctious Belgians sounds like a fun evening; Accident because...ah! I told you Johnny To would be here! Okay, he produced it, but it still counts.
36 days until FanExpo
49 days until TIFF
Right, the fest. Two more programs were (partially?) unveiled today but before I get to those I have to confess I've sort of come around on the issue of Jennifer's Body opening MM. Despite the presence of Megan Fox, whom I'm still not convinced is an actual living, breathing human being and not a s1m0ne-like computer simulacrum created Weird Science-style by wrapping a bra around Michael Bay's head and shoving Maxim photo spreads into a CPU for replication, which hangs an unassailable mainstream cred millstone around the neck of the whole affair despite the inherent coolness of Diablo Cody and thus not exactly in keeping the the renegade nutball spirit of Midnight Madness, I realize that this opener represents an elevation of the MM program in the estimation of the programmers. Jennifer's Body could have been a Special Presentation; shit, Zack & Miri was last year, and as I said before Cody has earned her status as a star of TIFF. But an actual high-profile star vehicle brings press and critical attention the the Midnight Madness program in a way that even, for instance, Borat and his peasant-hauled oxcart arrival in 2006 wouldn't. I guess to some degree this means that MM isn't just for the fringe-dwellers in the festival crowd any more, which is sad, the way a favorite band suddenly going from the clubs to the arenas always hurts, but as long as this isn't a harbringer of future programming trends (I shudder at the thought of MM gaining, say, Bob Weinstein as a primary sponsor), it's actually a good thing.
(Live Aid interjection...okay, July 13 1985 was officially the moment that Bono's self-satisfied messianic impulses leapt into the driver's seat permanently. And may I say again, dude, THAT FUCKING HAIR!!!!!)
Discovery and Vanguard titles hit the website today, there are a few more that range from tempting to gotta-see for me. There's a lot of misery on parade as well, which is always a big turnoff for me. I'm hoping to see some more cool Scandinavian work this year (I've had generally good luck with Icelandic picks over the past three TIFFs) but, and call me narrow-minded if you must, I'm steering clear of dead kids, abusive parents and addiction tales that are promised to be even an iota less cheery than Trainspotting (which is one of my favorite movies, dead baby and all, but I hadn't reached my saturation point on that particular subgenre yet when the movie came out). Which is hard because a quick scan at the summaries for Discovery alone reads like a depressive's diary, half the titles involving one or all three of my no-gos listed above. Samantha Morton, one of my favorite actresses and one of the most luminous screen presences of my generation, is bringing her directorial debut The Unloved to Discovery, but..."the stark portait of a young British girl plucked from her abusive family and thrown into the hands of government care"? Le sigh. I dunno, maybe I'll have to for Morton, but...
So the cool stuff that jumps out at me so far is...Paul and Sandra Fierlinger's My Dog Tulip, because I'm definitely looking to see some cool animation this year; Leon Prudovsky's Five Hours From Paris; J. Blakeson's The Disappearance of Alice Creed, as it stars the amazing Eddie Marsan from Happy Go Lucky and Gemma Arterton from Quantum of Solace, one of the most underrated Bond girls in the entire franchise; The Misfortunates, because drunk rambunctious Belgians sounds like a fun evening; Accident because...ah! I told you Johnny To would be here! Okay, he produced it, but it still counts.
36 days until FanExpo
49 days until TIFF
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The opening salvo of Midnight Madness
Last year fully a third of my TIFF screenings were part of the Midnight Madness program. Bear in mind I have never actually been to a midnight premiere at the festival, as my sleep cycles are whacked out enough and during the fest I'm coasting on caffeine and Szechuan fumes as it is--despite my best efforts I just know I'd fall asleep at the Ryerson and I suspect that's not a crowd you want to find yourself unconscious in the middle of, love 'em though I do. Still, I'm pretty sure that every year I've attended the Toronto Film Festival I've seen at least one MM flick during a day/evening screening, and last year I hit a certain saturation point. I wrote at length last year about how Not Quite Hollywood reaffirmed my faith in the joys of Cinematic Trash so I won't rehash it here, nor will I relate how the penultimate film of my TIFF '08 was Martyrs and how it made me question my own latent censorious nature. But while MM is the first program at the fest to be fully listed on the website and thus I couldn't help but wait with bated breath for the update, I was approaching it with trepidation this year for some very French, skinned-alive reasons.
