My schedule and some strange/lame coverage

Okay, it’s all nailed down. Barring any impulse buys—which during the festival basically means I’ve got a four hour gap between movies and I’m debating whether to spend an hour and a half plus in transit back out to my place in the east end then back downtown or is it worth $20 to skip the trip and fill the gap with an Uzbek musical or Ghanaian murder mystery—I’ve got my schedule locked down. Made a couple of trades and picked up some extras for friends so here’s how I’m spending Friday through next Saturday:
JCVD
It Might Get Loud
The Ghost
La memoire des anges
Genova
White Night Wedding
Ashes of Time Redux
The Hurt Locker
Not Quite Hollywood
In conversation with Kathryn Bigelow
Plastic City
Adam Resurrected
The Burrowers
Firaaq
Achilles and the Tortoise
Chocolate
Martyrs
My Mother, My Bride & I

Realized I’m seeing fully half the Midnight Madness program, none of it at midnight. With my sleep cycle as wonky as it is, I daren’t risk the caffeine binges that would be required to make the witching hour shows. Though I may at least show up at 11 on Thursday to see if I can spot the eponymous Belgian meatloaf heading into the premiere of JCVD.

On another note, last year Time magazine had two huge features on the festival on consecutive weeks, one of which was a cover story (Canadian edition only, I imagine). Last week’s issue, the one with McCain on the cover, has this year’s coverage, and if you happen to have read the article, chime in on this would you, is it unnecessarily snarky and pissy this year? Comments about how the reduced number of features “allow[s] the bosses of the festival…to congratulate themselves for streamlining the event.” The whole article seems to be about how TIFF is the launching pad for Oscar season, which is hardly news to anyone, but the writer obviously had a hard time finding an angle. The main body of the article barely qualifies as news; it’s a glorified promo piece, down to the more in depth coverage of Brad Pitt’s latest career move and fleeting interest in the foreign fare that makes up the bulk of the screenings. There’s also a few pages on where to shop and dine if you’ve got money to set on fire, and a map of downtown that suggests to me that this article IS in the U.S. edition of the magazine, if only because the Gardner Expressway is referred to on the map as “Frederick G. Gardner.”

One more day of work then my vacation starts. Kickass, dude.