Lucky Wander Boy

A few years back I was at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles and on a whim, picked up a book called Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss.  Upon reading it, it reminded me of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 in its post-modern sleight of hand-mind fuckness where the line between protagonist as anti-hero, my id and reality were blurred as it referred to a piece of software called MAME that allowed me to run original standup arcade ROMs on my home computer.  One of these games was called Lucky Wander Boy and as the author of the book would tell it - to play the actual game led one down a very mysterious, even dangerous path.

Mame32 GUI

With some healthy skepticism in place, I searched for the game online.  Imagine my astonishment when it showed up as a download!  Marketing tactic?  Nope.  It was the real deal.

Here’s the thing.  A lot of us have game consoles and spend way too much time reading bullshit threads about how PS3 and Blu-Ray trump Xbox 360s and back and forth ad nauseum.  But there is a thing about the old standup games wherein the farther you go back the more pure the gameplay is.  You boil down to the perfect game, ie., Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Pong or Donkey Kong and you realize there really is no way to boil it down further from there.

Well, imagine the joy for us dying Generation Xers when by simply pressing the number 5 on your laptop keyboard you can have as many quarters as you want.  Pressing the number 1 or 2 for number of players sets you loose into Arcade nirvana.  And yeah, if you actually figured out how to move out of moms basement by now you can even smoke cigarettes in your home arcade as you suck back that Orange Julius - just like the old days!

Even better, you can play versions of these games that you never even knew existed - bootlegs, demos,  revisions, and international versions!  Total.  Heaven.

So, how do you get your hand on these pretties?  Too easy.  Run a search for MAME32 and MAME32 ROMS.  Used to be heavily protected, even considered piracy, and I am not certain what the actual hard laws concerning this sort of use is these days, (so I hereby absolve myself of any liability by stating that if you download and or use these ROMS you do so at your own riskj) but since almost every old school arcade is going out of business, you are effectively participating in an examination of our cultural history and identity and paying respects to the soon to be forgotten art form that was tabletop/standup arcade gaming.

Here’s an example  

There are many others.  Enjoy, padawan.

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1. Dungeon Masters

Dungeon Masters

An attempt at eye-level documentary of three still-operating Dungeon Masters.  One is an active American Reservist who has a wife one would assume to sway the army from examining his obvious need to come out.  Another is a part-time apartment manager living in Torrance with a wife and kid who just can’t find a way to make a living doing what he does best - running a D&D campaign.  The other is a lonely intelligent girl from Mississippi who paints herself black from head to toe to become a Drow Elf and frequently participates in LARP (live-action role-play).  The score is by Blonde Redhead.  The film is great, one of my festival favorites, but there is so much more to mine, that I left feeling a bit cheated and curious if it was really as neutral an eye as the introduction claimed.  I felt a like the director was mesmerized by the nerdiness of it all.  I think there is more to the culture than nerddom.  But that’s just me.

Recommend.

2. Who Do You Love

Bleh.  What is it with German directors who can’t grasp what it is that makes American music as cool as it is?  An outside-in fanboy look at the Chess Record label, it misses every opporunity for nuance, subtext and so on and defaults to the same shitty Lifetime Network Movie of the Week about [Insert Blues/Rock Icon Here] growing-up-in-a-small-time, having-affair-on-his-small-town wife,-seeing-the-error-in-his-ways, trying to -to-get-her-back,-left-onstage-at-the-end-with-the-fans, but-was-it-really-worth-it? formula that we saw in Ray, Walk The Line, etc etc ad nauseum except to the point of caricature.

Pass.

3. $9.99

Stop-motion.  Using almost Bunuelesque surrealism, a freaky fallen angel character who I am still contemplating, great voice work from Geoffrey Rush and company, eerie winsome soundtrack, a refreshing and candid fiction about the meaning of life.

Recommend if you can ever find it in distribution.

