So, unlike past year fails, this month my new roommate, Jane, who’s a huge film buff, actually got me to a few TIFF movies. Normally, paying $22.50 to see a movie would seem completely outrageous (as opposed to paying around $15 any other day, which tends to propel me into many a “what-is-the-world-coming-to” discussion with the 50+ set). However, there’s something about seeing a period film in the Elgin Theatre with some popcorn in an vintage red and white striped popcorn box, sitting on a red carpeted balcony (even if one comes in late to the movie in pitch black and has to stumble and jostle her way to the elusive free seat) that makes you think that, yes, this is how movies were meant to be watched. No asphalt floor sticking to the soles of your feet. No one texting, making out, giving not-so-subtle handsies, or talking (or at least, a much lower percentage). People truly appreciating ART around you, you truly appreciating ART as well. Being part of something…big. And if Johnny Depp or Colin Firth happen to show up to the Q&A, then that’s just a bonus!
TIFF is the one time a year that Toronto takes on this almost imperceptible change in attitude, like every street’s suddenly Yorkville, when we know we are, in fact, THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE if for just a week, and Angelina Jolie walking into Starbucks ain’t no big deal. The downtown core starts to pulsate with this distinct energy. You can feel it emanating up through your body until it exits through your mouth in harsh phrases laced with distinctly un-Canadian criticism and attitude. Suddenly you rethink the post-workout sweat pants, sneakers, and visible sports bra ensemble just because there is that small chance, to borrow the phrase from my friend Tracy (who incidentally was fart distance away from Johnny Depp this TIFF), that you might run into a celebrity, and the even smaller chance that you might turn out to be best friends. During TIFF you find yourself using the lobby bathroom of the Park Hyatt or buying their $5 coffee…again in the off chance you meet a celebrity and become best friends. I imagine it’s what living in L.A. must be like…if L.A. had a sense of culture and identity not wholly dependent on the Hollywood cult. I’m not sure what they do with all the inconvenient homeless down King West for the week. Maybe they round them up and auction them off for celebrity adoption.
So, to return to the movies (which is what this hullabaloo is all about, right?), let’s recap this year’s TIFF statistics:
Personal Celebrity Sightings: 0
Secondhand Celebrity Sighting: 1 (Johnny Depp, as mentioned above)
Random Conversations in Street/Theatre Lines with TIFFbuffs: 2
Movies Seen: 4
Movies Seen For Free: 2 (this works out to an average of about $10.08 a film, which means I actually paid about 35% less for TIFF movies than I would in the regular cinema)
Movie Reviews in 100 Words or Less
Hyde Park on Hudson: 3.5/5 ****
I’m partial to period films, so I don’t know if that affects my overall impression. The two separate plot lines clashed somewhat in theme and tone, and Laura Linney’s character as the central narrator, when it didn’t drift over into the unnecessarily melodramatic, became somewhat lost in the overall presentation. I particularly enjoyed the scenes involving King George VI and the Queen Mother (although it took some time to get over the fact that these characters weren’t being played by Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter) as well as their interactions with FDR (Bill Murray). My roommate had said she’s seen people walking out on the film, but generally I enjoyed it and think it was received well.
Dangerous Liaisons (Chinese interpretation/production): 2/5 **
Got these tickets for free from a TIFF volunteer while exiting Hyde Park. Very awk. pre-film director/producer introduction. Beautifully shot, a study in cinematography, but if Hyde Park drifted into the melodramatic, Liaisons was a wreck on the rocks. Towards the end of the film, there was much sighing and shifting in seats, especially during the long drawn out final cry in the final death scene by Zhang Ziyi (who happens to be in every Chinese movie to reach Western audiences, even if it is an interpretation of a book based in Japan a la Memoirs of a Geisha). Chinese production funding. What can I say. You can’t buy taste. (To be completely fair, Jane is Chinese and says this brand of melodrama is extremely common in Asian cinema. So this is purely a matter of taste). 
Reality: 4/5 ****
I had seen another movie, Gamorrah, by this director, Matteo Garrone, at a previous TIFF. That film was a much more gritty, documentary style look at modern Sicily. Reality is set in Naples in the present day, and examines the decline of a Neapolitan fishmonger and his family after the former becomes obsessed with his audition for the Italian version of Big Brother. Extremely realistic until the last third of the movie, where the director himself said that it wanders over into the realm of surrealism, it is slow-moving but gripping, a juxtaposition of the gritty and the “glamorous”, as far as reality television can be considered glamorous. Wish I’d stayed for the Q&A. Apparently Deepha Mehta was there and loved it. Guess that’s a recommendation in itself.
Silver Lining’s Playbook (Blackberry People’s Choice Award Winner, 2012): 3/5 *** 
Following in the shadow of such films as The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire for TIFFs ultra-coveted People’s Choice Award, this new com-dram stars Jennifer Lawrence (who, at 21, plays a widow with a past…my biggest criticism) and Bradley Cooper (whom I usually want to whack the smug grin off with a bag full of bricks), as well as Robert De Niro and Julia Stiles (is she still living?!? – yes she is! And the perfect casting choice as siblings with J.Lawr.!). I’m usually skeptical of self-effacing, sleeper, all-star comedies that embrace their own cliches, and Playbook is no exception. Enjoyable, lot’s of good moments. A serious Oscar contender fo sho…just you wait.