Damn that freakin' Colin. Because the bastard with the best job in the TIFF organization seems to have done it again. Of the ten, there are at least eight that I know I'm going to see eventually, a few that I'll definitely try to see if I can come September and three that immediately made the "absolutely must see" list that I'm sketching before Program Book Release Day. It's not your typical MM lineup, either: there are no documentaries, there's nothing from Hong Kong (though if this year is like any of the last few, I'm sure Johnny To has two or three films scattered throughout the other programs), there's no Gallic torture porn. On the other hand, it appears the opening night flick is Jennifer's Body, the trailers for which are already playing in the Cinemultiplexes. Every year there's at least one MM premiere that ends up being an unexpected hit in mainstream theatres later that fall, but it's typically a surprise that's to some degree discovered at the festival. I've been going to TIFF since 2003, and looking back through my well-thumbed program books I see Ju-On (2003), Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), Borat and The Host (2006), Diary of the Dead (2007...okay, not a huge hit but I did eventually see it at the Scotia) and JCVD (2008). For a studio-backed flick written and produced by an Oscar-winning success story from just two years ago to be opening MM this year...subject matter be damned, considering how TIFF introduced the world to the brilliance that is Juno ( I say that without irony, I fucking love that movie) in 2007 one would think Diablo Cody would be walking the red carpet at the Visa Screening Room at least instead of waiting for her introduction next to a bank of gym lockers at the Ryerson.
ANYWAY...so my gotta sees this year so far are The Loved Ones, A Town Called Panic and Daybreakers, the last of which I may actually try and stay up late for the premiere on the off chance that Sam Neill will show up. Solomon Kane and Bitch Slap are possibilities for impulse ticket buys later in the festival to plug holes in my schedule as they occur.
Hey, they announced the documentary list, or at least seventeen of them. What's cool there...Cleanflix, about that weird Mormon company that hacks up movies for the sake of people whose heads explode at the mere whiff of an f-bomb, that just made my list. The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. I am so all over that one. And The Topp Twins has one of the most enticing one-line descriptions I've yet come across, that's a strong possible there.
Alright, I'm officially excited.
38 days until FanExpo
51 days until TIFF '09
Damn that freakin' Colin. Because the bastard with the best job in the TIFF organization seems to have done it again. Of the ten, there are at least eight that I know I'm going to see eventually, a few that I'll definitely try to see if I can come September and three that immediately made the "absolutely must see" list that I'm sketching before Program Book Release Day. It's not your typical MM lineup, either: there are no documentaries, there's nothing from Hong Kong (though if this year is like any of the last few, I'm sure Johnny To has two or three films scattered throughout the other programs), there's no Gallic torture porn. On the other hand, it appears the opening night flick is Jennifer's Body, the trailers for which are already playing in the Cinemultiplexes. Every year there's at least one MM premiere that ends up being an unexpected hit in mainstream theatres later that fall, but it's typically a surprise that's to some degree discovered at the festival. I've been going to TIFF since 2003, and looking back through my well-thumbed program books I see Ju-On (2003), Saw (2004), Hostel (2005), Borat and The Host (2006), Diary of the Dead (2007...okay, not a huge hit but I did eventually see it at the Scotia) and JCVD (2008). For a studio-backed flick written and produced by an Oscar-winning success story from just two years ago to be opening MM this year...subject matter be damned, considering how TIFF introduced the world to the brilliance that is Juno ( I say that without irony, I fucking love that movie) in 2007 one would think Diablo Cody would be walking the red carpet at the Visa Screening Room at least instead of waiting for her introduction next to a bank of gym lockers at the Ryerson.
ANYWAY...so my gotta sees this year so far are The Loved Ones, A Town Called Panic and Daybreakers, the last of which I may actually try and stay up late for the premiere on the off chance that Sam Neill will show up. Solomon Kane and Bitch Slap are possibilities for impulse ticket buys later in the festival to plug holes in my schedule as they occur.
Hey, they announced the documentary list, or at least seventeen of them. What's cool there...Cleanflix, about that weird Mormon company that hacks up movies for the sake of people whose heads explode at the mere whiff of an f-bomb, that just made my list. The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. I am so all over that one. And The Topp Twins has one of the most enticing one-line descriptions I've yet come across, that's a strong possible there.
Alright, I'm officially excited.
38 days until FanExpo
51 days until TIFF '09
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The countdown begins...