4. American Swing

American Swing

Some documentaries are just plain archaeological digs that endeavor to retroactively reassemble a story from the few bone fragments discovered.  This one feels like that and does a remarkably good job considering the short order of barely viewable beta 3/4″ footage they have to intercut between the HD interviews they shot with the old-folks who once moshed around in a couple of club basements in New York in the ’70’s fucking everything that moved.  Then AIDS and coke came into the picture and the scene crashed and roll credits.  Cool enough I suppose, if I cared a little more.

For a slow night, or if you need more insight into why people dig the Lifestyle.

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Sunday night was all about celebrating blood, boobs and bombs as the Midnight Madness pirates stormed the bastilles, er, whatevs, and we were introduced to Mark Hartley’s self-proclaimed “rockumentary” Not Quite Hollywood - about Ozploitation cinema - that is to say - the non-existent Australian film industry doing whatever it could, back in the late 1960’s and 70’s to get even a modicum piece of the Hollywood pie.

Thinking they were at the edge of a wave of a global revolution that was really only happening on a farm field in Woodstock, the Aussies took to disrobing like it was the job.  Then, when a little horror and post-acid-trip surrealism was the where the registers were clinking, the blood was introduced, in bucketloads.  Add some semi-retired bona fide Hollywood star power to the mix and you had to have a recipe for cinematic world domination, rendering such masterpieces as Turkey Shoot (aka Escape 2000 in the US), Dark Age (really bad alligator horror flick), The Man From Hong Kong, and ultimately Long Weekend and Mad Max.

The beauty of it all of course was that there really were no scruples.  It was - whatever it takes to get the shot, even if it meant firing live ammo at the actors (I guess squib explosives attached to rock-faces were out of the budget range?) or hoisting a guy 70 feet in the air on a cherry-picker without anything to fall back on (um, no pun intended?) since helicopters were definitely out of the question.

But as Quentin Tarantino, who claims the lion’s share of the commentary in this doc states - Aussies can shoot car chases without equal.  Their cars look nicer than American cars, their chase scenes are way more fucking crazy, and the shots are without equal.

Anyway, it was a good romp, director Brian Trenchard-Smith was in attendance and the audience applauded at the suggestion that a revival festival should be erected at Cinematheque (as opposed to grindhouses) for this pioneering ouevre.

The Rock-U’s visual effects were terrific, the pace was good, we laughed, we cried, we missed Russ Meyers.

My only question is - 8am screenings - what?

Remaining Screenings:

