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My TIFF Lineup

Song Lyric of the Day:

The question is a truth / There is nothing we can’t do / I’ll see you along the way baby / The stillness is the move

The Dirty Projectors / “Stillness Is the Move

As you can see, time did not allow for me to update this weekend. Aside from my sister’s birthday lunch, dinner at my in-laws’ house last night, and finally seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, my spare moments were spent on Operation Bookcases. Long story short: I moved 500+ hardcover books, Rich helped me move the two old empty bookcases, we found takers for them, and I assembled two of the five new bookcases. That’s just for the fiction books in the guest room. We have a lot of books, on every floor of the house. Whenever we move, it’ll just be that much more of a pain.

Anyhoo. Last week I spent the better part of my free time going through the TIFF catalogue and choosing which movies I want to see. I bought the Festival Lite package as well as the Midnight Madness package. The Festival Lite package is for 30 movies (it is a film festival, after all). The MM package guarantees that I get to see the MM showings; I’m told they’re pretty popular and usually sell out, so I didn’t want to miss out. Of course, it wasn’t until after I chose 29 movies total, leaving myself an open ticket, that I received confirmation that, yes, the MM package is in addition to the Festival Lite package, not part of it. Which means now instead of one open ticket waiting for me, I have seven open tickets waiting for me. Provided I don’t go blind or get theater-seat sores on my ass after my first few days at TIFF, I’ll add some more movies to my schedule once I’m in Toronto.

I’m glad to have finally selected my movies and set my schedule, though. The TIFF package that arrived last week weighed 3.6 pounds, the majority of that weight being the 450+-page movie catalogue. Also included in the package was the scheduling book, my Advance Order Booklet, and my drop-off/pick-up vouchers. Behold:

Here’s what made it feel like homework: Filling out the Advance Order Book, which entailed verifying codes, checking that I could make the showtimes, and seeing where on the map theaters are located to figure out the logistics. Good thing my normal walking speed is permanently set to Native New Yorker. Walking a few blocks in a few minutes? Pshaw. I can do that in my sleep.

One thing that really made my day was seeing that Colin Farrell, aka my Beautiful Irish Man Whore, is in not one, not two, but three movies premiering at TIFF. Unfortunately, the one I’d like to see most, the late Heath Ledger’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, premieres the day after I fly home. Que sera sera. (Dear God: I’ve been a really good girl this year. Please let me at least run into Mr. Farrell in the theater lobby or cross paths with him sometime during the festival. Thanks and Amen, Pattie.)So after much hemming and hawing and list-making, my first-choice movies are:

  1. Creation
  2. Nymph
  3. Jennifer’s Body*
  4. Cleanflix
  5. The Informant!
  6. The Trotsky
  7. Daybreakers*
  8. The Hole
  9. Up in the Air
  10. Triage
  11. George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead*
  12. The Men Who Stare at Goats
  13. The Joneses
  14. The Warrior and the Wolf
  15. Capitalism: A Love Story
  16. The Loved Ones*
  17. Whip It
  18. Harry Brown
  19. Ondine
  20. The Invention of Lying
  21. Bitch Slap*
  22. Soul Kitchen
  23. Together
  24. Jean Charles
  25. Vengeance
  26. [REC] 2*
  27. A Single Man
  28. Leaves of Grass
  29. Kamui

I only picked second choices for some, not all, to keep my options open. And now that I know how many extra/open tickets I have, I’m glad I did. I also scheduled my movies with some nice gaps in between to allow me time to explore Toronto a bit. Since I’ve never been, I’m looking forward to taking my camera and just walking around the city. Only 10 more days to go …

*Denotes Midnight Madness movies

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Movies on the Mind

Song Lyric of the Day:

Interruptions are always on my mind / Interruptions you know I’d like to unwind / And I do have the time / Said I’d like to unwind / But I’m out of the lonely

Rogue Wave / “Interruptions“*

Today I fully intended to blog about the results of whittling my way through the massive TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) catalogue. As it turns out, it’s been exhausting whittling my way through the massive TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) catalogue. Since I received my OOTTSS (Out-of-Town Ticket Selection Service) FedEx package the other day, I’ve been cramming like I haven’t crammed since college. Every free moment at work (basically just over lunch), I’ve been reading movie descriptions. Every evening after work, I’ve been reading movie descriptions. And I finally whittled the massive choices down to 29 movies over my seven full days in Toronto. Only to find out today that my Midnight Madness tickets do not count toward my 30-movie total. Which means I will have about seven movie tickets waiting for me when I get there. And I’m OK with that — it’ll give me a bit of leeway to choose movies I may not otherwise have chosen to watch. All but ensuring I’ll likely come home blind. And maybe deaf.

Time allowing, between my sister’s birthday celebration, visiting my in-laws’ house, and finally seeing Transformers 2 (I may be going to my first film festival, but I’m anything but a movie snob), I will try to post my planned film festival schedule this weekend. Or I may just give my eyes a rest in preparation for dozens of hours of stargazing.

*Listen to “Interruptions” here.


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Excited About Midnight Madness

Song Lyric of the Day:

Stumble in somnambulance so / Pre-dawn corpses come to life / Armies of the dead surviving / Armies of the hungry ones

The Misfits / “Night of the Living Dead

As you know, I’m going to the Toronto International Film Festival this September. So I was very excited to see the Midnight Madness movie lineup released earlier today (I got my info via Twitter). Despite my initial disappointment that the rumors about The Descent 2 being the opening movie proved to be just that, I’m happy with the official lineup. What exactly is Midnight Madness about? Until I find out via firsthand experience, I have only my friend’s description and the TIFF‘s definition:

This popular, iconoclastic midnight programme highlights the weird and the wonderful, including thrillers, chillers and rockumentaries from directors who prefer to work in genres not usually seen in a festival context.

Now that the lineup has been released, I think I’m most excited about the opening movie, Jennifer’s Body (check out the red band trailer at Shock Till You Drop). It stars Megan Fox, but I’m excited because it’s (1) a horror comedy and (2) written by Diablo Cody. I’m also looking forward to Daybreakers, primarily because it’s by the makers of the very funny Australian zombie horror comedy Undead. Go rent it now. A man punches a zombie fish in the face! A zombie fish! In the face! How many movies can claim that?

Since [REC] 2 is part of the lineup, I now have to rent [REC]; I enjoyed the American remake, Quarantine, which started out slow and ended up scaring the living shit out of me and my sister. Good times. And to think, I hear the Spanish original is even scarier. I’m also intriguted by George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead; I’ve seen all of his Dead movies so far, so why would I miss out on seeing the newest one? Last but not least, I’d like to check out The Loved Ones; the director is a newbie and the premise sounds interesting.

[REC] 2 image courtesy of TIFF.net.


The best part about watching all these scary movie
s? Describing them in detail to the hubby. Because there’s nothing Rich loves more than hearing about horror movies. Well, except not having to watch them.

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