Listen. You smell that? Smells like TIFF. Get your party hat on and play your kazoo cause it’s time for a celebration. A celebration of film, food, idiots, crazies, celebrities, fuckhead volunteers (not you Jill) and daily offerings. It’s the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and this year is my anniversary. Year 15! I’m fairly certain that the gift for a 15 year anniversary is pork, so yes, I will have that extra side of bacon.

For those of you new to this, I spend a week and a bit in Toronto for the film fest and write a daily blog of what I see on the screen and on the street. For those of you who aren’t…well, welcome back. Hope you enjoy your stay.

This will be a combo of the first two days as I only spent Friday night up here and decided a half-assed blog on Friday wouldn’t be worth it. However, a half-assed blog on Saturday is. Like my logic?

I arrived in the Big Smoke around 5-ish and headed on down to the TIFF ticket office to grab my tickets. Just as I passed Roy Thompson Hall, I bumped into my friend Jill who is in town to volunteer and we headed over to the ticket office together. I did manage to score a free soda from a Coca-Cola stand that was handing them out. Good ol’ refreshing free soda. We get to the ticket office and there is quite a line-up. I hate line-ups. The line is for people waiting to buy tickets. I’m not buying. I’m just picking up and getting the hell outta there. Trying to explain that to a TIFF volunteer is excruciating. I’ll be honest, I hate the volunteers at TIFF. I really do. I know it’s hard work, but there’s something about these jackoffs that just rubs me the wrong way. (See what I did there?) It’s like you give someone a headset and all of a sudden they are the most important people on the planet. So many times I’ve wanted to smack one of these assclowns. Here’s how it went:

“Hi, I’m just picking up tickets and leaving. Do I need to stand in this line?”
“You don’t have any exchanges?”
“No, just picking up and leaving.”
“We don’t have a will call window here.”
“They’re not for a screening tonight. It’s my original ticket package.”
“Do you have the vouchers?”
“No, that’s what I’m picking up.”
“Okay, just go up to the front and tell them that.”
“Hi, I’m picking up my tickets. The girl back there told me to come to the front.”
“Which girl?”
(pointing) “That girl.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“She just told me to come here.”
(on headset radio) “Karen, did you send a man up here to go to the front of the line? You did? Okay. (to another person on head set) I’m sending one male in a black t-shirt inside to pick up tickets. He is not to make any exchanges and is to leave immediately. Okay sir, you can go on in.”

That actually happened. I then walked maybe 15 steps and picked up my package and they escorted me out a different set of doors. I need to remind you that this is movie tickets we’re talking about here. Movie tickets. Maybe it’s just me, but they make me angry.

Jill and I look at the big board of movies as she wants to go see something and needs to know if there are tickets still available. A crazy man speaking gibberish approaches us and begins talking to her. I couldn’t make out much other than helicopters and elephants. I shit you not. I suppose I could have rescued Jill instead of watching her struggle to understand him and to try not to laugh, but every time she looked to me for assistance, it just got funnier. Eventually, he just gave up. We grabbed some dinner at Wayne Gretzky’s (if they ever offer you baked white cheddar mac & cheese as a side dish…get it) and then I went to check out the Jays game because there wasn’t anything I wanted to see in regards to film. Jays lost 9-8 after coming back from being down 8-1 only to lose on a shitty throwing error.

Saturday began with me heading back to Hamilton for the Ti-Cats game with Paige against the Alouettes. Cats got schooled. It was sad. I think my forehead got sunburnt. Balls. I head back to Toronto and grab the subway to meet my friend Krista for dinner before going to see my first film. On the subway platform a crazy woman was having an argument with nobody. I think she was losing because she was livid about something. No one else on the platform thought it was funny. Shouldn’t we all laugh at crazy people? Everyone laughs at me already.

I have a nice brinner at Fran’s and head over to the theatre to wait in line for Sean. In line, I bump into a couple of old work friends and I get a text from Sean that reads ‘just parking now’. A few minutes later, I look out into the street and Sean is behind the wheel of his car waiting at a stop sign. Didn’t he just tell me he was parking? Still looks like he’s driving to me. Dishonest!! The main volunteer at this theater was just plain insane. This guy went up and down the line and repeatedly asked people to stay in a straight line and leave part of the sidewalk open. I understand the importance of what he wanted, but this guy just had a way about him that screamed “please punch me square in the face.” You have no idea how badly I wanted to.

The movie I saw was called The Trip. It stars British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and it’s basically about their road trip through the English country side eating at some of the best restaurants around. Coogan is a guest food critic for the newspaper and he brings Brydon along for the ride. As well as eating, they have these great conversations riffing on each other and doing impressions of their favourite British actors. The film is shot documentary style and the dialogue is completely improvised and it is quite hilarious. Coogan does a better Michael Caine impression, but Brydon’s Hugh Grant is excellent. A good start to the fest.

Not sure what I have on tap tomorrow. This whole weekend has been up in the air.