Friday September 12    |  06:15PM     |  VARSITY 2

~~~

Monday night - the Ecstasy Films Inc. party at Empire in Yorkville was bloody crowded.  That’s about all I can say about it, except for the free drink ticket and Bedouin Soundclash who sounded amazing despite the fact that we ultimately had to enjoy their set from outside in the rain because literally, not a deflated blow-up doll could fit in that room.

As I mentioned previously, Ecstasy, adapted from the book by Irvine Welsh (who wrote Trainspotting, in case you are just on a short stay to planet Earth) is a film about to go into production directed by Rob Heydon and set to star Richard E. Grant (yes he of Withnail and I), Billy Boyd (of hobbit fame) and Erica Durance (of Maxim cover fame).

~~

In non-TIFF film news - the very long awaited sequel to Boondock Saints that will star the original cast and be directed by Troy Duffy himself is gearing up for production.  Holy f$%in s%$^!!!

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We headed through the heavy Queen St. traffic for Film Lounge to jump in and see our friends at the pre-party for Deadgirl.  Turns out they meant the other Film Lounge on Dupont, and not the one across from the AGO.

Maneuvering past the R.I.D.E. cops (Saturday night spot-checks) towards the Scotiabank theater (wtf happened? - every goddamned building in the City of Toronto is a corporate advertisement.  No I am not old fashioned but its fucking ridiculous.  The O’Keefe Center is now the SONY center?  The Skydome is Rogers Center!  I know William Gibson predicted this, writing on his typewriter from Vancouver, but does anyone care? Is there any opposition whatsoever to this awful pattern?)  to see Steve McQueen’s (at last someone who will never change their name to McDonald’s Man or Old Milwaukee “Microsoft” McQueen) unbelievable first feature “Hunger”.  Festival vice prez of picking movies Cameron Bailey introduced the film, trying desperately to put the brakes on his gushing over its merits, but failing, before bringing Mr. McQueen himself to the stage.

Pic is amazing.  Intense, measured, perfect.  A little too much to take.  It was so quiet in the theater that the mouth-breather beside me almost stole the show.  The actors are all selfless and utterly engaged, the dialogue, the music, the framing.  See it if you have the nervous system to handle it.  On a small screen at home, I doubt it will be as challenging (in a good way) to watch.  The Dolby systems in the TIFF screenings seriously intensify these films.  Films that my never again be seen at forums this size.

And that really is a big part of TIFF isn’t it?  Large, full surround Michael Bay-ready venues playing hard-core independent films that pull no punches, prepared for today’s high-def standards that may never again be scene the way they were meant to.

Anyway, we left just before the credits, I, fighting near anxiety resulting from the combination over over-stimulation from Scotiabank cinema’s epileptic seizure inducing bing bing playground of Buy Me lightshows, the mayhem of T-dot club district, and trying to make our next screening at Ryerson in 15 minutes.

Despite this time-challenge, we did jog past the Imperial pub - enjoying a renaissance now that TIFF has triangulated the Yonge/Dundas quadrant - where Pontypool was throwing its festival bash.  Only had time to give music writer Karen Pace a hug and the producers of the film a brief congratulations before booking it up the street to the world premier of Deadgirl.  Lynh Haaga, wife of Trent, the writer of the film, and also the film’s wardrobe designer, confided that the screener’s hard drive didn’t even arrive in Toronto until earlier in the day, leaving the fest’s programmers absolutely twitching.  The film was shot entirely in Los Angeles (wait, they still shoot movies in Los Angeles?) on a Thomson Vipre - a D-Cinema - so there was never actually any film or tape - the whole movie, which looked pretty close to 35mm celluloid (except for the occasional outdoor shot or underexposed early evening shot that introduced some digi-noise when they had to bring up the levels) was shot directly to hard drive and projected at the festival via Christie digital projection.

For the most part the movie works.  Despite its insane subject matter - that is, raping a dead girl who isn’t quite dead in the basement of an insane asylum - somehow, and you’d have to see it to understand - doesn’t ever fall to exploitation or even chastisement of the “protagonists,” but rather affords the viewer an intriguing examination of character, virtue, karma, and some really cool plot twists along the way.  Some actors fare better than others, but to be fair, I won’t name names since I had just walked out of one of the most harrowing and powerful performances (Michael Fassbender in Hunger) since David Thewlis in Mike Leigh’s Naked.

