News

Monday was a good day for celebrities. After seeing a pair of good movies, (SORRY, HATERS and Michael Haneke’s CACHE) I joined Chris for the splashy screening of Bart Freundlich’s TRUST THE MAN. This star-studded film was rather disappointing considering how much I enjoyed Freundlich’s first feature, THE MYTH OF FINGERPRINTS, but we did enjoy a good bit of celebrity sighting. In addition to Freudlich, the cast was in attendance and I was thrilled to finally see Julianne Moore in the flesh! She was, of course, incredibly beautiful. Also there were David Duchovny, Maggie Gyllenhaal (and her date, brother Jake), Billy Crudup and Ellen Barkin. Pretty exciting. Too bad the film didn’t match.

From there we caught the much-anticipated new film from Daniel MacIvor, A WHOLE NEW THING, which he stars in and co-wrote. Director Amnon Buchbinder introduced the film and brought the cast on stage, including Daniel, Aaron Webber, Hugh Thompson and Kathryn McLellan. Also present were producers Camelia Frieberg and Kelly Bray. The film was beautifully written (natch) with terrific performances from young lead Webber, Daniel, Rebecca Jenkins, Robert Jay and Callum Keith Rennie). It was also exciting to spy Don McKellar and Tracy Wright in the audience during the Q&A.

After the screening, Daniel greeted us and invited us to the film’s special party at The Super Market in Kensington. We jumped on that idea… a party of Canadian film people? But first, we met Mary and Diane at Flow, one of the very trendy late night Festival haunts for a drink and a nibble. Immediately upon entering the restaurant, Beth spied Freddy Rodriguez, who plays Federico on “Six Feet Under.” Of course we were right next to the Four Seasons, so no surprise there. Later Scot and I were out for a cigarette break when we met the enthusiastic Jess who informed us that “Requiem” Phoenix was also here. I deduced that she must mean Joaquim, and she confirmed that. Still, Requiem Phoenix has a nice ring to it.

Anyway, we hopped into a cab and headed down to the Kensington Market area of Toronto, which is where “Twitch City” was filmed. There we found the party starting to wind down, but we still got a chance to chat with Daniel. Don McKellar was also there, as were the director and a couple of cast members from WHOLE NEW THING. I was also able to say hello and thank Camelia Frieber for the all the help she has provided with our screening of WILBY WONDERFUL earlier this year. We dragged ourselves back to the B&B to wrap up a fun and tiring evening.

Whenever Diane comes to Toronto, we like to celebrate her birthday which falls on September 10. After a cursory search of some good place to enjoy a Sunday brunch, we ended up back at Sassafraz. Most places were inconvenient location-wise, or closed on Sundays! We took Diane to Sassafraz for her birthday in 2001, and hated to make a return engagement, but at least they do a nice brunch. Of course, not even at Diane’s brunch can we escape the Film Festival as witnessed by this photo of Diane and Chris poring over the film schedule before ordering. As I mentioned the brunch at Sassafraz is delicious, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. I have to make special note of this delectable desert that Diane and Scot ordered. Everything on that plate is edible, including the little candy star.

More festival antics ensued at Sassafraz as Scot and Diane take a moment to recreate a scene from the ubiquitous TIFF promo that screens before every film. This year’s is particularly bad, and I often wonder if the people responsible for selecting the promo stop to think that many people will be seeing this brief clip a couple dozen times in a short span of time?

From Diane’s brunch, we forged out on our day of film, which culminated for four of us with the second of the highly anticipated Canadian films, this one being Sean Garrity’s LUCID. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite live up to our expectations. Pictured right is Sean Garrity, the film’s director and the cast. We did enjoy our first celebrity sighting as Paul Gross (WILBY WONDERFUL, “Slings & Arrows”) and his wife Martha Burns (“Slings & Arrows”) watched the film in the row in front of us.

You know the film festival has kicked into high gear when Marilyn comes to town. Phil’s mom arrived with her friends Pat (left) and Midge (Phil’s high school drama teacher) in tow to see her son’s jaw-dropping starring performance in CAPOTE. We all agreed that CAPOTE is a terrific film, with a complex, well-crafted screenplay, and performances that can’t be beat, particularly from Hoffman and his co-star Catherine Keener (as Harper Lee.)

Saturday evening we hooked up with Kish (center, with friend Glen and Chlotrudis Board Member Beth Curran), Ellen Page’s agent, for a delightful night of good Southern-style food and drink. Kish introduced us to a new Toronto restaurant called Big Momma’s Boys, recently opened by a friend of his. Kish is one of the sweetest and generous guys we’ve met; so counter to the typical stereotype of the Hollywood agent. Marilyn and her posse joined us for the festivities. Arriving in style with their car and driver, Gabriel, Marilyn quickly took court and regaled us with her wonderful stories, such as meeting Jack Nicholson at Cannes a few years ago. Scot and Midge hit it off very well discussing drama and theare, while Pat and Kish’s friend Paul gabbed about real estate. Two more of Kish’s friends, Alex, a filmmaker, and Glen, a dancer, joined us for the later part of the evening and let me tell you, it was a lot more fun than the rather sedate Sarah Silverman party we went to on Friday night. Of course, any party with Marilyn in attendance is bound to be lively.

