Day 4 Round-up

Films seen: 1
Celebrity Sightings: Colin Firth, Catherine Keener, director Michael Winterbottom
Buzz in line: that Colin Firth sure is charming!; met a couple who had already seen 15+ movies...ah what it is to be retired/on vacation during TIFF
Thoughts: 5 movies in and another 10 to go, the bagged lunches and take-out are already proving tiresome; I just don't have many movies that are starting on time which is bad news when you h ave back-to-back screenings

Day 3 Round-up

Films seen: 3
Celebrity Sightings: Adrien Brody, Sandra Oh, Don McKellar, Julianne Moore, mark Ruffalo, dnny Glover, Gael garcia Bernal, Dominic Monaghan, Evangeline Lily, and Fernando Meirelles. Also secondary cast memebers of Blindness, director of Blind Sunflowers Jose Luis Cuerda, and director of $5 a Day Nigel Cole. And Ben Mulroney. if you count him as a celebrity.
Buzz in Line: How unorganized can TIFF08 be? It just keepes getting worse;
Thoughts: I have now had 3 out of 4 movies begin more than five minutes late. One of which- a regular Scotiabank screening was almost 20 minutes late, meaning I only had enough time to watch 50 minutes of $5 a Day before runing to Blindness. Blindness was almost 40 minutes late, but that's to be expected for screenings at teh Elgin. there's no reason for a movie without long cast intorductions to be so late.

I'm so far behind in any movie reviews, but they'll come...

Day2 Round-up

Films seen: 1
Stars seen: zero...except for the director of Wendy and Lucy Kelly Reichardt
Buzz in line: JCVD didn't live up to expectations; the AMC process for rush lines and ticket holders is bizarre
Thoughts: lots of people leaving as soon as the credits started rolling for Wendy and Lucy instead of sticking around for the Q&A with the director is usually a sign your movie wasn't that good...and it wasn't (review to come later).

Only an Hour in line!

Picked up my ten pack last night and decided not to make any changes after seeing the length of the exchanges line. Instead, I was in and out in an hour with my 10 tickets in hand. Not too bad considering some horror stories I heard of 3 hour plus waits on Labour Day.

2 more days of peace, relaxation, and home cooked meals until my first TIFF screening.

Ten for Ten!

With box #9 drawn in the lottery on Friday, I lucked out and managed to get all of my picks in lucky box #33. Although, after perusing this year's film festival guide I've spotted a few films that I missed in my inital picks, so I'll try to arrange some trades at the box office. In particular, the new Charlie Kaufman film, Synecdoche, New York which boasts an all-star cast of Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Samantha Morton, and Oscar-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.

While reading the festival guide and searching online might introduce me to new films, it also has the opposite effect. After seeing the trailer for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, I'm not as eager to see it as I once was. And with a release date of October 3rd, I'd be better served saving my $19 per TIFF ticket for a cheap matinee. Judge for yourself here.

You don't need to live in Toronto, attend TIFF, or even live in Canada to purchase teh offical programme guide which outlines all the films at the fest, plus features on teh various programmes and programmers. It can be purchased online from TIFF's offical website.

UPDATE: I've added The Hurt Locker and Blindness to my films list

Fingers Crossed

Dropping off my selection for TIFF last night, I ended up with lukcy number box 33. Okay, calling it lucky may be a little premature, but here's hoping.

My whittled down list of 10 films, and 6 alternates are:

Wendy & Lucy
Blind Sunflowers
$5 a Day
Genova
Gigantic
The Brothers Bloom
Acolytes
Martyrs
The Paranoids
The Other Man

Alternates:
Uncertainty
Hurt Locker
Kisses
Is There Anybody There?
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World

I usually end up adding most of my alternates on for a healthy dose of film festival fun.

Lights, Camera, Action

The new TIFF Festiblog is born...er, moved. Migrated over from other various blog sites, most notably Zip.ca. So forgive the lack of pictures for now. I'm in the process of migrating over older posts and photos from TIFFs past and will be fully functional to document all that is TIFF 08.

Making the Selection

Now that the TIFF schedule has been released, film fest mania has begun to set in. Whisperings by the watercooler have sprung up with people discussing what they are thinking of taking in at teh fest, although no one wants to step out and make their selections official yet. it’s more of a testing the waters to see if someone else has picked up on a film that you’ve overlooked or might have otherwise missed.

Having to cut my TIFF screenings back this year in order to recouperate (due to a trip to China mere days after the fest ends and an insane work schedule), I’m much pickier with my selections. So far, the buzz has been circulating around the Midnight Madness film Martyrs which-if the gossip is to be belived- is one of the scariest films to come about in a while…or at least since last fest’s A l’interieur (aka, Inside, now on DVD). There are also quite a few foreign films that seem like a sure bet like The Paranoids, and Blind Sunflowers. For foreign buffs, TIFF is a great opportuinity to see films that never make it into North American theatres or even on DVD.

The TIFF website has their 500+ list of stars scheduled attend the festivities this year- everyone from Brad Pitt, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson, Queen Latifah, and Laura Linney, Matt Damon, Jennifer Hudson, and Spike Lee. Those interested in stargazing will have plenty to gawk at.