Deadgirl keeps you on the edge of your seat and does alright for itself.

By the time we walked back to the Pontypool party, the bar had been cleared out.

We return to Ryerson tomorrow for our third Midnight Madness screening - Not Quite Hollywood.

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Detroit Metal City was a devoutly-cherished and hard-to-get Manga that built a legion of devout followers in Japan.  The story of a farm-boy who moves to the big city (Tokyo) to live out his dream of being a “trendy” musician - he inadvertently ends up as the lead singer of the most ferocious, bile-spewing death metal band Japan has ever seen - known affectionately as - you guessed it - Detroit Metal City.  Thing is, the kid doesn’t want the job.  He mourns his fate and wishes from the bottom of his heart, he could make it on his own terms - that is, as a sappy J-Pop singer.

The film version endeavors to stay as close as possible to the aesthetic and conventions of Manga in that all the actors (with the exception of a couple of animated segues, it is strictly a live-action film) make huge over-exaggerated expressions and respond to things in a way that a viewer who has somehow not yet been exposed to the uber-dramatic Japanese cartoon style, will be completely baffled, perhaps even turned off.

But not this reviewer.  I applaud them for lifting the energy of the manga directly off the page and onto the screen without defaulting to computer generated effects or otherwise.  In itself this component is fascinating.  That the characters and the story are both comedic, intense and hard-core while delivering a rather profound message about the significance of having a dream, what we exchange for it, and doing so with a big warm heart, is exemplary.

The comedy comes not from being wry or ironic but rather from such an overblown sincerity that we instantly align ourselves with the people onscreen.  You are almost powerless in resisting. Kenichi Matsuyama sparkles as the insanely melodramatic protagonist - switching effortlessly between the shaky-kneed pop geek to the demonic lead singer from the gates of Hell.

Gene Simmons makes a cameo on steroids in this film.  It works, because no one could play the old guard Devil of Rock better than the man who created it.

The music is all very well produced, loud as hell, and the live band scenes are convincing and visceral - all typically hard to accomplish.

I don’t know if this will translate to a big enough audience in the US to see anything short of Cinematheque distribution in North America, but it is already the second highest grosser in Japan as of the TIFF premiere.  A small legion of Japanese school girls (not wannabes, but actually visiting from Japan) lined the barricades outside the theater waiting to snap a photo of their idoru.  I mistakenly believed them to be waiting for Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page to exit the screening that happened prior for “It Might Get Loud”.  They could have cared less.  Sir Krauser, the fictional white-face painted Death Metal god who sings “Kill them all, kill everyone” was the man they were after.

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1974 was a one of those strange years that drew infamy, intensity and just plain strangeness with which certain years, be it due to a nexus of precipitating events, or coincidence, become saddled.

I am particularly cognizant of the curiosities of that particular year because it is the year I was born. May 14th. Exactly two months prior, Russell Hoban had a sudden need to begin jotting down strange near-phonetic revelations in his post-nuclear-apocalyptic/spiritual book Riddley Walker. Philip K. Dick identified that year as the one where V.A.L.I.S. - the Vast Active Living Intelligence System - beamed a pink light into his head, causing him to simultaneously inhabit the time of Christ and the present day Santa Clara where he in actuality dealt heroine out of his basement to the local neighborhood kids.

Nixon was impeached. Stephen King published Carrie. The Super Outbreak - the largest chain of tornadoes ever to hit the US and Canada left 315 dead and 5000 injured. India successfully detonates first nuclear weapon. The very first UPC code was scanned in a store in Troy, Ohio. The Symbionese Liberation Army recruited Patty Hearst. Juan Peron, beloved president of Argentina, husband to Evita, dies. Christine Chubbuck, a newscaster for WXLT-TV shot herself in the head in a live broadcast. Restrictions on holding private gold in the United States, created by Franklin Roosevelt are removed.

Duke Ellington, “Mama Cass” Elliot, Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny, Samuel Goldwyn, and Nick Drake, die.