I can’t believe I let this go for so long. Or maybe I can…getting linked to through the TIFF site drives my traffic well above its usual two readers, and who wants to spew into a vacuum, so naturally I’ve slacked off. But we’re now less than eight weeks out, the summer days and weeks racing by at a frightening pace, draft after draft of movie-themed bile and bilge getting tossed and/or forgotten without ever seeing pixel to screen, and as I battle a humid bout of SAD under the overcast Toronto sky, I figured it’s time to get back to it, no?
So to get caught up: ticket packages have been on sale for a couple of weeks now, and I did get mine, after a few false starts. Went up to 55 Bloor on my lunch break and, oh yeah, not there any more. My bad, I forgot. Sign on the door sez go to 2 Carlton so I hop back on the subway and get off two stops south. Only to be told, “Um, we’re just a phone bank, you’ll have to go to” and here’s where I buggered it up again because I could have sworn the guy said Yonge/Dundas Square, where the ticket pickup and box office was last year. Next day, attempt two, I’m wandering the food court like an idiot, wondering if the fates once again have it in for me. Fortunately I’ve got the latest mailing in my bag, which I should have checked in the first place, and whaddya know: Nathan Phillips Square. In other words, six or seven blocks away from any festival screening room, yards from striking city workers, and basically not in any particularly sensible spot. Couple of days later at lunch I finally hike over there and buy the 10-pack.
I think I burned myself out last year. My end total was something like eighteen screenings (I got two 10-packs and brought friends to two films). I’m a film nerd, or at least used to be, but at that pace they start to blend together and one’s stomach becomes a solid tumor of food court Thai that doesn’t clear out until Halloween. I’ve often been envious of the 30-screenings folk and the critics who achieve the same saturation level, but I suspect that I’d be throwing in the towel around Wednesday if I seriously attempted it. So this year, the plan is one 10-pack and four, maybe five additional individual tickets once they go on sale on September 9th, and hopefully no three-flick days.
Of course, the closer the day actually gets, I’m sure I’ll change my mind again. As both my devoted readers know, the three week stretch surrounding FanExpo (weekend before Labour Day) and the end of TIFF is the absolute highlight of my Toronto year. There’s the day the Program Book comes out (August 25th this year), which to me is like Christmas, New Year’s and every birthday from ages four through twelve all rolled into one, an evening of spreadsheets and schedules and cross-referencing and picking my top ten and backups sometime around two AM, then three days of nerding out at the convention centre, the annual family visit over the holiday and then six days off work and lugging notebooks, scripts and my camera all over hell and gone for those magical screenings.
My impressions so far? Can one have any, two months before the fest? Of course….of note so far:
- Yes, I know I just finished bitching about it, but the box office situation is a major bugger. I really hope there will be more than one spot to buy same-day tickets during the festival, and that it’ll actually, you know, maybe be at one of the screening locations.
- Last year was stage two or three of the TIFF’s gradual elimination of the Visa Screening Room Special Presentations from accessibility to the hoi polloi. A couple of years back, you could still get SP tickets as part of your packages, but if bought individually they were hiked up to gala price. Then last year all the SPs were priced out of range, unless they were premiering in the Winter Garden screening room, which seemed to be decided rather arbitrarily by the programmers and what movie was screening where was only evident when one looked to choose their package picks. Rumour has it this year the general rabble will be able to view movies in the best screening room left in the city (since the Uptown fell), though we will be relegated to the balcony lest the donors get student-stink on their Armani. Which isn’t terrible, the Elgin theatre is still a dynamite place to see a movie from any altitude, though if you have vertigo you may want to wait for the second or third festival screening.
- The initial titles released on the TIFF website (largely SP, but a few other programs as well) are by and large droolingly enticing. And this Tuesday the Midnight Madness program is unveiled. Last year I saw six of the ten MM flicks, though after my experience at Martyrs I’ll definitely choose a bit more sparingly. Colin Geddes still has, I’m convinced, the best job in the festival, and if he finds anything this year half as glorious as The Burrowers or Not Quite Hollywood it’ll make up for any duds in the rest of the fest for me.
- In the past two years, Time magazine did two features each year a week apart on the fest, in fact in 2007 it made the cover of the Canadian edition (and just that edition, I’m fairly certain). Now that Time no longer publishes a Canadian version, I wonder how in-depth the coverage is going to be.
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