Posts under ‘TIFF’

When we found out Monday that box #9 in the advance film selection lottery was drawn, and we were in box #7, we thought we were screwed. Proper screwed. Being in the second-last box is not usually a happy place for a TIFF film-goer. However. We just got our email…and we lucked out. Two #1 [...]

At this year’s film festival, if all goes to plan, we’ll be seeing five of these movies: Biutiful or Trust Beautiful Boy or Blame Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Let Me In Confessions or 127 Hours 13 Assassins or Amigo The most frustrating part of this year (aside from the eternally unusable TIFF website) was [...]

I’d kind of forgotten about all the movies we’ve watched over the past week: Kick-Ass: most excellent Precious: good, incredibly well-acted (in that if I ever see Mo’Nique walking down the street I’m likely to punch her face in) but hard as fuck to watch Stripes: I’m sure it was a classic for its time, [...]

Our final film of the fest was a bizarre one: Leslie, My Name Is Evil (tiff | imdb). Director Reg Harkema introduced it as virulently anti-realist (I’m paraphrasing here) and that was about accurate. It’s hard to describe, other than to say it’s unlike any other surrealist examination of the Manson family murders in the [...]

Accident, or Yi Ngoi in Cantonese (tiff | imdb) was the only second choice that we ended up with, since Whip It tickets were in short supply. Still, Whip It will be out soon and the guide’s description of Accident reminds me of a film we saw one year ago today, The Ghost, which would [...]

Valhalla Rising (tiff | imdb) was our third film, and first of the year back at our old familiar haunt: the Ryerson theatre. This film didn’t make the first draft of our schedule, but after hearing some early buzz and watching the trailer again, we swapped it in. I mean, c’mon…the awesome Mads Mikkelsen playing [...]

Film 2 of 5, Triage (tiff | imdb) made it on my list because it was directed by Danis Tanovic (who made No Man’s Land all those years ago). Nellie might have been influenced by the fact that Colin Farrell stars in it. I can’t criticize her too much for that; if I’d noticed that [...]

Last night we saw our first of five festival films (phew!), The Ape, or Apan in Swedish (tiff | imdb). It is, Nellie and I agree, a prototypical festival film. Interesting, but way too outside the mainstream to ever have a wide release, or maybe any release at all in North America. Taking my cue [...]

Pretty exciting few weeks coming up for Nellie and I. Tomorrow night we see our first film festival movie of 2009, which we wrap up just 72 hours later. Then I have five days in which to complete the twelve labours of Hercules at the office, and then…France. Woo! Then, once I get back — [...]

Our TIFF email just arrived. Being 36 boxes back didn’t hurt us too badly at all, as we got four of our 1st picks and one 2nd pick: The Ape (tiff), so we miss The Trotsky Triage (tiff), so we miss Up In The Air Valhalla Rising (tiff), so we miss The Road Accident (tiff), [...]

Box 48 of 54 was drawn for the TIFF advance draw. Since we’re in box 30 that means we’ll be the 36th box counted, 2/3 of the way back. Could be trouble, but I think we’ll get most or all of what we asked for. This could be bad, though, if I have to get [...]

Here’s what we’ve done with our last 24 hours: Went to work. Okay, well, this was mostly me. Just needed to catch up from last week and get a head start on the coming one. Saw District 9 (imdb | rotten tomatoes) at the Varsity, which was excellent. Good film all around, but what blew [...]

From the short list of 28 films we’ve now made our 1st and 2nd choices for the five films we’ll see. Here they are: The Ape (Apan) (tiff) or The Trotsky (tiff) Triage (tiff) or Up In The Air (tiff) The Road (tiff) or Peter Berg Presents: King’s Ransom (tiff) Whip It (tiff) or Accident [...]

Have narrowed down the list of TIFF movies from 491(ish) to 60. Nellie also got her list down to 60, and the cross-section between our film lists is a short list of 28. If I weren’t so tired, people, I would draw you a bitching Venn diagram.

So the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival has wrapped. The parties are over, the celebrities have left town (actually, they left several days ago), and red carpets are rolled up and sales at Starbucks have returned to normal. This year’s festival wasn’t without some grumbling though. I’ll get to that in a minute. As you [...]