Meanwhile in Kinshasa, Africa, American producer Stewart Levine and South African musician Hugh Masekela organize a three-day festival to coincide with the “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match-up between George Foreman and Muhammed Ali. The lineup consisted of Bill Withers, James Brown and the Mighty JBs, B.B. King and list of African superstars that included Miriam Makeba and Afrisa. Most of the American music legends were visiting Africa for the first time.

Documentary footage of the event was tangled up in legal affairs encircling the Liberian backers, but footage finally became available when the issue was settled in order to form the basis of the Oscar winner “When We Were Kings” - a documentary concerned with the boxing match. Footage of the music concert remained unpublished - until now.

While bootlegs of the show have been readily available for years, for the first time in three decades, California-born director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte presents a heretofore unseen perspective on the white-hot music of the mid-seventies’ monsters of soul in a setting that startles and documents a time when connections were becoming more enthusiastically recognized between contemporary American music and its connections to that of Africa.

Showtimes:

Thursday September 04 06:30PM AMC 6
Saturday September 06 09:00PM AMC 10
Saturday September 13 10:00AM AMC 3

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In festival speak a “party” means a select number of people and their significant others, agents, producers, assistants, best friend from high school and the dude they just met taking a piss in the alley outside the Gala screening are the only ones who get into a room.

Sometimes the room is beautifully decorated, at great expense, one-night-only, with Dionysian opulence, twenty foot ice sculptures pissing Stoli into crystal tumblers.  Sometimes, a room is just that: a room.

But at TIFF, a room is never just, a room.

Three years ago I traveled with Heather Graham in an SUV down Bloor St. to Holt Renfrew where my friend who worked there had invited us to stop by for the Vinyl party.  We wore jeans and took it really casual.  Until we got there to find the street closed off with (literally) red velvet rope, a red carpet running the length of Toronto’s busiest intersection, and white gloved doormen opening the car doors for us.  Over the course of the next half hour, we managed to go from the main fiesta to the VIP room to the VVIP lounge, to finally, the VVVIP room, which was essentially a small stocking room for fur coats where Heather, Paul Haggis, the person claiming to be JT Leroy and Michelle Trachtenberg stood around wondering what the hell was going on.

OK, so in that case the room was just, a room.

But a few days later I went to party on Cumberland and ran into an old friend of mine - music video director Rob Heydon.  We were just two dudes wandering in and out of whatever we could get into and he mentioned a new project he was working on and would I be interested in reading it.  Few years later, and he is inviting me to his own TIFF party at Empire on Cumberland for the very same film - Ecstasy - an adaptation of the novel by Irvine Welsh (who also wrote Trainspotting) starring Richard E. Grant, Billy Boyd and Erica Durance that is about to go into production (Canada/UK) and with any luck will be a TIFF ‘09 screening. In fact, Mr. Heydon even mentioned there might be a sweet little role in it for me.  Per the press release: “500 VIPs and film celebrities will be invited for a night with DJs and Juno award winning band Bedouin Soundclash.”

You don’t know these things going in.  All you can do, is just turn up and see what comes of it.  A lot of the time its just a bunch of bullshit, overzealous door-people and paparazzi.  But weird little things happen.  No, its not networking or shmoozing so much as it is just watching things grow, or die on the vine.  Its an amazing experience and one that makes the festival just that - a festival and not just a bunch of screenings.

Festival parties are not easy to crash.  Or at least not fun to crash unless you are with someone who the parties will want to be seen with.  ie. famous people. So don’t even try unless you have that key with you.  Or an invite of course.  But don’t despair!

Clubs will host parties in tandem with the fest, to capitalize on the high profile company wandering the streets; you can see some pretty cool stuff in more intimate venues than usual as they endeavor to draw some of the fest’s glitterati into their midst.

For example here are the details on TIFF-related parties open to the public:

Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Molson Rocks presents EDWIN
Location: 567 Queen Street West
Doors: 9:00pm
Jackfish River: 10:00pm (opening act)
SD+R Fashion Show: 11:00pm
EDWIN: 11:45pm
Tickets: $10 at door