One side note on a film from Friday. I must report that I was disappointed with Thom Fitzgerald’s epic 3 NEEDLES. I am a big fan of Fitzgerald’s work, and 3 NEEDLES is clearly and labor of love for him, spanning three continents and tackling the AIDS virus with all its politics, but I think he overreached on this one, spending a little too much time on sweeping African and Chinese vistas, while skimping on the personal story. We did get to see Thom introduce the film. Thom is pictured on the left with stars Sevigny, Shawn Ashmore, and Sook Yin Lee. The film also features Olympia Dukakis, Stockard Channing, and Sandra Oh.

More soon…

It’s so nice to see that year after year, the system we use to get our tickets is so reliable. For out-of-towners, one way to get tickets for Toronto is to buy them in advance through the lottery system. Some of our members do this, but I’ve never bothered due to the exorbitant cost. It’s true, upon arrival at the box office on Day One, a large percentage of the films we want to see are marked “rush only.” Those of you who know me know that I don’t “rush.” (Photos show the extremely helpful ticketboard. Shows marked in red are designated “Rush Only”.) However every morning when the box office opens, tickets for nearly every film are released for day of sale. .”)The hardship with this method is the necessity to be at the box office when it opens at 7 a.m., and even better, about 45 – 60 minutes before it opens! Fortunately, I love to get up early and hit the box office when I’m Toronto. It gives me such a feeling of satisfaction, and we almost always get the tickets we want.

Today our target was Thom Fitzgerald’s 3 NEEDLES. There is always some anxiety surrounding the Canadian films as they often sell out quickly, and 3 NEEDLES was not listed as a “best bet” on the festival website. However, there was no problem at all getting the three tickets we needed. I felt very satisfied to see our system working once again.

We caught a French film, DOUCHES FROIDES last night, and I was pretty underwhelmed. Things could only go up from there, and up they did go with the first film for today, SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC. I’ll be doing formal reviews at a later date, but Sarah’s edgy humor kept the audience laughing.

Tonight we are going to the first party of our TIFF career, in celebration of Sarah Silverman’s movie! We’ve never been invited to parties before, and this year we received two invites (we also received a invitation to THE SQUID & THE WHALE party). I still don’t know how we got on the list, but I suspect, at least for the Sarah Silverman party, Eric D’Arbeloff has something to do with it. He produced Sarah’s film (he also produced WALK ON WATER and LADIES IN LAVENDAR, in addition to Nicole Holofcener’s films) and we have had several e-mail correspodences over the years but have only met briefly. I may find out tonight and will have to thank him if that’s the case!

Chris has arrived in Toronto, and I will be meeting him in a few moments for SHANGHAI DREAMS, the latest film by the director of BEIJING BICYCLE. Meanwhile, Scot is seeing LIZA WITH A Z, with Liza Minnelli herself in person at the screening! How wild is that?

Okay, Chris just called, he’s in line! Gotta go. More later…

After a hone hour delay at Logan Airport due to severe thunderstorms in Toronto (it was beautiful by the time we arrived) the flight went off without a hitch. Scot and I shared the plane with Clinton, then met up with Bruce (who had also been delayed flying out of LaGuardia) for a cab ride to the Jarvis House. Not as elegant as last year’s (problematic) B&B, the rooms are quite nice and more spacious than I had expected. Met up with Ivy, Ned, Tom and Jen upon arrival and we all trekked out to the Box Office, the first official Toronto Internationl Film Festival task, and one fraught with anxiety. As expected, many of the films we wanted to get tickets for were marked “Rush Only.” After brief seconds of disappointment, we reminded ourselves that “day of” tickets are the way we are always successful.

Scot, Bruce and I got into a dishearteningly long line after marking our choices, and proceeded to finalize our list while waiting. Between the three of us, plus requests from Chris, Beth and Mary, all of whom are arriving on Friday, we came up with a pretty extensive list, even with many films disqualified due to their “Rush” status. We did a pretty good job, nabbing 44 tickets on Day One. That’s actually pretty amazing. And let me tell you, waiting in line at mid-day on Day One is no picnic. Give me a 6:15 a.m. line anyday.

Afterwards, the three of us made a beeline to Sassafraz for some much needed food and beverage. Scot sighed at the thought of his beloved lychee martini, and I was thrilled with my “Bad-ass” Mojito. After a relaxing dinner, we walked back to the B&B for a brief regroup, and now it’s time to head out to our first film. Scot and I will be catching a French film entitled, DOUCHES FROIDES. I suspect I shall be pretty tired afterwards, and plan to return to the B&B in preparation for the first ealry morning ticket run.

On a side note, there is no wireless access here at the Jarvis House, so my posts might not be as frequent as I’d hoped. I will do my best! Stay tuned…