My 1997 Film Festival Experience

This is my first year going to the Toronto International Film Festival. Read on for some random thoughts.

Ordering Tickets

Here is what I found out by going downtown and standing in line for excessive periods of time:

• If you are one of the beautiful people, you submitted your ticket order well in advance and get to stand in a short line to pick up tickets. However, if any of the screenings you requested were sold out, you have to fill out some new choices and stand in a long line.
• If, like me, you just have a marked-up festival guide from NOW and didn't buy anything yet, you have to
  1. Stand in a very short line to buy, say, a book of 10 coupons.
  2. Stand in a very long line (see above) to redeem these coupons for tickets. I got into this line first and had someone hold my place while I went to buy the coupons. Time in line was 2 hours. This was the afternoon of the first day you could line up.
• You need a team of at least 5 people to continuously adjust your film choices while standing in line. There is a board inside that shows which screenings are sold out. Of course you can't see this while standing in line, you need runners and lookouts to check what's still available. Or like me just choose blindly.
• With a little bit of common sense (don't count on seeing anything where you recognize the name of an actor or director; e.g. the movie with Tori Spelling(!) was sold out), you can pick a bunch of films that still have seats left. When you are actually getting the tickets, it resembles the floor of the stock exchange with shouted "buy" orders. For each movie that's sold out, you need to have 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices at or about the same time. You get your own private consultation with the person who gets you the tickets. Be careful not to pick "gala" movies if you only have a coupon book, you need something more exotic to get into the galas. Ignore the people around you who say "Boo hoo, I picked 20 movies and they were all sold out". When Dogbert conquers the planet, they will be doing your laundry.
• The glitterati will have a giant book with all the details of all the movies. The plebes must content themselves with the web site, or the search/schedule page of the web site if you don't want to monkey around. The web site is OK, it has the schedule for each day and all the movie titles link to summaries and cast lists. Be careful to check the actual start time of the movie -- the main schedule shows everything starting on the hour but many of the movies start on the half hour.
• After going through all this, you get on the mailing list so that next year you too can be one of the cognoscenti. (Although they might spell your name wrong if it's exotic like "Russell".)

  Tuesday, Sept. 9

  First film is at the Cumberland theatre. Festival-supplied map shows it at the corner of Bloor and University, but it's actually right next to Bay subway station. Get in line 1/2 hour before show, get let in 10 minutes later. Latecomers can get rush tickets during the next 20 minutes -- seems to be fairly constant for all the later movies too.

  Chinese Ghost Story - The Tsui Hark Animation

  Imagine taking Tintin, Heavy Metal, Sailor Moon, and all those badly dubbed Chinese movies with flying sorcerors tossing lightning bolts. Blend well.

  Lots of nicely done computer animation with traditional anime-style animation overlaid. Typical plot twists for a Chinese ghost story: evil ghosts, terrified mortal, violent ghost-hunters, beautiful female ghost. Incomprehensible subtitled dialog from the sorcerors.

  I liked it but probably not everyone's cup of tea. If you've watched more than 3 Jackie Chan movies and would watch more, or if you are an animation buff, this movie is for you.

  Sequel to an earlier trilogy:

  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3

  Martin Luther King: Days of Hope

  Informative documentary / biopic about Martin Luther King. Includes historical footage, interviews with contemporaries, and a good selection of background info. Not as theatrical as it could be, and some attempts at setting a particular mood seem contrived. More like a TV biography special than a movie; co-produced by BBC and A&E.

  Le Damier

  An African dictatorship is captured in microcosm in the game of checkers. The dictator wants an opponent who can offer him a challenge... but not too much of a challenge. Thuggish troops kibitz and play their own games on the sidelines. Incisively funny.

  Friday, Sept. 12

  Got the chance to see the whole admission process beginning to end. Ticket holders needn't have bothered standing in line as they got instant admission at any time up to screen time. People in the rush lineup were counted as they went in, with only so many let in at a time. Managed to get in (with pre-bought tickets) about 15 minutes after showtime; it probably helped that it was 3 shorts rather than one main feature.

  Question of Reality

  Odd interviews with one UFO believer and one professed psychic. Got a bit repetitive considering there were only these two subjects. From Manitoba.

  Fresh Off the Boat

  Simultaneous straight and gay romances in Toronto's Greektown. Guy pretends to be something he's not to win girl. Had its moments but nothing especially thought-provoking. Reminded me of that sitcom with Michael Eisenberg(?) and Lally Cadeau.

  Kid Nerd

  Former nerds -- including Penn Jillette, Mitch Kabay, and one of the Simpsons producers whose name I didn't get -- recount their awful childhoods, examine their psyches, and explain how they have taken subtle and brainy forms of revenge. Just a stellar piece of filmmaking. (Speaking as a former "Reach for the Top" champion.) A lot of painful honesty from the interview subjects and some hilarious images of childhood torments.

  Mossane

  All the men in an African village are in love with young Mossane. She loves a poor student but the shadow of an arranged marriage hangs over their romance. Good performances and an insightful look into West African tribal culture.

  Corps et biens

  This movie is several years old, part of a tribute to director Benoit Jacquot.

  Just a wretched, awful, boring movie. All the characters pause for 10 seconds between sentences, as if waiting for you to finish reading the subtitles; by the end of the film, you feel like prescribing amphetamines for them. Plot twists appear but never go anywhere. None of the characters has any consistent motivation or apparent plan. There are three female characters who are difficult to distinguish from each other, and two male characters with the same problem; at the climactic moment I didn't know who was who, and that wasn't some subtle cinematic device, just poor casting and bad lighting.