~~~~

Monday, September 8, 2008
Event Name: TIFF 08 ABSOLUT MOVIE LOUNGE @ ROCKWOOD
Venue: Rockwood
Promotion Company: Kleen Media
Music: House, Hip-Hop, R&B, Rock,
Cover: $10.00
Dress Code: FASHIONABLE ATTIRE
Notes: ARRIVE BEFORE 11:00PM

In the event, however you feel like attempting to crash a party, or have said golden key person with you here are a couple of bona fide TIFF industry parties.  Pick your celeb of choice and then go see if you can catch a glimpse:

Friday September 5th

Burn After Reading After Party
Venue: Spice Route
Hosted by: Alliance Films and Focus Features

Sunday September 7th

Canadian Film Centre Annual BBQ
Venue: Canadian Film Centre
Hosted by: Norman Jewison

Zach & Miri Make a Porno After Party
Venue: W Studio
Hosted by: Alliance Films and Weinstein Company

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This year’s Midnight Madness features its perennial lineup of unpredictable edgy screenings, and Deadgirl is no exception.  Already earmarked as a critics’ must-see, TheCulturepin.com had an opportunity to pry into the mind of the screenwriter whence this sordid tale was birthed.

The Culturepin: So…one bright Sunday morning you woke up and thought “I should write a film about using a dead girl from an abandoned mental hospital as a sex toy!”

Trent Hagaa: I actually wrote the script right after finishing up production on THE TOXIC AVENGER PART 4 (which I wrote and Produced). We had shot in both a high school and an abandoned mental health facility … I was tired of working on an over-the-top gore comedy and thought I could write something that we could shoot in the same locations for very little money. I also wanted to write something different, something that spoke more to me personally … DEADGIRL was the result!

TH: The movie turned out as great as I imagined it would be, if not better. In lesser hands, it could have tread dangerously close to something that was TOO grotesque and disturbing. I had always envisioned it as a “coming-of-age” movie or a teen juvenile delinquent film with a slight horror edge to it. And that’s exactly what we ended up with.

TH: Absolutely not. I’m surprised that the film got made at all, much less got its world premiere at a venue as important as the TIFF. When I first showed the script to people, almost ten  years ago, everyone thought that I was insane … that I had written something that NO ONE would dare to touch. I was trying to write something that might get attention, certainly, but could never had predicted the positive reaction its gotten … especially considering everyone’s initial reaction to the script. It’s a testament to the directors - Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel - that they not only took the risk, but were able to see something promising in the script.

TCP: How do you think Deadgirl will fit into the marketplace after it has done the festival circuit?

TH: I’d love to see it become a kind of classic. of course. In the current marketplace, I’d just be happy to see it get bought and released, period. But a movie is a massive undertaking and this one was a labor of true love, so I’d really be excited for a limited theatrical push and subsequent successful DVD release. Like I said, I’m a bit surprised by the public’s reaction to the film so far, so I’d love to keep up that momentum and see the film succeed far beyond my wildest expectations … Only time will tell, I suppose. No matter what happens, though, I’m really happy with the final result and wouldn’t change a thing about the movie itself.

Deadgirl screening times:

Saturday September 06   |  11:59PM   |  RYERSON
Monday September 08    |   05:00PM  |  AMC 2
Friday September 12      |   09:00PM  |  AMC 6

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One of the films with the most advance-buzz at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is Canadian native Bruce McDonald’s independent feature Pontypool – the director’s first horror film, produced by Jeffrey Coghlan and Ambrose Roche.

Jeffrey Coghlan began his career as an actor before turning to producing. His producing career began with the television pilot Four Corners, followed by the lifestyle/reality series MVP – Hockey Edition, The Publicists and Romancing the Stove.

Long searching for a good feature script to produce, Pontypool – premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival – is his first feature. In an exclusive interview, The Culturepin had the opportunity to ask Jeffrey some questions just days before the world premiere.

The Culturepin: When did you and Bruce McDonald start working together?

Jeffrey Coghlan: I ran into Bruce at the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen St. West one night in February of this year. We have known each other socially to this point. Over beers and a smoke he told me about Pontypool. I told him it sounded great and that that was something I could do. He sent me the script and two weeks later my producing partner Ambrose Roche and I optioned the script from him.

TCP: How did the adaptation of Pontypool into a film come about?

JC: Bruce had been working on it in various incarnations over the last ten years. It’s been through many producers and dozens of drafts but this film happened after the CBC approached Bruce about doing it as a one-hour radio play. He and the writer Tony Burgess developed it further into a feature script, dramatically changing the original script they started work on ten years ago and now we had this real intelligent psychological thriller that just had to be shot.

TCP: What else did you look at in the genre when exploring how to make this one scary?

JC: Hitchcock films like The Birds, David Lynch, The Blair Witch [Project]. The movie is a really great mind fuck, so it was about figuring out how to play on one’s fear and imagination.

TCP: Tell us a little about how you got the film made?

JC: We just plowed through it. Knocked on every door we could think of. The goal was to shoot within three months (which we did) and then to have it ready for TIFF (which we did), but was also an almost impossible task. Even right now – we’re still finishing the movie hoping to God we have it done on time for our screening in four days!

The money was all raised privately; no Telefilm, no tax credit financing, nothing - just a private equity team that really saw the upside of this film and the industry as a whole. We were lucky. Very lucky.

TCP: What’s next for you guys?

JC: Hard Core Logo 2. We start shooting in January.

Pontypool Screening Times:

Saturday September 06  |  08:00PM  |  AMC 6
Tuesday September 09  |  04:30PM  |  VARSITY 7
Friday September 12  |   05:00PM  |  VARSITY 8

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Even a TIFF veteran tends to find the process of getting tickets to the screenings they want daunting, and the cryptic instructions provided by the festival itself are of little help, that is, when you can find them.  This year I wanted to make sure I spared myself wiling away some of my fading years standing in rush lines and decided to buy a 10-movie-pass bundle.

In other years I have either done the rush line thing, that is, standing in line an hour before a screening hoping that there are enough no-shows that ten minutes before the precious screening starts a few of us get hail-mary’d in.  Usually works but it’s a lot of work and a lot of snacks; sure it’s fun meeting people, but sometimes it isn’t and sometimes it rains and sometimes you just don’t get in.

Still other times, I have had the benefit of a media pass for reasons I won’t get into, and so was able to forego all of the other stuff and just walk into whatever I damn well pleased.

But this year, I have neither patience, desire to leave things to chance, or a golden ticket so I had to do things just like anyone else with an unhealthy passion for cinema might.

Here’s what you need to know.  If you want to be 90% sure that you will get into the movies you actually want you will likely buy a 10 or 25 ticket set.  The 10 ticket, which is what I purchased, set me back about CDN $165.  Then I researched whatever I could, went on some hunches, looked for things that seemed rare, underground or unlikely to get wide release, and created an early list.  See earlier entries in this blog for my pre-print-mags-lists - short list.

Then I went to the new box office location for the festival on the 2nd floor of the AMC theaters building on the northeast corner of Dundas and Yonge St. opposite Dundas square, and handed them the ticket voucher they had sent me in the mail.  They gave me a booklet with all the movies, each with a pair of boxes labeled 1 and 2.  1 = first choice.  2 = second choice.

I then find my movies, my preferred screening times and mark the number of tickets I want (up to 4 per screening) with a yellow highlighter in box 1 and the same for my alternate choices in box 2 with a green highlighter, up to the number of passes I have, which is, in my case, ten.

The festival then goes through all such booklets and assigns tickets from all the screenings to these early pass-holders, starting at one, moving up to sixty, and if a screening still isn’t full, going back to one and going through the booklets again until any given show is sold out and then you get a crack at the next available screening.

Today I was emailed what I managed to get.  Not all first choices, but most.  So the cool thing is, now I can just go to the movie 15 minutes before (any later and you risk giving up your precious seat to someone in the rush line) and I am guaranteed a viewing.

The second stage of all this, is that on September 3rd, single show tickets go on sale online.  That is when the bumrush happens and shows sell out uber-fast.

Failing that, it’s time to stack up on trail mix, bottles of Fiji water (or tap-water if you are a true Torontonian) and get to the back of the line.  If this is you, bring some business cards and/or your screenplay synopsis, you’d be surprised who you will meet at TIFF standing out in the rain.

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